Sanitation

जागरण संपादकीय ब्लॉग

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Cleanliness is Godliness.
Good health begins with hygiene.
These aphorisms have been mouthed as often that today they sound hackneyed. Most of us would perhaps remember growing up hearing these sermons more regularly than any other didactic preaching.
I marvel at two attributes of our generation and for that matter even the preceding generation, consistency and callousness.
The cleanliness preaching’s have been sermonized ad nauseam. The homilies have become clichés, yet the reaction it evokes from the civilized society is of apathy. An entire generation and the generation before have been continuously and blithely insouciant. That prompts me to conclude that we are consistently apathetic and congruously callous.
We live in times where often topics of conversation in gabfests revolve around environment. There is much nattering on the net and otherwise about pollution, afforestation, conservation of natural resources, so on and so forth. I must admit that civil society from various walks of life makes some very discerning observations. While the approach of our society despite seemingly condescending to some, is laudable, it amazes me that we selectively deploy our ingenuity. The byzantine issues of the world occupy our mind space while we gloss over the fundamentals that impact our quotidian life. How else would primary issues of cleanliness in the surrounding escape our attention?
Is it expecting too much from the civilized, educated, affluent and privileged segment of our society, to not litter? To ensure that garbage is dumped only at designated points. For our residential societies, to work in tandem, and follow up with the municipal authorities for regular cleaning, waste pick up and disposal. To make the right noises if the government authorities do not respond.
There is nothing quixotic about cleanliness for me to delineate. The problems are elementary and solutions simple.
I sometimes wonder is it because cleanliness is not perceived as highbrow that it does not attract adequate focus from our society? Why have we inured ourselves to the filth around us? Why does the spectre of dirt not haunt us? Have we evolved into a society afflicted with mysophilia? Now that will be a parlous proposition. Even elementary problems with lowbrow solutions, if left unaddressed for long, can cause seminal damage to our environment and society.
Cleanliness has forever been a part of our culture. We clean up our houses on the auspicious occasion of Diwali; perhaps with the intent to welcome Goddess Laxmi. Ladies and Gentlemen, please spare a thought for the path that leads to the house. The path filled with filth will surely dissuade the Goddess from towing it and as a result the house, the colony and the city may be deprived of the visit of the Goddess. That might well be a heavy yet deserving quid pro quo for our neglect.
For the young, educated, upwardly mobile, while it is cool to be fashionable and impressive, it is equally uncool to not be living in a clean surrounding.
Civilized society, please start to fetishize cleanliness. Pledge yourselves to this simple, yet profound cause. Lets make world a better, cleaner place for future generations and ourselves. We owe to them to bequeath this legacy as much as anything else.
Let us not derelict our responsibility by accusing the government and the administration for all that ails us. While they have done enough to draw flak, please ruminate, are we going to be contributors to solutions or hindrance to it? Years of Augean dirt can anyways not be cleaned without community integration.