SEVERAL FRIENDS REACTED to my last blog — which was not by me (perhaps the reason it was liked) but by Srividya Srinivasan.
As I i mentioned at the outset’ I did not know her as the piece was mailed to me by a freind and I liked it so much I published it with no changes. Everyone who read it ( strangely it does not apear in the list of my blogs) as the link I sent led to it and agreed with all he said .
One reader even pointed out what she forgot: dog shit left on our footpaths to the disgust of morning walkers. In the US all residents in a colony who walk their dogs are asked to carry a bag and a pair ofvtongs to pick up the shit, put it in the oad and drop it in the trash.
The dog shit on footpaths can be picked up and put in trash bins. But what about the shit filling the brains of many who throw all trash on public roads and any place outside their homes? In India we pride ourselve in keeping our houses clean by throwing all trash out – even in the neighbour’s premises.
As the neighbour also does the same. we all live in trash dumps. The dog shit in our brains of those ridiculing the Swacch Bharat drive of Narendra Modi has to be cleared first. Why was keeping clean not thought of by those who ruled for decades? Because you don’t get votes from it?
That reminded me of a cartoon by R K Laxman decades ago. The ubiquitous ‘common man’ of his cartoons is seen telling a political worker at a booth surrounded by trash from the campaign: “You said you will sweep the polls. Go sweep them.”
It is time we all did some did some sweeping. And cleaning up, starting with our brains.