Thursday, March 15, 2012

Littraman

The city reeks of garbage and filth. The lovely enticing aroma of fresh litter on the roadside greets you the minute you walk out of your house. You, being the ever responsible Indian civilian, do your bit for the nation by dropping your chocolate wrapper next to it, hoping that a small Hurricane Thane will come gently lift it off the road and into the pile of garbage which in turn, is not in the dustbin, but all around it.

Indians misunderstood the 'Go Green' commercials on television. They thought the commercials were asking all the green in the world to go away. Like 'Go Green, go!'. So they decided to do their bit by dumping as much plastic as they could around all the trees in the country so all the green will go away. Some Indians decided to redeem themselves for dumping all that plastic, by peeing on the same tree.

Brahmins are the worst of this lot. They will have a massive Homam (a religious function) to ward off all evil from their son who has just returned from the United States, by burning half a kilogram of wood bang in the middle of their living room, nearly suffocate themselves but still not open any door or window lest Goddess Lakshmi will leave the premises, and then host a sumptuous lunch on Banana leaves for the entire neighborhood. Then the lady of the house Mrs.Pankajam will dutifully take the degradable Banana leaves, drop it into a non-degradable plastic cover, and fling it super-maami style out of their window right unto their own courtyard. The banana leaves will stay rotting right inside the plastic cover which will happily sit there for a year, until the maama of the house Justice Rajagopalachari will write a letter to the Adyar Times saying that 'people' are littering outside his house and that the 'concerned authorities' have to take immediate action.

Then, there are these photographers. They will walk to the beach, pluck out their DSLR and take a lovely close up photo of the starfish which had choked to death inside a plastic cover and tag it with 'Death of a star' or some ridiculous tagline like that and garner a thousand likes and fifty 'Awww's but the plastic cover will still stay there, lurking for its next innocent victim.

There is nobody to save Mother Nature. Actually, it is an insult to call her Mother Nature. For the treatment she is getting, you can rightfully call her 'Mothered Nature'. So, Isn't there one person who can right all this wrong, clean all the filth and wipe out all garbage? Yes, there is. There is Littraman.

Littraman spares nobody. If you're responsible for some litter on the road, you better be a pregnant cat. If you're not, then you're a pussy. And Littraman will hunt you down and ask you to pick it up. If you're throwing plastic into the river, Littraman will cut your food for a day. If you pee on a transformer, Littraman will make you do beach cleanup campaigns for a month. So is Littraman a bird? Is he a plane? Nah! He's that wretched face you saw in the mirror last night. His costume is that torn pair of shorts you wore to bed. He is in every one of you. Wake him up. We display enough plastic in our smiles. Let's not display some on the road as well.

Yours,
Littraman.