Garbage reincarnated!

One of the lessons the CMCA civic club members learn is how to segregate garbage. Of course, we have all heard of separating kitchen waste, plastic, paper, metals etc. But when it has to be actually put into practice, people hesitate because (a) old lazy habits die hard, and (b) people are not sure how to dispose of each of these categories. However, there is a practical solution for each of these categories of waste.
Kitchen waste can be converted into excellent compost for gardens or even potted plants in apartments. You get these pretty terracotta pots , 3 of them that sit one on top of the other. You dump the daily vegetable waste into the top one, and by a system of rotation all the 3 get filled up. By then, the bottom one is ready with the compost. You can see the details here
That leaves us with paper, metal and plastic. Paper is easy, we all give it to the raddiwalla, and it is the same with metal. But Plastic - well, the raddiwallas turn up their noses at plastic and most of them refuse to take it. So most of us just throw it out wrapped in a plastic garbage bag.
All of us see heaps of garbage stuffed into plastic bags, lying all over the city. Cows graze on this garbage, and sometimes ingest the plastic bag and die. There was a terrible case in Bangalore a few weeks ago during the monsoon, where a young girl died in a scooter accident because her scooter skidded on a heap of wet, slippery garbage full of plastic bags. Yet, people don't stop using these carry bags made of thin plastic. If each one of us can make it a habit to carry our own bag while shopping, half the problem would be solved. Yet, a considerable amount of plastic waste does get generated. What is the solution?
This is where plastic recycling comes in. We went to this amazing place the other day, where they actually convert plastic carry bags into granules that used as additives to tar and used for laying good strong roads. They collect the plastic garbage bags with the garbage intact, and take it to their factory. There, these bags are fed into a machine that separates the waste matter from the bag. The clean bag is ejected. The bags are separated according to the thickness, and fed into another machine that shreds them into tiny pieces. These pieces are fed into a third machine that converts them into granules that can be mixed with tar. According to the person at the factory, Bangalore now has more than a thousand kilometers of this plastic waste road. Their take on plastic: 'Plastic by itself is not bad: it is only the way people dispose of it that causes problems.'
Their suggestion to the schools: if each student of the school collects all plastic bags or covers or in fact, any kind of plastic waste (even broken pens, toys etc) from his/her home, into a big bag, and takes it to school every fortnight, the total collection of plastic at the school will be considerable. The people from the factory say that they will themselves collect it from the school and pay for it too.
This is a great idea, and can be implemented by large apartment blocks too.
The civic club members at the school where I am a civic tutor, are all fired up with enthusiasm. They will be talking at the school assembly about this and persuading their school mates to join in this movement for useful re-use of plastic waste.
Let's all join hands to make Bangalore a garbage-free city!

One possible approach to change Indian society

If you remember, I mentioned in my last blog (many months ago) that the solution to our society's ills lies in bringing about change in the younger generation. Soon after I posted that blog, I came across an organisation called Children's movement for Civic Awareness (CMCA) - this is the link: www.cmcaindia.org.
This organisation works with school children through volunteers who work as civic tutors, and inculcate values like cleanliness and civic consciousness, environmental issues and also essentials of democracy, rights and responsibilities. The primary principle is the 'Ripple effect' where 'change begins with me, my family, my friends, and my neighbourhood'.
It is amazing to see how children absorb ideas - they are like sponges, eagerly taking in all the concepts and values imparted.
The program is a judicious mix of module lessons where even 'dull' civics topics like 'urban local governance' are made interesting by using practical ideas. Children are taught to appreciate the thankless work done by municipal sweepers, traffic police etc. They are taken on visits to various facilities like the traffic control centre of the police department, or a plastic recycling factory.
Children also run various campaigns in school or their neighbourhood. In the school where I am a civic tutor, the children have been running an 'anti-litter' campaign' for the primary school. They found that, during the 'short-break', the kids were throwing biscuit wrappers and other stuff all over the corridors. Within a week of the campaign, there was a marked difference in the little ones' habits. They told their teacher ' One Akka and one Anna came and told us we should not throw things here and there' and meticulously use the dustbin. While earlier they used to sharpen their pencils anywhere and let the shavings fall anywhere, after the campaign, they carefully go to the dustbin and sharpen the pencils.
Very soon after this, the kids observed Municipal sweeper or 'Pourakarmika' day - they all collected some money, bought some sweets, made an appreciation card and met the workers. When these workers told them about their hard life, and that the main problem they face is the repeated littering of streets, it further strengthened their resolve to make a change in themselves and their family and friends' habits.
It is truly fulfilling to work with children. We need many more people to work with children to change our society.

