Being Indian

17-July-2011

CP-Delhi

“India nahi sudhrega” those were the words by Gaurav who has just returned from S.Korea last week.

We were walking towards ‘The Embassy’ restaurant in CP for dinner. Humpy and Ashish were few steps ahead guiding us. Me, Neiha & Gaurav following them.

Gaurav commented on seeing a pan/Gutka peek filled corner and I nodded in agreement.

‘Few Hours Later’

After dinner, we were chatting while enjoying the cool breeze outside the restaurant. I and Kapoor went to the other side of the street to fetch some ice-cream (Feast – my favorite) for everyone from the ice-cream vendor.

After a minute, the place around us was decorated a bit more with the feast wrappers (I used the word “bit more” because It was already decorated with disposable plates/Glasses, Polythene packs etc.). Out of us five, only I and Neiha were having those wrappers in our hands. Gaurav was the first one to contribute to the dirty picture of India, Humpy and Kapoor followed him.

As of my habit, I couldn’t stop myself from complaining, so “India ka to pata nahi…….. But Indians nahi sudherenge” my first words.

Everyone was silent at first and then laughed after understanding my taunt. As always Humpy was quick to respond. He picked up his wrapper and put it in my shirt pocket.

“Show me the dustbin here….. Otherwise take it home along”.  Everyone was looking around including me if we can find any dustbin around to shut his mouth. At last, at a distant site across the road I saw a dustbin in the inner circle of CP about 50-70 meters away.

“Who will go there….. I am not going…. If you want you can……. Moreover look around, there are hundreds of things littering around, what difference will this tiny wrapper make in this already dirty place.”  Gaurav throw the wrapper down from my pocket.

“I agree that there are not enough dustbins in this area. Why to talk about CP only, I had never seen a dustbin in ISBT Delhi also. Infact, this story is same all over the country. But that doesn’t mean we go on littering and spiting all around the place. At least do as much as you can. You can keep this wrapper in your pocket and there are dustbins in metro stations. You can dispose them there; But you wouldn’t do that, after all you are also an Indian.” Neiha got aggressive.

Everybody picked up their wrappers from the ground and the talks went on. Everyone contributed in blaming the government, the population, the people and at last the whole Indian system.

After few minutes we moved towards metro station to catch the last metro to our respective places. It was just 2-3 minutes walk and Gaurav couldn’t wait that much so he put his wrapper in my back pocket; Humpy tugged his wrapper in the security barricade’s sand bags outside Metro station. They proved it again ‘Indians nahi sudhrenge’