Whats a dustbin??... A bin ?... or whats outside it?

Hi to all you super educated, the almost educated and the illiterates....

Presenting a session of brainstorming by yours truly....

Pollution and conservation are long important words in todays dictionary. We take care not to litter the streets, search for a nearby garbage bin to dump the trash, advice kids to follow the same.... You'd probably go a step higher.. Going for clean-up drives, mangrove planting projects, environmental awareness programs...

I do all of these too.. Each of the above mentioned.

What triggered me to pen this down was a thoughtful gesture towards environmental pollution from this person I know ( Let's call her X ).

I have endured lectures and suffered long periods of torturous advice of going 'green', and the harmful effects of 'global warming' and a whole range of other issues from X.

We had this one trip, X and I.. An over-night train ride.. A non a/c 2nd class sleeper compartment ride.

Being the weight conscious, fitness freaks that we invariably are ( you know I'm kidding), we had all our health food packed and parcelled from home in disposable plastic cling wrap and aluminium foil.

I have this old habit of preserving the plastic/paper containers and wraps in which we eat in plastic covers. This habit used to earn me the disgust and irritation of my relatives (or whoever was travelling with me). I remember seeing disgusted faces of fellow passengers, when I stuff the used plates, coffee cups and the packaging into bigger covers .. I still see them.. I have learned to maintain an indifference to these reactions and carry on my work with superb skill and panache. :)

I have never felt throwing garbage out the window was something one had to be proud of.
I just dispose them off in the nearest bin or forget about them in my bag which after a day or two will smell sufficiently bad to remind me to trash it.

Anyways, back to the train ride.. This lady, for all the lecturing she had subjected me to, was very coolly, nonchalantly tossing wrappers out of the window. As if the outside of the train was her personal giant dustbin. The topic of discussion at that time, if I remember correctly, was 'burning plastic causes cancer'.

Ridiculous!

What a hypocrite!

My opinion of her suddenly plummeted to rock bottom. Her aura of godliness in my eyes suffered a brutal assault.

I don't get it.
Does throwing garbage out the window of a moving train increase the rate of its oxidation.. or in any way cause the biodegradation of plastic?? Or any other reaction?

I have heard loads of people complaining about our idiotic government bureaucracy, its inefficiency to make the garbage disposal techniques work, its lack of laws against littering and spitting, and finally.... India is a horrible country! Very dirty!...
Look at America and Europe.. So beautiful!..
India is a land of duffers and trouble-makers who shit on the road!

In malayalam..."Ivveru orikalum nannavula. Idhu nashicha naadu aanu." ( which literally means ,"Noone can change these people. This is a cursed land.")

I mention this because this was a reply given to us a few days ago. By a practicing ayurvedic doctor. An "educated" middle-aged guy.

A group of us were taking a survey on the different ways civic sense was maintained... And how people as individuals contributed in keeping their environment and city clean. When we approached this seemingly knowledgeable middle-aged man ( we came to know later that he was practicing ayurvedic physician) sitting on a bench with our questions, he startled us with his ignorance.
He went on to debate how democracy ruined India, and how no matter how many dustbins, the people of India ( he was kind enough to include himself in this generalization) would always look away from it to find the real dustbin outside.. Which means the roads, the trees, the bushes, the rivers, etc etc.
The justification for this attitude ( or rather his attitude, when we pointedly asked him to justify HIS case as an individual ) was ,"Ivveru orikalum nannavula. Idhu nashicha naadu aanu."

Sad !!

I learnt one thing though..

From the answers we got from various segments of literate and illiterate people, I decided that it was not Literacy that decided the worth of the person..
The attitude and actions commanded the respect due.

I have to give way to a clichéd phrase here.
As drops of water make the ocean, likewise cumulative individual action will bring about the revolutionary change required. Being lackadaisical is definitely not the way to go.

So here's some good advice.
Go 'green' people.
Jaago!

Heres to a cleaner, beautifuler India...
Cheers!