Typical phrases in Indian English

Here are some typical 'Indglish' phrases or words- common to many Indians across the country:
'One of my friend / cousin / neighbour'
'Why you didn't come?'
'Preponed'
'A lot many people/ answers / responses'
'I think so it is like this'

The funny thing is, we read these phrases in newspaper reports (what are the sub-editors doing?!!), and on TV where the anchor or the reporter says them, thus perhaps making them 'official phrases'? Like 'Official fees' and 'unofficial fees'( euphemism for a bribe)??
Or like the way it is now 'accepted' to take the extreme right of the road, make the right turn, and continue on the same side, driving straight into the oncoming traffic, till a suitable opening is found in the traffic, when it is also 'accepted' to dart across all lanes and join the correct flow of traffic!

Why not compile these phrases and see how many we get? It would be fun!

Two more priceless ones:
'I am going to my Native' (pronounced nayti-oo) and 'co-sister' (or 'co-brother') to indicate the spouse's sibling's spouse, commonly referred to as 'sister-(or brother-)in-law'

Then, there are the equivalent abominations in Indian languages where they insert English into a sentence, such as - 'unki mother ki death ho gayee' or 'aap pehle unsey miliye, phir unkey through kaam karvaaiye'

Are we selfish and inconsiderate by nature?

Just look around you - litter and garbage everywhere. Chaos at bus-stops, chaos at railway stations, stampedes at fairs and public events, and of course, the mad traffic.
Why? Dig deeper. When you stand in a queue at a bank or any counter, the first thing that happens is a hand appearing by your side, and pushing an envelope / cash ahead of you. Turn around and there is a person nonchalantly standing there, continuing to push ahead. The urge to 'get ahead of everyone else' overwhelms and suppresses any stray thought of consideration for the unfortunate being standing ahead. It is this irrational urge that makes us the laughing stock of the world when our people scramble to get ahead of the queue even at the departure gate at airports. These are educated people, many are 'knowledge workers' (knowledge? what knowledge?) - yet, their brain stops functioning logically, the 'knowledge' evaporates into thin air and they join the crowd, jostling to get ahead. The fact that they all have boarding passes with their seats marked on them, escapes their attention. And the same happens when alighting from the aircraft. If it was not for the narrow aisles, they would cause a stampede there too.
We see well-dressed men casually opening a 'gutkha' packet, emptying it into their mouths and flinging the wrapper on the street. Another equally fashionably dressed man stands at a busy street corner perusing a sheet of paper. When he is done, he tears it into pieces and scatters the pieces right there. The same person goes to Singapore and does not throw even a scrap of paper there. Why?
Of course, we are all too familiar with the unique phenomenon of men of all ages and social status, urinating against any available wall, spitting anywhere, even inside buildings, spattering staircases with pan-stained spittle, hawking and spitting on the street, and of course, people of all ages using pavements and railway tracks for defecating. Have we, as a nation, lost all sense of shame? We have self-styled brigades to 'preserve Indian culture against the decadent western influence', people who attack young couples showing affection publicly, who attack girls wearing western dress, even trousers or a sleeveless kameez, calling them 'shameless' to display affection in public or wear a sleeveless dress. These very people will then go across and urinate publicly, and litter the street with garbage. Indian culture?
No, Indian culture is now unfortunately confined to the minority of citizens who are misfits in their own society; who are derided if they show courtesy, who are violently attacked if they stand up for themselves or anyone else.
What is the root cause for this abominable situation? It is just an all-encompassing selfishness. When I want to get ahead at any cost, I will break every queue and every rule. When I am selfish, I do not care if the street is littered - it is not 'my house'. I do not care if I spit or urinate in a public place - 'my house' is clean.
Can we change? We have to change. We cannot give up. The change can only happen in the young generation - not even the teenagers and college students today - they are hardened and cynical. It is the young innocent primary school children who need to be taught right behaviour, concern for others and the concept of being considerate and courteous.
There are two ways of doing this - remember the book 'The Water Babies' by Charles Kingsley? We all read it in our childhood. There were two characters in it - 'Be-done-by-as-you-did' - who was a person who punished the wrong doer in the same way as he / she did to another, and the other was the gentle ' do-as-you-would-be-done-by' who counseled the child to put himself in the other's shoes and treat the other person as he would like to be treated.
Which approach do you think would work with our people?
I honestly do not know.

