If you look around you will find this alarming habit in everyone around you , the most well dressed and educated person can be spotted trashing his pepsi bottle on the road itself or the kids in the posh school mindlessly throwing their chocolate wrappers on the street. Nobody minds , who cares. And when asked to stop littering they say "yeh India hai boss yahan sab chalta hai"("this is India , you can do anything here").
You will see more garbage on the streets than in the dust bins.The older people tell the kids to keep their rooms clean and the very next moment they are caught littering , throwing things out of the their car on the pretext they do not have a trash bin in the car , why is the trash going to turn into a monster and attack if you keep it with yourself for sometime.
I read this on one of the blogs :
Quoted the part I want my readers to read.
"As I hiked further into the valley I caught up to two domestic tourists who were spectacularly under dressed for a Himalayan valley at 3400m. As I got closer the young man turned away from his girlfriend and threw a sweet packet into the flowers. I lost it.
‘What the do you think your doing?’
‘What?’ said the shocked man.
‘Why did you throw that away?’
His answer was astounding, and sent me into apoplexy.
‘There’s nowhere else to throw it away.’
‘What! This is a world heritage site. You well carry out what you brought in you bloody idiot. Too many beautiful places in this country have been ruined by idiots throwing rubbish away with no thought. I’ve collected this bag of rubbish already, and I’m here to enjoy this place not to be a dustman. Now pick it up.’
I stormed off down the trail with steam coming out of my ears."
This is the account of a South Korean who visited India . The outcome of this outburst was the guy picked up the sweet packet and apologized to the author. So this is how people realize things. All we need is a couple of foreigners patrolling every street and knocking some sense into our countrymen.
I keep telling my friends not to litter but they think I am some maniac who needs to enjoy the benefits of living in India. Ya enjoy the benefits of getting all sorts of deadly diseases that littering can cause. When I do not find a trash bin around I put all the wrappers in my bag and my pockets. This has earned me one of many nicknames - the dustbin and a lot of threats by my mom , telling me she will never let me put my jeans into washing machine due to all the wrappers found in my pockets.But somehow the wrappers find their way into my pockets.
All of us need to do our part to make an effort for having a cleaner India . It may sound difficult but is not impossible.I will sign off by quoting this:
“Don't just do what's your responsibility, do what needs to be done.” ~Pivot
