Noble Filth

A couple of news articles and posts caught my attention over the weekend. Without going into the politics of all this and to keep in line with our commitment of keeping Nagpur First and the blog politically agnostic, I would focus just on the content and context of this.

Basically, a furor was raised last week by some in the media and political class over Mr. Jairam Ramesh's off the cuff remark about filth in India. Ramesh said, 'If there was a noble prize for filth, India would get one'

There are multiple ways to look at his comment. One of them of course being, the minister, an IITian by qualification, is being a smarty pant. And that his comment is condescending to Indians. Other way to look at it is, he is just stating the fact. Of course a follow up argument can be made;, so even if he is right, what is he as a minister doing about it? (In fact someone suggested, the youth workers of his party should take up the lead in cleaning India)

But as I said, beyond the politics of all this and the media mumbo jumbo, what can we as citizens do to change a mindset? To bring in some sanity and civic sense?

It's easier said than done and from the email that came last week from one our members that had Mr. Vijay Phanshikar going full cylinders on Nagpuri attitude, you can tell it's a herculan task.

Having said that, can we take some baby steps in that direction though? Can we start small instead of changing everything overnight with one magic wand?

Not to blow my own here, but last visit to Nagpur I tried something, that if nothing else made me feel good. I took my wife out for a morning walk on the West High Court road in Dharampeth. It was around 6:30 am and so there was hardly any traffic or even people on the road. There was though this one guy who was preparing 'Kande Pohe' and 'Tarri' smack in the middle of the road's cross-section. There were around 10 people, mostly young folks, surrounding him, waiting for Pohe to be prepared and consumed.

After the ritual of eating was done, I saw that everyone of the eaters, started throwing their paper plate on the road itself. There was a middle-aged women who was taking a parcel order, and she seemed to be from an educated background, and she too threw her paper right next to the stall.

The idea, apparently was, to throw the waste around and someone will definitely pick it up. In this case, the pohewala himself.

What struck me most was not the act of throwing itself, but how "given" this was? Like it was a norm. A regulation, if you will. No one looked remotely affected by this, including the poor guy who was making pohe and was probably going to collect the waste once he was done.

I told those people, much to the shock of my wife, that they give those waste plates to me. I would collect them and throw it in a trash nearby. One of the young dudes in the group even commented .."arey yeh to munna bhai hai".. I am guessing he was alluding to the movie Lage raho... (a movie, incidently made by a Nagpuri, btw)

Although I did have to endure some under the belt hits, I thought I saw some effect. Half the people did throw their stuff in a plastic bag the pohewala had. Other half of course ignored and went their way.

The point of all this is, that day, I could not change Nagpur or even 10 people, but I did change, I thought a few minds. I am hoping even if ONE of them starts NOT doing this stuff, that's a small win.

The incident left me in a state of minor satisfaction, although my wife did say this.."Don't try to be a neo-Gandhi, will you...?" (Oopsie..)

I know I was not being a Gandhi and I was being a smarty pant, but what the heck; made me feel good momentarily.

So what do you folks think? Do we have some ideas that we can use to start a 'Clean Nagpur, Green Nagpur' campaign? How best we can pass this on? Any champions out there who can take this up?

If you think you have good ideas, please pass it on either via emails or commenting on the post.

-/ACD

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