Clean City

Bangalore with its phenomenal growth since IT boom has attained A-1 City status and it has also earned the credit of being called world city. But for the average citizen of this city these things hardly matter as he has to live in a city sporting dirty jammed roads, clogged drains, uncleared garbage and the list can go on. An erstwhile pensioner's paradise has turned into dirty hell. We cannot blame the corporation alone for our woes. The garbage collectors come at specific time everyday to clear the city's garbage. But since Bangalore works 24/7 garbage is also generated 24/7. Hence we find people leaving their garbage bags outside their house anytime convenient to them. Some leave these bags not in front of their houses but near any avenue trees that they find in their area. Mind you, people who work in their houses are smarter than them, for they throw these bags in open grounds or still better hang them in the welcoming branches of the trees. I've heard from my grand parents that people of olden days used to tie in branches of trees bundle of food for hungry travellers. Trees were worshipped and are still worshipped in India and they were never used as garbage holders. Man with his super bloated ego assumes that every creature around him has been created to serve him and him alone. So he feels free to jam a few nails onto the avenue trees and hang his dirty garbage bags there. As long as the bags are out of his compound and away from the gates in the front he is happy. His world ends with the compound walls around his house.

So how should this matter to anybody? Absolutely no problem till some stray dogs get the scent of these bags. Once they are on their scent these bags become public property, the bags are torn, the contents strewn on the streets. As long as quiet obliging neighbours are there, nobody gets any sermonising on not to display their love for canine population so conspicuously. Also children in the neighbourhood benefit a lot for they get free lessons in Biology. It’s very easy to explain to them how wind and animals help in seed propagation. Show them the wind carrying all the plastic from these torn bags all over the locality and the dogs and birds carrying away bits of whatever they fancy from these bags. If the areas has freshly littered puppies still better. They get lots of stuff from these disowned properties to help them go through their teething stage breezily. In fact I have seen cows pulling down the garbage bags from the branches of the trees and pilfering through to find some edible stuff in them. Mention has to be made about the rodents getting attracted to the left over food in these bags and multiplying in numbers as there is no dearth for food supply. So what if the diligent neighbours have to clean their front yard twice or thrice a day. If somebody consoles us by saying that the street will be cleaned by the corporation next day Beware for the army will land with the brooms next day only to sweep most of it into the storm water drains since we have not carpeted our streets. And the chain continues unbroken with the storm water getting clogged and so on.