By Mekhala Kulkarni
Sometimes we overlook a few sensitive things which actually contribute in a big way to the society. Have you ever thought about a garbage cleaner or janitor? We always behave in an unpleasant way towards them and never bother to get to know what happens in their thoughts. We happened to meet this lady from BBMP and her feelings will only crunch your heart putting you to shame.
Here is what she had got to say –
I am in the most thankless job. I work all day and not one soul thanks me for what I do.
‘where do you work?’
I am a garbage collector; I collect waste from all households first thing in the morning. I help them keep their surroundings clean. However they don’t consider my job a noble one in fact they humiliate me many a times.
‘If given a chance, what do you want to say to them?’
No job is bad, we all work towards only one thing – making our lives better. Few like us lack education hence end up working here. But we deserve respect. We clean the mess you create. On festivals people don’t even want to see us let alone wish us. That really hurts me. I have two daughters, me and my husband work really hard to put them through school. They aren’t ashamed of telling their friends about our profession, I don’t understand why these people have a problem with what we do?
I pick up everything that is on the road from piece of paper to a dead animal.
People drink and drive and kill innocent animals; they lay dead on the road till I come and pick them up. We are selfish people, we don’t allow fellow human beings to live in peace forget about animals.
Once a stray littered in one locality. The residents kept complaining about the puppies roaming around the building. So I adopted all of them, including the mother. Whatever I cook, I share with them. They are growing healthy. They accompany my children to school every day and bring them back. It’s like I have bodyguards for them. It feels nice to be good, I know the feeling of being neglected and ignored.
