Mere paas Maa hai – An ode to the Swaccha Bharat campaign……

Mr PM, while I am in absolute admiration and support of your Swaccha Bharat campaign, and I will take up the broom in earnest and sweep the streets of the Garbage city of Bangalore –  secretly wanting to sit on the broom and fly away – a la Sabrina, the witch style, let me tell you why the your passionate campaign is doomed to failure – kyunki Mere paas Maa hai – now, how in garbage’s name can you beat that…?

Let us go into the hallowed homes of our nation’s 1.2 billion people , shall we…the lowest common denominator of the Swaccha Bharat – and what do you see…the man of the house drops his clothes all over, as he is getting ready to leave for work, the bathroom is messy, the teenage son has a messy room, the baby has turned the entire house upside down, the dog has pooped on the carpet, the teenage daughter has left all her hair in the bathroom drain and they leave the house….cos, Mere Paas Maa hai, who will faithfully pick up and clean after the adoring hubby, the angelic baby, the stud son and the hot daughter… Now, of course, who picks up after the loving wife, it is the irrepleaceable maid, who  tries to drop them in the garbage bins of the complex, and fails miserably, because she knows that the housekeeping staff will pick up after her…Now, the housekeeping fails to meet the timelines of the BWSSB, because who cares, it is not their mess after all, so let me just drop it and create piles and piles of garbage on the road…and some unnamed poor soul from the Sanitation Dept will pick up after them. In the pecking order of this great pyramid of garbage chain, the poor garbage waits and waits for the next predator who will pick it up…

The hubby in his swank Audi V8, sealed in the cool comfort of his airconditioning, wades through the piles and piles of garbage and the traffic in Viveknagar, rolls his window down in a smooth and silent motion, nonchalantly throws his empty cigarette carton onto the nearest pile – what’s one more piece of garbage after all… the peak needs to be higher… and wonders about people who do not have the decency and the civic sense and curses the Govt, to whom he pays 30% taxes , for not doing their jobs and then sends a thank you to God – for Mere Paas Maa hai…