What is a good education?

We hear so many phrases these days, like 'eco-friendly', 'sustainable development', 'green initiative'- sometimes I wonder whether these phrases crop up from time to time much like the fashion trends - 'the fall collection' or the 'spring collection'! Every few months there is a fashionable new catch-phrase which is liberally sprinkled in conversations and in writing. The addition of the current catch-phrase automatically makes the user/ the written work, accepted by society.
Pause for a minute and go back a few decades.
When I was in school ( St Thomas in Delhi, then known as 'Mrs.Jacob's litle school' - more on Mrs Jacob later) , I was inculcated with a set of values that even today, forms a part of the basis of my life- and work-ethic. To some, these may appear naive, to others, far-fetched; however, these were part of our everyday life. Here are a few:
Thrift - take the example of school notebooks. Today, come summer vacation, every parent is busy covering dozens of brand-new notebooks and textbooks with brown paper, and sticking labels on them. When we were in school, every subject had a notebook in a particular colour. Maths was in Yellow, English Pink, Geography green, History blue, etc. We were specifically told NOT to cover the notebooks,so that we could easily identify them. Imagine the amount of brown paper and labels saved! We were also not allowed to buy a new notebook, even at the beginning of the academinc year, if the previous year's notebook still had unused pages. We had to staple the used pages of the previous year together, and use the rest of the notebook in the new class till all the pages were used up, before buying a new one.
Moving on to text books, all the children in a particular class had to give their text books to the children in the next junior class at the end of the year. They would in turn, receive their text books from their seniors.
Similarly, there were rules for new pencils, and other stationery. In art class, we had the good fortune of being taught by Mrs Hore (wife of well-known artist Somenath Hore). She would make us paint on newspaper sheets. The paints were dry powder which we had to mix with water.
Basic skill-sets - All of us were taught basic cooking, sewing, knitting, laundry, first-aid and home care. Each of these was taught with tips on thrift, economical use of resources like water and fuel, as well as correct and proper ways of performing each task. Although I opted for Science in High School (in those days, we had the luxury of studying on our selected subjects and English, without the added subjects like social studies etc for a science student), I was still well-trained in basic Humanities, Language and Home Science before I entered High school. Those skills are still with me.
Dignity of labour - 2 students were allotted 'sweeping duty' every day, and had to stay back and sweep the class before they left. This was not a punishment, but a routine duty by turn. Teachers also taught us easy and simple ways to prevent dust from flying all over the classroom, while sweeping it.
We were also made to visit the Dalit colony (then known as the Harijan colony) next door, once a week and do any small service for them.
Our uniforms were made of Khadi, and used to be stitched by the school tailor after taking our measurements.
So it was not just t we were merely told in school about good behaviour or conserving water or reusing and recycling, but actually experienced it every day.
At home, too, we saw our parents practising economy and thrift in everything they did - saving the water used for washing vegetables and rice and watering plants with it, using leftovers the next day, using outgrown dresses as hand-me-downs for the next child.....so many instances.
If school children were taught these values today, perhaps we wouldn't have to scream ourselves hoarse about 'recycling', environment' etc.