Flush

I don't remember the year but it has to be in the last century. I was in secondary school and we used to get mid-day at home. One Sunday (i remember this because we used to go to tuition classes on Sundays), the edition that reached my doorstep was fatter than usual. Turns out it was an anniversary special and one section featured people who make Mumbai Mumbai. I vividly remember a picture showing a sewage cleaner peeking out of the manhole right into the camera. The headline of the piece read something to the effect of “What if that thing bothering your nape is somebody's sh*t?” The article was basically about the thankless job that people do to make the city livable. It included traffic cops, the so-called scavengers, labourers and rag-pickers, among others. It is easy to understand why we do what we do for a living. There are bills to pay and security to hold on to. However, it'd be insane to overlook the overwhelming truths of the world we've created for ourselves and more worringly, for our grandkids. To make matters worse, our generation is high on partying but not on cleaning up later. No wonder there is nobody out there to explain why the burden of cleaning up the mess falls squarely on an underprivileged's neck.