Of all the reasons to be a lark, health ,wealth and wisdom,that Benjamin Franklin passionately advocated ,he did not count in -the need to fill up water containers before the hourly municipal supply ran out or to catch up on morning news before catching the Churchgate local or opening the door to let the house maid in .These modern day imperatives for early risers are about as varied as ,maybe,the mood of lady of the house.
But dawn beckons me with a more esoteric motive -the scourge of a small ,seemingly innocuous looking ,filmy ,black polythene bag .Till the other day these bags stuffed with household ‘droppings’ littered neighbour's boundary walls.Fine no business of mine.But being a social creature I couldn't help protesting at a chap flinging one at the boundary wall across the road . The fellow curtly reminded me that the wall didn't belong to me and if the owner didn't object what right have I ? Will that put paid to my socialism and I comfortably reverted to individualism.
If lightening strikes can rain be far behind ? This truth struck me rudely when I found one such bag with overflowing ‘offals’ right outside the garage shutter.That set me up for early morning vigils from my first floor balcony. Any chap creeping along boundary walls with a black polythene in hand,looking furtively around was deemed suspect and shooed away . Yes ,there were faux passes when the bag didn't hold waste l but I took the virulent backlash in stride. Finally,it took some tense mornings and a sharp tongue to persuade bag disposers to pick other houses.
why these bag flingers can not walk a further thirty steps to the designated garbage dump beats me. I suppose there is thrill and adventure and a certain amount of pride in skills honed by experience in surreptitious disposal of these garbage bags, away from prying eyes and outside the portals of an unsuspecting resident en route.A subterranean crop of ‘vena vici vidi ‘
Did I live happily thereafter? While my front was cleaned up the adjacent boundary wall now became the impromptu dump. My heart beat kept rising steadily as the bag pile seemed to be creeping towards the garage end of my wall . I cautioned the owner of the despoilt wall, he talked of complaining to the ward commissioner ,fretted a lot whenever I broached the issue but did nothing . As day follows night the filthy bags trudged up to within a feet of my remarked boundary Stray animals kicked one or more of the bags on my garage shutters. Besides the stink of rotting vegetation the squalor of spread out waste became unbearable whenever I needed to lift the shutters . My neighbour cared too hoots for his accessed his house from the other side . Something.had to be done
My mason came up with a brilliant suggestion . Let's clean up a five feet area to left where my boundary ended ,pave the ground with it bricks with a goodly layer of plaster on top. The coup de grace would be a tile with the image of some god or goddesses inscribed on it laid on the boundary wall facing the cleared spot . He suggested Lord Hanuman ,I plumped for it for the monkey God is dear to me as well .No Hindu worth his salt will defile an area dedicated to Hanuman . However the wise mason sounded a caveat . One would have to remain vigilant against some one converting it into a mini temple. So without much ado or looking to the neighbour the scheme was executed. Only the tile couldn't be fixed on the wall as the mason moved out midway to greener pastures.
However it seems to have sent the right message to janta janardan . The spot is litter free. The bags however continue to pile up away from it . Any way the Rambaan ,the ‘Hanumam’ tile is with me ,should thing get worse again.
Keeping a long vigil takes its toll . To sleep well , I have to stay awake all day . Now more than ever I am getting convinced ,human society sustains itself by transforming nature into garbage
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