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Rhetoric on Garbage Etiquette



What is it with us – when we travel to foreign shores we follow the rule of the land, keep our surroundings clean, never litter, do not spit, refrain from urinating in public, but once we are back in our homeland we forget all the rules. If only this practice continues in our country, we wouldn’t have to deal with the menace of illness or a grubby façade. The fact remains, that we take our surroundings for granted and do not think twice when we throw a wrapper out the window while driving.

I noticed something quite sickening a couple of weeks ago and have been following it to the day. A woman was sweeping the front of her house, or rather the maid was doing so, and she didn’t think anything of shoving the debris in front of her neighbor’s place. I noticed this every day until the place piled up with leaves, and people started dropping packets of garbage in front of the gentleman’s place. He did not raise a stink perhaps because he knows the mentality of the individual. I happened to glance at the place today, and the debris has built up with more packets of waste and poop! The woman of course doesn’t blink an eye, still sweeps her muck, cuts the leaves and branches off the trees and stacks them. Does this seem fair? Or does this reek of the menace of garbage that people are creating and putting the blame on others! I remember years ago when a very observant elder told me something - we are a very proud people, we clean our homes, bathe before praying, dress to the hilt but we never think twice about sweeping rubbish out of our frontage elsewhere. I debated this with the wise one, but over the years I realized that his words were true.

So what do we do, when the educated class behaves this way - debate the issue? In a nutshell, these people who are considerably bright with their accolades and ranking on the innumerable certificates are hardly what one would call educated, they are far from it. On the other side of the coin are the many that have not earned their degrees but still ensure that they keep their little homes and surroundings neat and tidy. They tie up their waste and dump it into the garbage containers allotted to the area. In fact, most of the garbage trucks hardly ever go their way, but they still ensure that they do their bit to keep the city clean. Kudos to these fine, super educated people, they certainly can teach the rest of us a thing or two!

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