TRASH TALK

The 1990’s are best remembered for terrible fashion choices, rise of plastic and for me, “keep your city clean and green,” signs on public lavatories. My love for rhyming words began then. I first saw them in the city of Bangalore, which whether clean or not, was certainly green. Other cities started to adapt the lines and soon most public urinals bore these words in cheery green. Anybody else familiar with this picture, who can almost smell the bleaching powder strewn generously on roads, around dirty toilets and dustbins; is for sure a 90’s kid from India.

When technology advanced, the open circular concrete dustbins were replaced with huge green plastic/metal bins with wheels. Overnight the garbage collectors became actor-esque especially when they came in the truck and hooked the bin over so that the trash could transcend on its head. The subsequent days saw folks stop to gaze. I also know of grandmothers that hitched their picky toddlers up on their waists to show them this spectacle and push a few more mouthfuls of food.

Putting a whole continent between me and the homeland hasn’t changed my outlook. For the first two years of motherhood, I did the same thing. Ira had her breakfast at 8.30 AM when the truck came to clear plastic, lunch at 11.45 AM courtesy the truck collecting general waste. My waist was the baby seat. Cutlery? Where do you think the word ‘handy’ came from?

It helps that waste is segregated so I could plan mealtimes around garbage removal. If I were to do the same in India, my child might have had a single meal a day, sometimes even none! I suppose the politicians of some nations plan for their countrymen and leave cows to the countryside.

Thanks to the underground storage of garbage, our neighbors don’t know what brand of coffee we use, or when we indulged in pizzas. There are two metal dwarfs opposite my house that gobble plastic and metal waste. Until recently, opening them was like opening a treasure cave. I had to swipe my personal garbage card and mouth ‘open sesame’ while praying for it to open. Without the card, my backyard would have become a dump yard and so, I put it safely in my wallet, along with the debit card.

I realized that people are pretty much similar around the world, whether it is Netherlands or Nagpur. Those who lost the magic key, simply dumped the black treasure around the dustbins, inviting the neighborhood cats and sea gulls for a feast. After trying and failing to track these model citizens from their leftovers, the local municipality unlocked the dustbins to everyone. People love throwing challenges at governments. The card problem was resolved but then I encountered another one while trying to dump paper cartons, thanks to amazon and Dominoes. The tower meant to dump paper and cardboard was stuffed to the brim with several boxes jostling for space. It bulged almost like a pregnant woman in her final trimester. So, I did what an esteemed citizen would do. I patiently tore my junk into smaller pieces and deposited them in several dustbins on the way back home.

Purchasing and moving into a house has opened my eyes to several other types of waste. Wooden floors, ceramic chamber pots, metal pipes and taps, furniture whose value increases in the negative scale… all these when thrown in India have takers. In fact, I can recollect a handyman requesting a well-loved rocking chair, even before we wanted to throw it. Once I saw someone plant roses in toilet pots! And the rest somehow find their way into second-hand hardware stores.

While Indians come from a culture of spontaneity, Netherlands puts its trust in the concept of appointments. Sick? Make an appointment with the doc. Need the plumber to fix your flush? Take his appointment. Want to hang out with a friend? Propose an appointment. Want to get rid of unshapely rubbish? Yes, you guessed it right. Make an appointment with the garbage company.

In the past month, we have made so many appointments with them, that our conversations with the workers are almost on first-name basis. But, these are some virtuous people I know because they keep promises. Rain or shine, they turn up on the day of the appointment and single-handedly remove the rubbish with some high tech machines; provided you have placed your rubbish in the right place at the correct angle and have covered it properly with the right shade of bin bag. Perhaps mechanizing a ’menial’ job makes all the difference. The workers are well protected and needn’t delve through piles of filth and so can do their jobs with less disgust and more efficacy. Ira’s mealtimes don’t depend on garbage trucks anymore, just the same both of us are still enamoured by them. Especially the ones that come in autumn, scooping all the fallen leaves and pulverizing them even while transporting. That is when I can make her eat Brussel sprouts!

This particular post has been written in honour of garbage week that we are celebrating. It means through the whole of this week, we have various appointments to clear our stash of floorboards, mangy furniture, rusted fireplace and other unmentionables. Tomorrow is the last of them. Perhaps a truck with a giant magnet will remove the metal waste. And then, we will have more space to hoard unnecessary things. What fun!