Your Country Needs You!

My country! In thy day of glory past

A beauteous halo circled round thy brow,

And worshipped as a deity thou wast.

Where is that glory, where that reverence now?

The above lines are from the poem, To India My Native Land, by Derozio. It was a part of our ICSE course. At that time, it was just a poem like many others, that had to be mugged up. Last weekend these very words came back to me. This poem was written in the 19^th century. Times have changed since then, two world wars have been fought, India has attained freedom and the British Empire has gone, Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity has completely changed the Physics that we knew, China has become a global powerhouse, South Africa is free from apartheid and USA has a black President. So much has happened, but our country India has still not recovered its lost glory.

This year, our Prime Minister announced the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan to commemorate Gandhi Jayanti. At KGP, we too were part of this Cleanliness Drive. We were given gloves and waste bags. Our job was simple, pick up rubbish thrown on roadsides, and collect them in the waste bags. Many groups were made, each was assigned a different area to clean. I was in a group of 4 and it took us two hours to clean up a small area in front of a dhaba. Two hours to clean up a mess ( that too we cleaned less than half the mess ) which wouldn't have been there if only people through the waste in a dustbin!

Our Cleanliness Drive

All this made me realise how little we do for our country. I cleaned up a small area, ( that too only 50% of the area allotted ) for just one day. The place is probably back to its normal dirty state by now. How can we Indians (me included) be so irresponsible? 

I've been thinking about a solution, small simple steps all of us can take, that will improve our society. These are the ideas I came up with:

1. Keep an extra polythene bag in your car. Most of us wouldn't mind throwing waste in a dustbin instead of the street, if only we could find one! So isn't it better if we carry our own dustbin? Collect everything in the car and then throw it all in a dustbin.
2. Don't keep the geyser on, all the time, switch off the television completely, use hibernate instead of standby on our laptops switch off mobile chargers when not in use ( It consumes power even when there is no phone connected ) and any other method you can think of to save electricity.
3. Don't spit paan on walls and roads, in fact why do people chew so much of it in the first place? 
4. Don't give bribes, don't pay extra for things. I know everyone is doing it, but if your attitude is that one person can't make a difference, then you will never do any good. Be the change you want to see. Someone's got to start.
5. Don't ride triple ( or even more than that :-P ) on a two wheeler. Wear a helmet even if it's hot, who knows, you might inspire someone else to start wearing a helmet! Also don't travel in over-loaded cars, auto-rickshaws or buses.
6. Spread this message. Spreading awareness and asking others to join in is the best thing you can do.

Do you have any other suggestions everyone can follow easily? Do comment them. I would love to know your ideas.