I remember in my high school days, a lady named “Minu” was working as a maid in our home. Though she was very obedient, but she used to take many leaves in regular intervals. Before taking leave she was asking for money to my father and would mostly give reason that “Beta ko Doctor ke paas le jana hai“. Papa used to give her money with a question “What happened to your son? Why he is falling sick all the time?“. Her answer used to be “Pata nehin saheb, Doctor bolta hai ki infection ho gaya hai“. Once she was absent for more than a week. That was not the age of mobile phones, so we could not get any information about her. Papa decided to go her home to find out the actual cause of her absenteeism. After a little inquiry of the address of her home, we finally managed to reach there.
The first impression was horrible at Minu aunty’s homesite. The streets around the houses in that area were filled by sewage. Garbage dumped by the residents were not cleared by civic body. The whole area was lacking with basic hygiene conditions. Even we had to jump few steps while walking on the street to avoid the drain water. When we entered Minu aunty’s home we found all the four members of the home were sick. The floors of the whole house were water soaked. The inner ambiance was highly unhygienic. Now the answer of the question which Papa used to ask Minu aunty was very clear. Papa made all the arrangements to send all of them to the hospital. The photo attached here is not the actual picture of Minu aunty’s location. This photo has been collected from an article “Living Dirty in India“. I have used this photo, here in this post to give a similar picture of the Minu aunty’s village.
Then papa met the village head. He helped us in gathering the villagers and arranged a meeting. From the discussion we came to know that each family has this kind of health issue. Papa discussed the cleanliness issues with the villagers and suggested them to write a request letter to the municipality for taking the corrective action. Papa wrote the letter on behalf of the villagers and all of them signed on the letter. While coming back to home I dropped the letter into the letterbox at the post office. Minu aunty came back to work after few days and she continued serving us till papa got transferred from that place.
Just like education starts from home, Cleanliness also begins from home. A society is healthy when environment of each home is hygienic. Sanitation and hygiene are associated to very small instances which we ignore knowingly or unknowingly. The following points should be taken care to maintain sanitation in home:
1. Eat boiled food, drink boiled and filtered water
2. Wash hands and mouth properly before and after having food
3. Wear clean clothes
4. Do not dump dirty clothes in home for a long time
5. Clean the house regularly
6. Do not allow the house floors to be soaked with water
7. Facilitate proper ventilation in home so that sufficient amount of air and sun light can enter the house
8. Use proper toilet system in home
9. Use proper drainage system in home and do not allow water to be puddled around
10. Keep surrounding of home clean
It has been more than two months from the starting of the “Swachh Bharat Abhiyan : Ek Kadam Swachhata Ki Aur“. This is not only the responsibility of the PM of India to keep the country clean. It is the responsibility of all individuals of the country to dream and bring a clean India. To spread the awareness among the people NDTV has started a campaign “Banega Swachh India” with the collaboration of Dettol. It is a request to all the readers of this post to visit the Banega Swachh India site and join the campaign. You can join the campaign by participating in a contest or donating to the campaign or even spreading this message to others. As the closing line of this post I would love to say that if she is ready to take the responsibility of dreaming a Swachh Bharat then why we responsible citizen of India can’t!!
This awareness campaign has been promoted by Indiblogger. I have written two more social awareness posts “Healthy Child, Healthy Home, Healthy India” and “No Toilet, No Bride!!” promoted by Indiblogger with a vision of making a better India. Hope these posts will help in someway in the revolution of bringing a clean and healthy Bharat.