One of the most pleasant aspects of a visit to Sri Lanka is the cleanliness that hits you abruptly, all over the countryside, the rural and mofussil roads, small villages and towns and in restaurants and village markets. I think I have more than a 1000 photographs of the Sri Lankan countryside, and when I keep surfing through the lot, I am amazed that every single location was excellently clean. They do not seem to be going about cleaning the place. I think, the secret is simple. They do not dirty the place, and therefore it does stay clean.
This photograph is from July 2011, on an early morning drive from the Katunayake town after exiting the airport. We did not go in to Colombo, but drove right out towards Ratnapura. We came across excellent roads, narrow but quite safe, even if the opposite traffic was fast. Nobody was running across the streets, and there was no stray cattle. I wonder how they managed that. Women were walking about, briskly, near Katunayake, or alighting from buses, to get to their workplaces. Amazingly, we saw mostly women go about to get to their work near Katunayake. We did not see groups of men walking to get anywhere.
In the smaller towns, it was the elder women and men going about doing shopping for groceries and vegetables. The younger men and women were not to be seen in the day time. With all the initiatives to get India to look and be cleaner, and to sustain those activities, I think, we could learn from Sri Lanka, and learn how to ensure that our efforts do not go in vain. The garbage must be the same, i.e., plastic bags, house waste, office garbage and whatever. It must be in the attitude, that one would not dirty their local areas and neighbourhoods.
This photograph is from July 2011, on an early morning drive from the Katunayake town after exiting the airport. We did not go in to Colombo, but drove right out towards Ratnapura. We came across excellent roads, narrow but quite safe, even if the opposite traffic was fast. Nobody was running across the streets, and there was no stray cattle. I wonder how they managed that. Women were walking about, briskly, near Katunayake, or alighting from buses, to get to their workplaces. Amazingly, we saw mostly women go about to get to their work near Katunayake. We did not see groups of men walking to get anywhere.
In the smaller towns, it was the elder women and men going about doing shopping for groceries and vegetables. The younger men and women were not to be seen in the day time. With all the initiatives to get India to look and be cleaner, and to sustain those activities, I think, we could learn from Sri Lanka, and learn how to ensure that our efforts do not go in vain. The garbage must be the same, i.e., plastic bags, house waste, office garbage and whatever. It must be in the attitude, that one would not dirty their local areas and neighbourhoods.
