More Vrindavan scenes

I decided to put these pictures in here because they represent a specific problem that immediately comes to one's attention in India, but somehow seems to be more prevalent in India. These two pictures immediately show us why it is so difficult to raise consciousness on environmental issues in India.

Just next to Jiva in Sheetal Chaya are three small bastis of Bengali rickshaw wallahs. They are very poor and I believe they are living in these private properties by the grace of the owners, who probably think it better to have them squat there until they decide to develop the land. At any rate, the grounds are walled off and fairly spacious. For poor people, they are actually quite well set up in comparison to many. They don't have access to water and have to come to Jiva for both kinds of water and you can see in the picture the containers they use.


What is painful to observe is how they have so little thought for their communal grounds. Everyone is using the central part of the property for cleaning and bathing, etc., and yet they make no effort to drain or clean it. So basically, they are living in the midst of a disease and mosquito producing swamp of their own making and are not lifting a finger to improve their surroundings.

Now this is just one case, but you could multiply it a million times in India. It is a complete absence of a sense of the common good. No politician in India can appeal to the common good. It is always communalism or vested interest. Except perhaps in cases like national defense or something. But where does the construction of a social fabric begin? Why does someone have to come from outside to say, "Friends, you are creating an environment that will produce disease. Just a small effort from all of you together could clean this up, make it nice for the children to play, maybe even make a vegetable garden or something possible"?


I feel that this is a result of the caste system, but that is practically speaking irrelevant. But if the poor cannot lift a finger to work together for their own common good, or even conceive of the problem, which seems so glaringly obvious, it staggers the imagination to see how the society as a whole will find the will to collectively deal with these problems as they manifest globally.

The thing is that education on its own is not enough. It will take generations to instill the kind of civic sense that most of us in the West take for granted.

Here is another case in point:


Along the Parikrama Marg between Mathura Road and the railway tracks is the Tuberculosis Hospital. This was built about 25-30 years ago, or at least considerably expanded at that time. The wall that surrounds the property extends for several hundred meters along the Marg.

The walls were nicely painted and hundreds of couplets in simple Hindi giving good advice about health and tips about how to recognize TB or HIV were inscribed for its entire length. Such signs, whose effectiveness is debatable, are a frequently used tactic in attempts to create public awareness of environmental and health issues. Nevertheless, to me, such well-meaning and useful advice, such as the one we see here, "If your cough persists for more than two weeks, go and get it checked by a doctor," are practically sacred in their intent and public value.

Here you can see that the original couplets have been papered over a hundred times by people advertising all manner of products, from sadhus to schools and soap. In fact, this one may be less damaged than many of the others. Did no one stop to think that the messages that benefited the population as a whole and served as permanent and constant reminders as to how their health and quality of life could be improved were more important than their own fleeting personal need for publicity?

Now of course, the battle has been lost. The messages have been destroyed and all we have left is the tattered remnants of calls to hear Bhagavata saptahas that have long been forgotten.

And here, I couldn't resist this sign pointing to Avadhuta Ashram, 200 meters.



Radhe Radhe!