A letter I wrote in 1999

Bharatji, please wake up!

I have to admit, I am not Indian, meaning I was not born in India, at least not this lifetime. Nonetheless I feel more Indian than many Indians I have known. I have lived here for more than 15 years. I love India and I love its people, since I first visited in 1980 I have seen many changes take place, many for the good and many for the worse.

I have been thinking of writing this article since I took this photo in 1995 in Jaipur. I felt it really described India as it is,a sleeping Bharat Varsa that it is almost impossible to wake up. Practically passing peacefully and unconsciously from sleep to death.

I know I am rubbing salt on an old open wound, I am sorry. I also have a very deep open wound and it gets worse every day that I spend here.

Last year a friend of mine from Italy came to India with his wife and two children. He is a yoga teacher and his wife is a masseur. They are ordinary people living in a somewhat ordinary environment on the Tuscany hills.

They also love India very much. This time they went South and then took a train from Coimbatore to New Delhi. On the journey they had their first meal. As usual the waiter came along the carriages taking orders for thalis and they also ordered one thali each. This time they were quite surprised to be served in a nice thick plastic thali with lid. They had their meal, as did many others on the train.Towards the end of their meal they saw that all, and I mean ALL the passengers who had their meal just opened the windows and elegantly threw the thali complete with plastic cup and lid out of the window, confident that this was the way.

My friend’s older son Sunanda who is now 13 was shocked. He asked his father “dad why are they throwing the plates out of the window? You thought us that we should not throw anything because we have to have respect for Mother Nature and not litter the country side”

My friend was somewhat embarrassed and did not know what to say to his son Sunanda. They finished their meal and then my friend thought he had to show his son the proper way of disposing of the thali. They collected all the thalis, five in all as there was also another friend with them and then he and Sunanda walked half of the train to go to the cafeteria carriage, there they met one of the waiters and proudly handed over the pile of plates to him. The men took the plates with a big smile on his face, opened the window right then and there and threw the plates off as usual. The consternation and disbelief of my friend, and the embarrassment he felt in his son's witnessing this was too much.

They walked back to their seat and kept quiet. After a while Sunanda asked his father “ Dad how many trains are everyday running up and down the Indian country side? And how many people are everyday having their meal on these trains? There must be an incredible number of plastic plates scattered all over the country, why it is like this?

Bharatji, Wake up please.
Why do we have to waste so much energy and time reinventing the wheel?
It has already being invented long ago.
It has been very common to many cities’ administrations in the last few years to ban the use of plastic bags. They thought this would solve the problem.
How can you ban plastic bags? The all consumer world moves around it, is there any country in the world who has successfully or for that matter has at all considered banning the use of plastic bags? Of course not!

But we have all the developed countries in the world with a proper collection and disposal system of not only plastic bags but also all the daily wastes. Why can’t India do the same? Why do we waste time and money to try for this useless exercise of no plastic bags? What about plastic bottles, are we to stop people from buying drinking water? And what about plastic cups, specially the little chai cups? They have replaced the old and virtuous cullar, or clay cup.

The whole world was looking with envy at India’s wonderfully ecological system of leaf plates, leaf bowls and clay cups. You could feet a million people and just dump the waste outside your door, three days later there would have been no trace of the mess. Now you walk in front of a Chai shop or a Sadhu Bhandara and you see the same leaf plates (thanks god they haven’t been replaced yet) and with it you see thousands of plastic cups and bowls. Yes ,three days later the leaf plate is gone as ever before, but what about the cups and bowls? They will be there for the next 10,000 years.

But no one knows about it, and who cares anyway! I will not be here 30 years from now!

Bharatji if you allows me I would dare to suggest a solution,
Only one and very simple, EDUCATION!
There is no other way out of this mess believe me. I have seen it so often especially in the last few years. A brand new Ford Ikon with a Delhi plate passes by, supposedly inside is the cream of India’s middle class. The automatic window glass goes down and what you see, an empty bottle or a plastic bag with remnants of puri and subji flying out. If this is the behavior of the good and educated citizens, what hope is there?

Bharatji if you start educating your teachers now, and if in turn they educate their students maybe few generations down the road India will be what it should be, Bharat varsa,the Pride of this Planet Earth. It is the most wonderful country in the world which could have such an incredible potential for tourism.

Just last February an organized tour of about 70 people came to Vrindavan, Mathura U.P. from London. All well to do family from the Gujarati community in UK. After traveling with them to Kumbha mela in Allahabad, Varanasi, Citrakut and then Luknow, this people where so disgusted that unanimously admitted, “India is a huge toilet and a huge rubbish bin!”

Just two months ago I was in New York traveling on the Metro, a black woman with her little daughter on the pushchair came in. The mother handed over to the little girl (at the most two years old) a toffee, the little girl opened the sweet and popped it in her mouth, Just coming from India I was watching and waiting to see her just drop the wrapping casually as I have always witnessed in India. To my surprise the little girl folded the wrapping and then calling her mother’s attention and handed her the plastic, the mother took it, opened her bag and dropped it inside.

All this was done very casually, I would say naturally.
How is it that here in India it is done naturally the other way around?

Where have they gone the glorious citizens of Dwaraka Puri? Where have they gone the Sages and Rishis who have unlocked the secrets of eternal life? Where have they gone the rulers of the planet like Maharaja Pariksit? And where have you gone Bharatji?

Why if you are entering a queue from a side road will no one ever give you way and let you in?
Why does open sewage have to be there even though it is well known that it is a cause of malaria and other deadly diseases?
Why when people build a new house are they allowed to just connect their kitchen and bathroom waste to a pipe pouring out on the side of the road?
Why do five hundred million people have to pass stool on the side of the road?
Why is there not a single water tap which is not leaking?
Why are women treated as work animals?
Why you don’t wake up Bharatji?

Signed
A crying soul who loves India