I have a dream...

In the CHS we live in there’s a kachra walla. We also have a paperwallah, a doodwalla, a bhaji walla, a jaripurana walla, a machi walli, and so on and so forth… And CHS for the unenlightened is Co-operative Housing society. Which means we spend three hours debating about wheter the water pump should be switched on at 7.00 am every morning or 7.01.
Our kachra wallas name is Sonu. His is a hereditary profession. His parents are in the same line of work. Between them they have the neighbourhood covered. Every morning he shows up at our door. Lugging a big plastic drum. Gathering everything we don’t want. From yesterdays banana peels to empty Old Monk bottles. He finishes his rounds and then hands over the days collection to his wife. Who does the sorting. Of all the dry goods. Old plastic bags in one pile. Paper in another. Bottles. Wire. Old shoes. The dead gold fish. Just kidding. The dead goldfish’s fate is inextricably linked to yesterdays banana peels and the sucked empty bones of the paya curry. There’s a market for everything. Cassettes, odd socks, the cardboard carton the new fridge came in, dead batteries, chipped glasses, both drinking and ocular.
Sonu is way ahead of the BMC with it’s Clean Mumbai campaign. He was segregating from when segregation was what Martin Luther King was fighting against. The actual collection pays him little. The recycling is what brings home the bacon. Or the aloo paratha. He now has a mobile phone. He gave me the number in case of 'Emergency'. It is an emergency when Sonu does’nt show up. And the goldfish’s mate has also died out of loneliness.
Sonu is green. In the truest sense of the word. With a rating the Exxons and the Union Carbide’s will never achieve. Even in their dreams.