New spanking clean railways

It seemed normal enough when the boy came with a broom, pan and cart to take away the dry waste from the road that goes right through the Howrah station for cars to come in and park near to the platforms. As he cheerfully went about his task the road after him became spotlessly clean. It was the same with the duo who picked up the litter from the platform itself. For good measure, there was a woman before the bank of taps dispensing drinking water, swabbing up the water splashed by passengers filling their bottles and cans, so that the platform did not get muddy.
 
Then when another trolley went down the rail track (a train had just left and another yet to come in) creating a racket, I began to sense that something had changed. One person had a growling contraption that directed a blast of compressed air at every bit of litter that lay on the tracks, dislodging and throwing them up for another to gather it all in a cart riding the tracks.
 
By the time this team had moved forward, the tracks, which become littered with waste at the Indian railway stations, non-human and human (the most ignored sign at the Indian Railways is in train toilets, saying don’t use toilet when train is at the station), every time a passenger train stops at a station and moves on, had become spotlessly clean.
 
What confirmed the fact that there had been a regime change on the railways was what occurred next. A man on a battery driven motorised cart, buzzing like a bee, wove patterns on the platform as he mechanically swabbed the platform, which had just been swept, shining clean. And for good measure, every 10 metres or so, there were shiny stainless steel bins on the platform with black bin liners for use by those odd people who were careful not to litter the platform.
 
It goes without saying that this was no ordinary platform at no ordinary station. It was the VIP platform of Kolkata’s Howrah station where trains like the Rajdhani come in and leave and where I had a ringside view of the whole sequence as the wife and I waited for the train. Certainly this was not the norm. Even the other big railway station in Kolkata, Sealdah, has a more modest cleaning regime. But overall railway stations across the country are today a lot cleaner than they were a few years ago.
 
But incredibly, what has not changed is the habits of the humans. Even as we waited and saw the cleaning up cycle take place, the odd person here and there dropped something on the platform or the road utterly oblivious of the fact that the places were being cleaned right before their noses.
 
It is the same with Kolkata’s roads, which most often look dirty, littered as they are with all things imaginable. I am almost ready to give up trying to ensure that the bit of pavement right opposite where I have my early morning glass of tea remains clean — a mission which I took up when it was nicely done up and paved with bright tiles not so long ago.
 
First it was the electricity distributor, which dug up the pavement to lay some fresh cabling. As is customary, the firm must have passed on to the municipal corporation the cost of relaying the pavement surface. But the corporation is yet to act and the rubble collects litter like a magnet.
 
As if this was not bad enough, a house behind the tea stall is being demolished and the workmen have deposited a half broken commode on the pavement right where the electricity workmen had made their mess. So even as I sip some great tea and listen to the gossip at the grassroots, I have no option but to admire the black humour of providence, which has ensured that I begin my day by contemplating a broken commode.
 
Though most streets in the city are usually unkempt if not downright dirty, what is only realised by early morning walkers is that virtually every city street is carefully swept clean and the litter carted away by the conservancy staff every morning. They have an air about them as they go about their work. Should you have parked your car or bike by the roadside and got in the way of their cleaning up, you are firmly, even gruffly, asked to move on. For that one moment in the day the lowly safai karamchari gives orders to all, both the high and low. Then within hours of the sweeping the streets begin to look filthy.
 
This is true of virtually all urban areas in the country. And the cure is incredibly simple. The municipal people have to put garbage bins by the roads at small intervals and we, the people, have to use them. A law will not work (likely such laws already exist); a social movement will. I wish there were more like the software engineer in Bengaluru long ago (he became a big shot in time) who would be considered a bit nutty by his neighbours because every so often he would start picking up litter on the road before his house and consign it to where it belonged.

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