Monday, August 7, 2017

Culture or lack of it !

Last month , myself and couple of my friends were on a road trip across many places inIndia. We covered 5800 Kms in 9 days across 10 states and 2 union territories. We started from Bengaluru and drove up to chandigarh touching the western ghats, , the Vindhyas and the Aravallis. We covered lengths of Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and the union territory of Dadra and nagar haveli to reach Chandigarh. On the return journey , we touched Delhi, UP, MP, Maharashtra, Telangana, AP and reached back to Bengaluru.
It was a memorable trip. We saw some of the cleanest and filthiest parts of India. We Saw the best and worst roads of the country. We had a chance to taste plethora of delicacies from from chikkis of Lonavala to sweets of Gujrat, Amazing lassi of Rajasthan, parathas of chandigarh, chats of delhi to spicy food of Andhra.
This was my second road trip almost in the same route . One lifetime will be insufficient to understand the diversity of this country . Our country is amazing in more than one ways . One such thing is our culture . Though the country boasts of a very rich history and culture , people of my generation will not always find it to be always true.
One such trait in our culture is the culture of cleanliness. Again in this trip, we saw Chandigarh, arguably the cleanest part of India and also saw Ajmer and jabalpur, perhaps one of the filthiest parts of the country.
Swachh bharat is a much talked and much hyped national program by the current central government. Notwithstanding the initiatives of the government , it is the primary duty of every citizen in the country to keep the county clean. In our childhood, we were taught in school that “cleanliness is godliness”. In my opinion, keeping the country clean must be included as a “fundamental duty” in the constitution .
The least we can do to keep the country clean is at least keep our heritage sites, our monuments , our places of worship clean.
In this trip, we had been to India gate in New Delhi. This monument is a mark of respect to all our soldiers who have sacrificed their life in line of duty. India gate is in the heart of New delhi, about 1 KM away from the Indian parliament, the seat of power . It is from this parliament ;mission “Swacch Bharat” was launched. Our PM Narendra modi , one of his pet projects being Swachh Bharat sits in this very Parliament house.
It is painful to see the plight of India gate. It is used as a picnic spot. Numerous street vendors crowd the place. In-spite of dustbins provided , most people throw trash on the lawns, roads and the water bodies.  Paper cups, chips packets, Pani puri plates etc are to be seen everywhere around India gate.
The least we can do to our soldiers is to atleast keep an emblem built in their respect clean. It is an irony that our PM who launched this Swachh Bharat mission sits just one KM from this iconic structure.
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Me and my friends started cleaning up the place. My friend avinash was in deep knee pain . Inspite of the pain, he started picking up paper cups and ice cream candies. We went around picking up bits and pieces. We were hopeful that some people may join us . To our surprise, not a single person joined us. We just went about our job. There were hundreds of people around,  not one joined us. Some were passing comments while few were supervising us.
Then came the most disgusting part. One gentleman walking with his wife and little daughter passed by us and threw his tea cup right in front of me. He had no sense of shame or guilt. Perhaps he did not notice that we were cleaning. When i picked up his cup, he did say sorry. But the point here is not about saying sorry. He just thought it is ok to throw the cup on the lawn.
Strange country , we are !! We are spending thousands of crores on clean India mission while many people just do not bother to put the trash in the dustbin just a few yards away.
It is just the sheer ignorance and disrespect to the country and fellow countrymen that drives some people not to care . Not sure what the solution for this is but i feel that this attitude is deeply ingrained in our culture.
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Few days later, we move south and come to the district of Chandrapur in Central india located in one of the most backward regions of India, Vidarbha.
Vidarbha is in the news for all the wrong reasons and is one of the driest and poorest regions of the country .
We had a chance to interact with a few students of Sardar patel Mahavidyalaya in  chandrapur.  My friend Avinash was to deliver a talk there. Experience in this college was totally different.
We were greeted not by flowers or bouquets but by living flowering plants.  We were shown the campus and introduced to many activities taken up by the students of the college.
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We drove past a beautiful lake called Ramala lake before reaching the college. We were wondering how the lake was so clean in a particularly dirty town. Just before arriving at chandrapur, we visited nagpur and the lake experience in Nagpur was not at all great. So we did not have high hopes on Chandrapur. But the Ramala lake was a totally different story.
The students of this college had made numerous petitions to the town administrations to desilt and clean the lake. When their petitions did not work, they took the task on themselves. Students made groups and started cleaning the lake and de-weeding the catchment . They formed groups and stood at the lakes during the immersion of Ganesha Idols and directed the devotees to the designated place for immersion . They have planted numerous trees around the lake.
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Inspired and probably ashamed from the students, the town administration finally have started maintaining the lake.
Few students shared their experience in their efforts. Apparently locals did not help them but instead ridiculed them. Local residents did not come to their help. In Spite of this the students used to show up daily and clean the lake and the surroundings .
Every student in this college has a mandate to plant one tree and maintain it for three years. They have a green council among the students which looks into various green initiatives in the college campus.
India is a land of dichotomies and diversity.  Perhaps it is this dichotomy and diversity that makes this land so interesting.  However there are many practices and behaviour which are ingrained in the cultural fabric of this land that just refuses to change, cleanliness being one.
Swacch Bharat, Clean India ,all these are really good and must be appreciated, respected and followed. But these missions do not succeed very well if there is still a medieval mindset among the people of the country.
It is not the laws that govern the country. It is the people who govern the country.  Country cannot be governed by law “enforcement”, it can only be governed and cleaned when law is “respected”.
Winds of change are blowing swifty , let us hope it touches as many of us as possible.
Happy Independence Day !!
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