The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Can we ever become as clean as European Nations?
Anyone who visits the West and Europe, any of the 44 nations of Europe, comes back happy as well as hugely disillusioned. Happy because he has seen new places, tick boxed his wish list, loved the landscapes, excellent roads, orderly traffic, no honks and streets spotlessly clean, almost no pot holes. And had a great holiday.
Disillusioned, because the, moment he exits the international terminal at Mumbai or even Delhi. Same old kachraa-heaps of it, animals on the road, every one honking without batting an eyelid, pollution, smoke, pot holes as if you are driving your car through craters resembling the moon’s surface. Mumbai has a special blue ‘pannee’ or plastic sheets covering most of the homes known as jhuggi jhopri, with badly peeled of paint on tin boards proudly donning- Sanjay Gandhi or Ambedkar Basti. Some places this blue ribbon like, oops ‘pannee’ runs into kilometers without a gap!
‘yaar ye kya ho raha hai’? is the first reaction- ‘hum kahan aagaye hain’? is the next exclamation out of his mouth. But bro this is Bharat- that too a metro. Wearing a ‘tommy Hillfinger’ sorry Tommy Hilfiger tee shirt you bought in euros does not change things- you still sweat the same way and stink like hell.
There are Coolies/ porters to load your luggage into a taxi and you pay in Rs for the taxi and the porter- some relief, no? kitna sasta hai. You reach your home and there are three people waiting for the sahaab and ‘brownish’ Mem saab. Your driver, cook (maharaj in popular terminology) and your bai a maid in attendance. They welcome you with folded hands and offer you pre-prepared fresh lime soda with crushed ice as topping- challo now it looks good. Home sweet home. Now you are again a king in your own den!
Creature comforts are killing us
As you were checking out of your BNB in Scotland, lugging your own luggage, two stories down, which is heavy as you shopped your ar*se out- no one to help you and you see a swanky Lexus coming and parking right in front of you. Lo and behold a smart looking lady almost five ft ten tall, well dressed, donning expensive Dior shades and a matching hat. Her driver is clad in jeans and T shirt hops out of the shinning black car and says ‘hey, I am Jim, she is my wife Ursella and she will clean your apartment for the next guest who is coming in two hours.’ What; she is a safai wallee. She looks smarter than your wife. Both J and U shake hands with you and move on. They open the trunk take out cleaning material, jhadoo pochcha if you please and a set of towels and linen, they both lug on their shoulders and move into the apartment.
Of course you paid for the accommodation in Pounds, part was paid to them.
On a holiday it is different but guys living there have to do the entire house hold work themselves. They have to wash utensils, vacuum the entire home, wash and iron clothes, cook food and move their baggage out themselves. Only very rich and the famous can afford a personal driver- you need to drive yourself- and getting a driving lesson is like cracking a CAT exam for IIM- very difficult.
“There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves.” — Jane Austen
Life out here is so cool- like a Raja
Some people get a whopping salary of three to five lack Rs a month, live in a three-bedroom Highrise apartment, fully airconditioned, bar stocked with booze, three door refrigerators overflowing with food and you run short of storage space for stupid shopping you cannot stop. You have two part time maids, one full time maid and a well-trained cook. ‘arey meri beti ne to pani ka glass bhi nahi uthaya’ this is your oomph factor. And you are proud to say it in your kitty-shitty parties. You get a pizza delivered in ten minutes- now no more. You live like a king and still you crib which is freedom of speech and your birth right.
“Bad habits are like comfort zones; easier to get into, but harder to get out of.” — Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha
Do you know how much you pay these servants aka slaves of yours? For your driver you pay 21000/- Rs a month for 12 hours. For a 12-hour house maid aka bai you pay no more than 15,000/ or 18k- a month.
And have you ever seen where and how they live? In shanty chawl 8 people staying in one room.
Values and etiquettes
How do you expect any great responsibility towards, society at large? This kind of salary, no job security, no dignity of labour, generally being looked down upon, in ‘your majesties service’ all the time packed like sardines in a room with just a fan and water in the tap for 6 hours a day. You expect them to keep their surroundings clean, do not spit on the road and piss on your compound wall, throw litter on the side walk. Lo and behold, you have guys coming out of a Jaguar or an Audi or seven series BMW using a 1.5 lac I-phone, parking their car on the road side and peeing away to glory in broad day light. Kya karen control he nahi hota.
“A comfort zone is a beautiful place – but nothing ever grows there.”
Not only that you would see a guy coming out of a car costing 70 lacs halting on a bridge and throwing litter in the river or a water stream below. If such rich and supposedly educated behave like this the mass population living in such drudgery will be entitled do as much or even more.
Approximately 50-60% of Mumbai’s population, exceeding 11 million people, lives in slums, with the city itself having a high population density. The entire United Kingdom’s- four countries, population is approximately 70 million.
The ill-famous Dharavi slum alone hosts an estimated 800,000 to over 1 million residents in just 2.1 square kilometres. Overall, despite a slight decrease in total slum area, they remain home to the majority of the city’s population. They serve the Indian Rajas and Ranis.
“you cannot blame Swatchch Bharat Abhiyan started by PM Modi” Sarkar ne kya kiya? Easy to ask but ask tumne kya kiya. Here a PM had to tell us ‘get your house in order’.
Even if you punch your horn on the car five times less in a day- you are helping the nation. Hold your pee don’t pee on the road.
You are living like a king
The western world works in the respective professional space and do a back breaking house hold chores too. The overall work load is more than the middle class living in India- so take heart.
On an average a white man/woman living in the west works:-
Average hours: On average, UK adults spend roughly 4–5 hours per week on cleaning.
Total “life admin” hours: When including cooking, cleaning, and laundry, this figure often rises to over 15 hours a week.
Boils down to 20 hours a week or 8 hours on Weekends (2 days) and 4 to 5 hours one hour a day on working day.
Indian Maharajas do nothing as they have people to do their work.
Even if you have a dish washer you need to move your ar*se to put the dirty utensils in and take them out.
‘People who exploit others come to spend an enormous amount of energy wondering about and justifying that exploitation.’ — Mary Beard
