Saturday, November 29, 2014

Voice, not an Echo.


True stories.
Holding on to a sticky jelly leaden wrapper. When you need a candy you need a candy. I can’t wait to get down and toss it where it belongs. Just when I'm about to disembark, I see a girl, all of 19 i guess. With a backpack resting on her shoulder, a phone potentially crushing vain candies, tosses out a empty bag of chips.
I Clearly am a fool to hold on to this dainty little wrapper with sugar syrup ruining my 500rs manicure. I have two options, I can join in the party and do a little tossing of my own or I can chose to oversee the whole episode and do my bit. But I, being ME, go for the third option. Give that so called "educated girl" a piece of my mind. When am angry, you cant hold me back. Am sure that day the entire compartment heard and heard it well, that how big a problem tosses’ are to the society.

How long can you put your feet up and play the blame game. Sure the government is doing its job. May be they are inefficient,  may be they are corrupt. But you are no super star yourself. The only problem with us Indians is that we lack a conscience. A conscienceless state where people have zero accountability. India is the way it is because of WE THE PEOPLE. Period! 

For instance, I was on a kids play date with a bunch of up class women from my sons school. While coming back home we were in a carpool with the little Miss Eclass. At a traffic light she asked her son to check out the airplane in the sky, the little 4yr old tied hard to spot one, while he was distracted she tossed a little snot filled tissue out the car window. Aghast. I gave her mean disapproving looks in the rear-view. “What?” she said, I can’t let him catch me littering, what sort of an example will I be setting. Sure I could roll my eyes and keep quite with a fear of being cut out from the coveted circle. But I, being ME, had to give her a piece of my mind. 

“Don’t you think is funny how people have double standards,” I told her. If you were in Europe, then am sure you would have shoved that booger tissue in your oh-so-expensive bag and would have waited till you spotted a trashcan. But since its India, your own country, why give a damn, right? She turned red and not cause of the layers of Mac she was wearing, but  because of the embarrassment I had just caused her. Post that confrontation, I never really got invited for play dates again. But it's not like I missed hanging’ out with consciously challenged people. 

Sometimes all people need is a little reminder. A little reminder "that you need to be the change you wish to see." Speak up for to ones who have forgotten. Speak up and speak up loud so that the next time they contemplate tossing, your face haunts them from doing it. Carry a small bag. A bag that is your on-the-go trashcan. Don't treat your Country like one!

Be a voice, not an echo.

This post was inspired by the #AbMontuBolega campaign endorsed by Strepsils. You can connect with thousands of people across platforms who come together to voice their opinion about a better India. if it bothers you, speak up, or for ever shut-up and don't complain. TO CONNECT: http://www.abmontubolega.com/, Strepsils on Facebook and Twitter.