My dustbin is dirty!

Early morning when I was fast asleep, the sweeper knocked the door.. Oh the plight of getting up and opening the door. Then staying up just to watch him sweep away small black insects from the floor, which had enjoyed the brilliance of my tube light all night. The tall half-bald yet young man, who is usually seen wearing his black and green striped t-shirt paired with black pants rolled up to his calves, emptied my dustbin. He also took away the plastic bag in it which was put there to protect my bin from getting dirty.
Phew! The room was clean, but the idea of sleeping again was out of my mind.

*Rise and Shine* Oh forget shine! Only my teeth shone for then. I went to the cook for some morning tea. Opened a pack of biscuits and headed towards my dustbin to throw the packet away. And the finicky me forgot the biscuit in search for a plastic bag for my dustbin. My cupboard, neighbor's cupboard, the kitchen, the whole house!! I called out for our hostel caretaker Mohan bhaiya. And then I was faced with the real issue. "जम्मू में प्लास्टिक नहीं होता। यहाँ बैन है " (Jammu doesn't have plastic bags. it is banned here). And that very moment my brain scanned through all my shopping ventures and I realized "अरे हाँ" (oh yes)!!
So here's a state that finally does follow the ban. I experienced this even more vividly, when on my visit to Bagh-e-Bahu (a huge garden with fountains and artificial waterfalls) I found NO PLASTIC BAG. Unlike New Delhi where you might just see more of plastic than water flowing in the waterfall or I may just call it plasticfall.
Unfortunately enough the good things about a state are seldom highlighted. Media today seems to be looking for all that's wrong about a place. Banning plastic bags is a phenomenal achievement. A large state like Delhi couldn't do it because its large, but an even larger state did it because it is responsible. Hats off to the people here.
All the people of the nation, (including myself, no preaching here) must once and for all give up the use of plastic bags. It definitely has become an important part of our lives. But just a small effort of making cloth bags or reusing newspapers as bags might just bring about the change!
Meanwhile I am looking for an alternative to protect my bin!

For those who really felt they should be the face of the change... here's a link for you. Learn how to make paper bags. :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSfusvAP1vw

Do tell me if you really made it. 

Government for the people! Really?

It was the celebration of Eid that ended with the fire of communalism.

Which religion can save them???   

Kishtwar, a town with a history of communal harmony, stood still under curfew for 12 days starting from August 9, 2013. Ironically, Eid along with Dusshehra was historically being celebrated in the common Chowgan ground, and at other times Hindu farmers offered their first harvest at the shrine of Shah Asraruddin Wali, a revered Muslim saint.

The town with a harmonious history couldn't possibly indulge in acts of pelting stones, torching houses and shops, looting etc. overnight. The escalation of a small frenzied demonstration into a massive riot seems to be a sustained move towards communal polarisation on the part of some political parties, aiming to make it in the forthcoming elections. The issue of communalism, one that the nation has experienced in 1947, was politicised. Political parties who gain from this polarisation seem to perpetrate the same. The blame game came into picture with the CM accusing the opposition of being ‘hypocrites’ when condemned for not being able to control the violence. When senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj urged the CM to look into the matter of Kishtwar, the CM’s response was quite strange, “injuries and damage has taken place on both the sides.” The reply was such even when Swaraj never mentioned anything of this sort.

Law and order collapsed, giving an opportunity to the communal elements to spread violence because of inaction of the police, for almost seven hours. Yet, the government claims to have responded right away, by summoning the Indian Army. The Army responded immediately, but the local administration took seven hours to order its deployment. Moreover, there were no arrests made for two days.

Damage has been done. To restore communal harmony that existed in Kishtwar, blame game has to stop and constructive steps to build communal harmony should be the forward march. Peace marches alone won’t help the cause of building peace, but a lot else needs to be done. Primary among these should be to immediately arrest the culprits, compensate those who have suffered losses and the proposed judicial commission’s report should be totally unbiased.

The link between the riots and forthcoming elections cannot be ignored. It’s time we wake up to the harsh realities of power, politics and anti-peace marches.