Keep Minds Open,
Free Of Dog-Shit
by Roamer
In the US all residents in a colony, who walk their dogs, are asked to carry a bag and a pair of tongs to pick up the dog shit, put it in the bag and drop it in the trash bin.
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 in any place outside their homes? In India we pride ourselves in keeping our houses clean by throwing all trash out – even the neighbour’s premises.
The neighbour also does the same. So 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 decades old cartoon by R K Laxman. 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.” .
We ridicule Narendra Modi for the Swachh Bharat call even as we worship Gandhi as Mahatma for cleaning villages. I recall Gandhi’s reaction when villagers showed what was to be cleaned. He laid down that there should be an equal number of local villagers in fhe cleañing volunteers
We spit anywhere and the staircase walls of even new excellent buildings bear pan spit marks which all think others (not ourselves) should clean and so no one does. Is it hard to teach every child to put any trash in a bag and later put it in trash bin? And do so even as no one is looking?
Or are our brains too full of dog shit for such a thought to enter? It is time we keep our minds open – and also clean
