Clean- the new Mantra!

ALL CHANGE TO CLEAN

Clean is the new buzzword, It is indeed the time to change to clean. All change to clean please, all change . This time with a broom! Show the world that India means business. Call the shots, with a magical swish of the broom, lets clean up all the garbage that has piled up on our roads, cities, villages, towns and what have you. Thank you Prime Minister Mr Modi, for reminding ourselves that we owe ourselves a clean place to live in, and for roping in the charismatic Shashi Tharoor too, to further your campaign. For what sells better than a combination of poster boys, girls and  "Cleanliness is Godliness"?

"Swach Bharat Abhiyaan ( Clean India Campaign)". Another round of cleaning, by newly awakened citizens. My own complex, with all of 500 apartment residents managed to clean the streets ahead and fill up with no less than 25 garbage bags with garbage. Notwithstanding the fact that the ugly gutters and shanty towns next door, happily watched them with some wonder and lots of awe. What is it that these hippy, new-gen, denim clad folks are upto? Ha.Ha . Lets see if it lasts till tomorrow. Obviously it won't. By itself, it just can't, can it, unless someone can prove me wrong? 

For one cleanliness drive, once in a month, can be very good for our souls for sure, but can't do much more. What do we do now that 25 garbage bags are piled up? Is there any manner of civic authority coming forward to collect and more importantly, dispose of it? Even the lovely garbage trucks that so lovingly come to collect our muck, happily strew some more as they pass, overflowing as they are with all manner of junk, unable to collect much more than a fraction of it ultimately. So, the rest must stay where it rightfully belongs, on the street that is. A large, rotten stinky mass being chewed away by the ubiquitous cows and stray dogs, another fixture of modern India. 

And the sewerage systems. Non, or only partially existent they are. For some, so called elitist complexes of any  more than a 100 residents must have their own sewerage treatment and disposal, by the local government dictat. Notwithstanding the fact that the residents may have paid for the sewerage connections at least seven years back, with the futile hope that it will sometime materialise. But, is the blasted sewerage connection anywhere in sight? One would have gained hope, each time they dug up another set of roads, ostensibly to lay a pipe here or there, but all is in vain, it seems.

Maybe the government officials just didn't have the time then. And maybe they have even less now,  as they appear to be busy participating in the Swach Bharat Abhiyan- wielding their mighty broomsticks like swords, on the roads. Some garbage for thought Mr Modi. 

At least it is a step in the right direction.But, will it all stop here, with citizens being left to their own resources, or can it go further, to its natural conclusion, with proper sanitation, sewerage connections, garbage collection and disposal being actually arranged and managed by the Govt and the civic authorities? One certainly hopes so. Here's to a Swatcha Bharat, the new and shining India!

Regards, 

Aina Rao, 

The amblingindian.