By Dishi Solanki:
Have you ever heard or seen something mentioning “Spit Here”? The answer would be a big NO. But you would have certainly read notices emphasizing “DO NOT SPIT HERE!” or something similar. Yet according to the very divergent actions of some of the extremely uncivilized Indian citizens, we tend to witness such an embarrassing act. There is no wrong time or place for Indians to spit around.
The other day I was taking immense pleasure in vrooming around in my Activa until a gauche citizen crushed all my enjoyment by spitting right in front of me. It makes me feel extremely disgusted to see someone hocking a glob of gunk out of his throat and shooting that dirt onto pavements, The very act compelled me to write this article. Pan brands are widely relished by males of our country and their mouth watered outcome is thrown on either roads or wall corners. I guess that the chewing of betel leaves and tobacco were invented for this very purpose. Irony is when I witnessed the same colorful spit beautifying the very walls and signs displaying the sentence “Do not spit here or NO SPITTING!”. People in India take full liberty of justifying freedom of action by spitting around. This is the only country that has unused, spic and span public spitting pots but spit drenched pavements.
Though not a major issue to ponder on in the midst of burning world problems, this in disguise is surely making way for some unhealthy situations. It plays a major cause of the spread of the hazardous diseases that include pneumonia, tuberculosis, swine flu, bird flu and many more dangerous infectious diseases. Throat, ear and nose infections caused by spitting are pretty common. It is really unfortunate that in our Incredible India even historical monuments have not been spared by the spitting marathon. It puts every citizen (be they civilized or uncivilized) to shame by not preserving such fathomless treasures. To make things worse most of us are not sentient that according to Indian Law, spitting at public places is strictly prohibited. But some Indians seem to think, “Laws are made to be violated.” and this very sentence is being preached honestly. But it amuses me to see the radical transformation of the same individual in a foreign land where the only answer to spitting is JAIL or heavy fine.
Movies like Lage Raho Munnabhai have shown an act of Gandhigiri on the so called spitting problem. But has that Gandhigiri created any impact on these shameless people? Or has the awareness of this problem in youth like us brought any change in the scenario? But at this juncture it’s important to mention the Foundation for Professional Governance (FPG) that has come up with a novel nationwide campaign called Spit Free India in order to get away with the indecent habits of Indians of spitting in public places. The FPG seems to be quite optimistic regarding this ambitious campaign . The FPG has planned to spread the campaign over five phases within three years. The campaign is likely to make people change their spitting habits as the ills of spitting at public places will be taken to the masses across the urban as well as the rural parts of the country.
With anticipation as the only key in hand I look forward to some brain storming ideas from the youth of my generation to tackle this menace.
The writer is a Correspondent of Youth Ki Awaaz and also the Vice President, Talent Management of AIESEC Ahmedabad.
Image source: http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.viewcustom&friendId=106341812&blogId=531401692&swapped=true