"CLEANLINESS"........what the hell is that????

The other day, I saw a status update of a friend on the popular social site Facebook which said:

"kicked the f***in shit out of a guy who refused to bin his plastic bottle. his argument was the railways have employed people for this."

Being someone who moves around in Mumbai city regularly, I was not surprised by my friend's experience. But the fact, that his good intention was resisted upon by this very “educated urban young thing”, and that my friend had to hit him to put across the point, was appalling to say the least.

Made me think…….

Where are we moving towards as a nation? What about the values we learned as children?

Move about the city and I bet one can ever come back without witnessing someone either spitting on the streets, or urinating in open. Throwing garbage and other debris on the streets seems like one of the fundamental right envisaged by our forefathers. Young and old, rich and poor alike are united in one aspect i.e. dirtying this lovely city.

“That it is the job of the Municipality”, “ We pay our taxes yaar”, “ Government must have some work” are some of the dialogues one can hear, when reminded about maintaining cleanliness of the public place. It’s a sad commentary on the collective psyche of a nation.

And this phenomenon is not just restricted to the big cities like Mumbai or Delhi. It is as rampant in rural India as it is in urban India. At times, I am tempted to call this phenomenon as “INDIANNESS”

If one thinks that it is a class/gender issue. Think again. Rich or Poor, men or women, educated or the illiterate, all are united in soiling the motherland. And think of it, we take pride in calling our country BHARAT MATA…meaning MOTHER INDIA and do not think twice when spitting on the Mother’s face. Pathetic!!!!

It seems the subjects of Community Living and EVS is for gaining that extra mark in the exams, nothing more. Frankly, I do not see any change in public attitude in this regards for years to come. The only hope, which remains is that the young children of today be responsible citizens of tomorrow…….

But then we were children once, and we were also thought
“CLEANLINESS IS NEXT TO GODLINESS”…………

Impressive BIG WORDS

This is an article I had read many years ago, in the newspaper named ‘The Hindu’. The precise date of publishing was 20 Sep 1994. I liked it so much that time that I kept a cutting of the same. Now when I read this again today, I was prompted to blog it because it is as relevant today, as it was then. This is the exact adaptation and nothing is my contribution.

“There is a tendency among our people to use big words and roundabout expressions.”

“It is impressive to use big words.”

“It is impressive to the person who uses big words but not to the listener or reader. Lionel Trilling, a great critic, once said: We are fast loosing the ability to say clearly and simply what we want to say. A time will come when people will be unable to say: ‘They fell in love and married’. They would say: ‘Their libidinal impulses being reciprocal, they activated their individual erotic drives and integrated them within the same frame of reference.’

“I like it. It is impressive”.

“it is impressively unintelligible. You will have to read the sentence several times to understand what it means. Some are addicted to this kind of language. Alexander Haig, a former U.S. Secretary of State, apparently was much addicted to it. The story goes that one of Haig’s aides asked him for a pay increase, Haig could not say ‘no’. Instead he replied: ‘Because of the fluctuational predisposition of you position’s productive capacity as juxtaposed to Government standards, it would be momentarily injudicious to advocate an increment. ‘ The perplexed aide replied: ‘I don’t get it.’ Mr. Haig replied: ‘That’s right’. When someone was asked to give advice on how to be a successful public speaker, he said: “Well, in promulgating your esoteric cogitations and articulating superficial, sentimental and psychological observations, beware of platitudinous ponderosity. Let your extemporaneous decantations and unpremeditated expatiations have intelligibility and veracious veracity without rodomontade and thrasonical bombast. Sedulously avoid all polysyllabic profundity, pusillanimous vacuity, pestiferous profanity and similar transgressions.’ “

“Do you understand what is said?”

“No. It is impressive, though. What does it mean?”

“It means speak simply, naturally and do not use big words.”