Attitude of Littering

The other day, on my journey back home from college I was sitting in the first class compartment of central railways, Mumbai. The evening had just started and all the white collar dudes were on board. Most of them had that blank and dull look on their face.The train left Dadar station and was pretty much empty by the usual standards. I had managed to get a window seat.( yay! )

The dude sitting opposite me had a wafer packet with him and was eating them with making noticeable disturbances to the surroundings. The entire compartment was done giving him looks which said “Dude! Behave!” . Well, he was least bothered, a perfectly normal behavior, and continued enjoying his food. The train took speed and reached Kurla. Many dudes were exchanged and a whole new set joined. Most of them were in their early thirties.

By the time, my old friend had almost finished his wafer packet and was trying to get the last bits of wafer out of the packet. I started guessing what his next action would be. First I thought he’d just put the wrapper in the bag and help in keeping Aamchi Mumbai clean. But nope. Sadly he put his hand out of the window and let the wrapper out.

I got upset and made a loud disappointing noise “Pchhhh”.

He got surprised and thought he’d stepped on my feet. He asked me,” What happened? “

I asked him “why did you do that?”

He had no idea what I was talking about until I clarified. This disturbed me further.

A dude of my age, a young Mumbai-kar, had no notion about his own actions of “Littering”. The Attitude of Littering was the culprit.

I asked him why did he throw the wrapper outside.

His explanations or rather useless argument was “Oh then what am I suppose to do? There’s no dustbin around!”

“Oh really? So that means you should throw the wrapper out of the window, is it?” I asked.

“Well, yes! That’s what everybody does! Nobody cares! What’s going to happen even if I don’t throw the wrapper out? Somebody else will!”

“Well, then why do you always want to be that somebody??”

May be he realized he wasn’t right and stopped arguing. I asked him not to do the same mistake again.

The Attitude of Littering does not help us in any ways.It’s the attitude that’s creating problems not the lack facilities such as not finding a dustbin nearby.I started noticing many people after that.People who call themselves professionals-travel in 1^st class compartments and still do not have the simple sense of responsibility of keeping the city clean.

I tried talking with everyone of them and many of them realized their mistake. I can proudly say that I do my part by not littering anywhere. There are one lakh solutions if you really don’t want to litter.

I feel that it’s on us, the gen-next, to change this attitude and keep our city clean!

Go Mumbai!