There is a stretch of the Ravi that used to break my heart — plastic caught in the reeds, wrappers floating where children would stop to play in the shallows. It was our river, and we had let it become a dumping ground.
The main event
The swachhata drive is not a quiet morning affair. It is loud, and it is joyful, and it is full of children.
Gangs of school kids in white gloves march the banks with sacks. Youth club members drag the stubborn plastic out from between stones. Shopkeepers along the ghat have started keeping bins and refusing the plastic bag. Trucks haul away load after load of waste we sort into recyclables and refuse.
The part that matters most
What I love is that it is no longer “my” drive. It has become the drive. Schools block their own dates around it. Local businesses donate sacks, gloves and chai. Someone always brings the loudspeaker with the wrong music, and everyone always sings along anyway.
Clean today, clean tomorrow
One clean-up leaves a great photograph. But the habit — that is built in the weeks that follow. In the bin by the tea stall. In the student who tells a visitor “bhaiya, is side waste mat daalna” — don’t throw waste this side.
The river runs through our town’s history. Watching it come back clean, watching children take ownership of it — that is as close to poetry as my work gets.