BAPU'S IDEA OF CLEANLINESS

Pic.: Anand Ashokan

I have just returned from the Jaslok Hospital, where my dad-in-law is, presently, hospitalized. As I was hungry, before leaving, I got for myself a pack of biryani in the cafeteria, and stood there in one corner (as it was crowded during the lunch-time) to have it. In the process, few grains of Basmati-rice spilled, here and there, over the floor. Yes, I was a little embarrassed about it.

But, then, as soon as I finished eating, I, instinctively, bent down, picked the spilled rice from the floor, put it in my empty paper-plate, and placed it in the bin...

“House-keeping staff would have picked it up,” the gentleman next to me said...

“Yes sir, they would have,” I said to the stranger with a smile, “but, I should not have spilled in the first place.”

“Today is Gandhi Jayanti,” another gentleman said, a little teasingly, “We are called upon to celebrate it as ‘Cleanliness Day’”

Honestly, when I bent down to clean-up, I did not know about it. So, I said, “Good then!”

Gandhiji is my idol, too. But, his idea of cleanliness began first in the cleanliness of our thoughts and hearts... The broom came out, later, on its own!

It was, also, a way of life for him... Not a ‘day’ to take the broom and go around sweeping the streets for the media...

Hope, Mr. Modi’s ideal is not misused by the lesser mortals... Hope, the cleanliness of the mind and heart becomes a cherished value and the broom, only its offshoot...

Whenever my friends, return after their trips to Singapore, New Zealand, Hong Kong, London and America, they, invariably, rave about the clean cities out there. “You won’t find even a piece of dirt on the streets,” they tell me...

And, then, they compare the scene to ours’ - particularly, Mumbai’s!

Gandhi did not live in Singapore or Hong Kong, nor in New Zealand or America... Civic sense and the respect for the laws of the land can be imbibed without a Gandhi or Modi around, anywhere in the world...

I am happy that ‘Cleanliness’ has come to centre-stage, today, in our country... I only hope, it comes to centre-stage in our minds and hearts, as well... and, yes, not just today – on Gandhi Jayanti – but, also, always...

As Gandhi wanted it to be...

As our P.M. wants it to be.

GERALD D’CUNHA