by M.L. Krishnaswami

Mysuru, KARNATAKA :

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has exhorted citizens to give a boost to promoting physical cleanliness of the towns and villages of the country and has directed his Ministries concerned to declare a few cities of the land as clean cities and giving them appropriate rankings. Thus our own city ‘Mysuru’ has been adjudged the Cleanest City in the tier-2 category. This has generated a high level of civic consciousness among the City Corporation and the Citizens.

The successive Mayors, Corporators and the Commissioners of MCC have to be complimented for this award. But the ultimate responsibility for the success of this hazardous task greatly rests on the shoulders of the grassroot workers in the lowest rung of the whole set-up. In this article, with due apologies to the higher ones in the hierarchy, I am inclined to highlight this important segment. Where I live, this job is meticulously done by three youngsters, the garbage collectors, who come early every morning shouting ‘Kasa, Kasa’ on the streets to awaken the householders to bring the garbage bin or tub to their doorsteps to be collected by the above youngsters and dumped into the carting autos. I have somehow befriended these boys in my own way and my wife even gives them a cup of hot-tea, a welcome drink in the early winter morning. Now, a brief about the boys:

1) The auto driver is named Farhan, obviously a Muslim boy of a score of years in age, who says he has studied upto PUC and due to family problems has taken up this part-time job (from 5 am to 2 pm) to save a portion of his earnings to enable him take up and study for B.Com next year. He has plans to pursue higher education upto M.Com or MBA. What a brilliant idea for future plans to this very handsome and affable young boy.

2) Rangaswamy is the important member of this trio and has studied upto High School. He is married and has two kids pursuing school education. He has carved out higher education for his kids more so because he was denied an opportunity to pursue his studies further.

3) Varadaraju is the third boy who collects the street and household garbage and carries them upto the auto and hands it over to Rangaswamy to put them into the inner auto space. He also has some formal education.

The job of the above three youngsters is to assiduously scan the about one-and-a-half to two-square-kilometres of the area allotted to them for garbage collection and transport it to the nearest lorry assigned to the area for carrying it forward to the dumping yard for treatment and final disposal.

In this hazardous task, I guess Mysuru City must be collecting and disposing off hundreds of tonnes of dry street and household garbage every day. Proper planning for final disposal of the garbage thus collected on a daily basis must be a challenging task for the City Corporation authorities who should be complimented for the same. The next higher-ups like Health Inspectors and others involved in these monotonous and highly necessary daily activities should be complimented for a good job done for the ultimate well-being of the city. Proper planning and execution are the hallmarks of this stupendous task in continuing to maintain the health of the citizens.

In the above context, I would prefer to call the three youngsters as the “Foot Soldiers of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.”

Decades ago many extensions of the then Mysore did not have Underground Drainage (UGD) networks and my memory goes back to the Vontikoppal area which was one of them. My father’s uncle lived there. It was an area inhabited by college professors including Kuvempu. Hand collection and hand carting of domestic sewage was in vogue and thus came the idea of a conservancy lane in between the parallel rows of houses facing the main road. The collection and carting of this ignominious domestic garbage was done by members of a particular community, nicknamed scavengers. What a shame and black mark on the society? It is good for the society that this system has been abolished in most of the cities and towns. It is an improvement in social conduct that people belonging to all communities have joined the brigade of the ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.’ The doors of this Abhiyan should open up and welcome youngsters from all communities in the country into its fold. Time is not far off for this to happen.

In olden days, when I was a boy, fairly big houses in the city would be having a reserved space in the compound corner called ‘Thippe’ and all dry and kitchen garbage would be dumped into it and cleaned almost every week, by municipal workers. This was a very good and welcome step in maintaining the health of the household members. This, however, is absent these days.

Now, in a lighter vein this ‘Thippe’ was also used to make fun of a lady member of the household who begets twenty- one children by a single husband. A small function would be arranged to commemorate this great event by asking her to sit on a carpet spread on this ‘Thippe’ and perform a small ‘Arathi,’ a mark of a mini-religious function to celebrate the event by inviting relatives and neighbours!! My father’s maternal uncle’s wife had this distinction (!) and she was nick-named ‘Papachi’ and whatever it meant I do not know. She bore twenty-one children to her husband !

Old order changeth yielding

Place to new

And God fulfils Himself

In many ways

The present generation of husband and wife normally have one child, if at all, and many forego the joy of parenthood and the reason they offer is “we want to enjoy life fully without obligations or hindrances.” Nobody will remain young for ever and when they get old, they regret their earlier decision, but it would be too late in the day.

e-mail: mlkswami@yahoo.in

source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> Feature Articles / Thursday – February 25th, 2016