Calcutta CleanUp Campaign Day 1

Hi guys!

A small start has been made, in the right direction, for what we refer to as, the Calcuta CleanUp Campaign, last Saturday the 16th May, ’09 – the day of the election results.

Greatly inspired by Mudar Patherya’s Calcutta Sparkling in the Southern parts of the city, we thought why not partner and move ahead in making our city a better place to live in.

We went and bought a couple of pliers, a few cutters and St. Joseph’s, our Alma Mater, provided ladders and the rest. We met in front of The Statesman office on Central Avenue at 6 am and after an initial boost of lovely sandesh and a few biscuits started heading to our target – the Chandni Chowk Street (yea, just like Delhi). Upon reaching the street we discovered how badly it was littered with poll graffiti, banners, flags and what have you, of the two major political parties, Trinamool and CPM. After an initial half an hour of hesitation, and led on and encouraged by our brother Mudar we gave our all for the next couple of hours in cleaning the street of all sorts of trash.

Not only did we remove all the flags, banners and temporary hoardings (which seemed quite permanent) but we also got rid of illegally placed advertisements. posters stuck on walls, etc. (Though I must admit here that we left a poster of the movie Bandidas untouched, as it starred Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz – Sorry guys, but there’s only so much that a man can do. 😉

Students in school uniforms – that too, white – and funky red-t-shirt-flashing-Rehan and car-driving-Mudar, all getting down and dirty to clean someone else’s mess up, was quite a sight for the locality. Though we’d gone with the mental preparedness to face some kind of a resistance, we were shocked to see people come out and help us with ladders and knives whenever required. One local flashed a smile and muttered – “thank you bhai”. That was the high point of the day for me – good work does get appreciated.

I guess now, a movement has started.

No more shall we sit on our laurels and complain that nothing happens.

No longer shall we complain that the establishments that be don’t do their job.

No longer shall we expect everything out of everyone and nothing out of oneself.

Thank you Mudar for showing us the way.

Thank you guys for helping build the team of change.

Thank you Calcutta for waking us up.

List of attendees:

1. Alankar Das – vomi123est@gmail.com – 98364 70907

2. Diptarshi Sen – dixn95@yahoo.co.in – 99033 17182

3. Joy Ghosh – joyiscool2008@gmail.com – 98311 88456

4. Sourodepp Biswas – sourodeep.biswas@rediffmail.com – 94333 38947

5. Rohan Mookherji – rohanix07@yahoo.co.in – 94329 14206

6. Avijit Mukherji – jit_avijit@yahoo.com – 98369 47689

7. Dipro Basu – diprobasu@gmail.com – 98310 46413

8. Prithvi Arora – prithvi.arora@yahoo.co.in – 98365 80474

9. Mohojit Dutt – aryan.bullet.dutt@gmail.com – 98365 39623

10. Yusuf – 9831212407

11. Zainab – zestfulzainab@gmail.com – 9883290072

12. Ved Agarwal – emailved@gmail.com

13. Tabrez – tabdeep@sify.com – 98318 22280

besides which we had

Mudar, Manjit, Pritish, Sneha, and me who can all be contacted on explore@calcuttawalks.com.

For pictures of the day, have a look at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=258875&id=545750380&l=074809b662

Next Saturday’s agenda – rid Dalhousie Square of banners and adverts nailed to trees and tied to poles. Meeting point 6am outside the Currency building. (That’s the problem with working with Calcutta Walks – they will make sure you learn more about the heritage buildings of the city 🙂

Looking forward to another fun CleanUp day.

Warm regards.

—

Explorer Ifte

+91.9830184030