Date: July 2004

Learning as a kid is very different from learning as an adult. As a child, learning is not just limited to school, it goes round the clock 24/7. The curiosity to know stuff is enlightening. Why this? Why that? and it never stops and most importantly it happens even when people don’t expect them to learn. This reminds me of an incidence when I was a child. I was waiting for the train to arrive at Varanasi Railway station. It was a high time when Municipality decided that a cleanliness drive was important. So they came up with a catchphrase “Clean Kashi, Green Kashi” and a few dustbins in selected areas. Back then the sight of the railway tracks was appalling and it looked as if each track needed a sewage treatment plant of its own. Amid all the chaos, I saw a foreigner who I assumed must have been from America(Not North.. Not South.. Just America). He was eating cookies from a packet, and the inevitable happened, It ended. Now it was time to toss the wrapper off on the ground. But he didn’t. He scanned his eyes for something. He saw heaps of garbage at three places near him and the railway track, the primary purpose of which was to collect garbage and human excreta. He sighed at the condition and then kept the wrapper in his back pocket.
But why? The Byomkesh Bakshi inside me had already deduced that there were no figurine or tattoos with the wrapper(The advertisement were helpful). And then it hit me, he refused to litter. He kept the garbage safely in order to discard it later when he finds a dustbin (IF he finds a dustbin). Respect emanated from my heart and I learned something that is hard to forget. Efforts of an Individual matter, because if nothing, maybe a kid is watching.