[Write Up-CCC3-Nandan Agarwal-Pallavakkam South Beach]
I was excited for this day as I was going to be a part of “Do the talk” event. I call it “Do the talk” because it is easy to discuss, point out fingers or debate on pollution, corruption ,literacy etc but very difficult to step into the field and fight for the cause and this was one of the opportunity to “Do It”. I was assigned the Pallavakkam South Beach stretch and as the phrase goes “Leadership by Example” ,my assigned lead Sankar was the first person to reach the beach. I reached there and Sankar discussed the action plan and shared with me his thoughts of how we are going to achieve our target. Soon many volunteers started coming in large groups and a group induction was given. Luckily by the time we started the cleaning, the sky was clear and visible. Each one was given hand gloves and a empty garbage bag. Garbage bags were of two colors. Pink for non degradable and Green for degradable waste. One thing which all of us saw was, there was hardly any degradable garbage when compared to non degradable garbage. So the volunteers who were given the green bags to pick up the degradable garbage, after failing to find much, started to fill their bags with non degradable. The majority of the garbage picked up was Water Packets, Snack Packets, Cigarette boxes, Polythene bags and of course mouth refreshments such as pan masala, gutka etc. I even found soap covers, shampoo sachets, broken left over footwear and lot of alcohol bottles. It was hardly 30 minutes since I started the task, I could feel not only the physical pain of bending and picking up but also the dirty smell from the litter which had been lying there for days. This pain made me realize and swear that I should never dirty any public place. I being a non-chennaite know how important a place like Beach is, as I don’t have such a place to enjoy in my home town.
Along with the volunteers of CTC, students of Sunshine Academy were part of the team to clean up the Pallavakkam beach. The time to time instructions and scoldings which few mischievous kids got, took me back to my school days. I am still wondering, so many things have changed in the world but why not the tone and the content of the scoldings given by parents and teachers. No offence meant. Thanks to my school teachers that if not for them(and their scoldings) I would not be what I am today.
Apart from the dedication of the school children, their teachers ,CTC volunteers, photographers and the Leads, it was amazing to see the Councilor of Pallavakkam ,spending his entire time with us right from the beginning to the end of the event. He was kind enough for arranging drinking water, tea, coffee and energy drink for all of us. Adding to that, he left only after all the garbage bags were loaded in the cooperation truck. It was very motivating to see, a group of people who exercise in that beach daily, to come to us to appreciate and applaud to the work which we were doing.
I enjoyed working as a team. One thing which was challenging for us was, we found a dump of cloths buried dip in the sand which was not less than 20 kilos and man, it took 6 of us more than half an hour to remove it. We tried all methods, pulled it from all directions, tried to dig out sand and what not. Finally we were able to take it out. But that was not over. Loading it in to the garbage bag and carrying it to the road was also difficult. Another place were excellent team work was exhibited was, moving the garbage bags from one end to the other and the human chain concept was implement. It was not only effective but also enjoyable.
I whole heartedly feel that the purpose of the clean up drive was fulfilled, as I would never again make the mistake of littering around and it took me down to the memory lane and also I met lot of like minded people ,new friends as well as friends from previous treks.
Regards,
Nandan Agarwal
Mob No:98434 22731
www.facebook.com\nandanagl
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