When I say an average Indian, it includes most of the us! Not only the common people, who don’t have major aspirations or ambitions, living only for roti, kapda aur makan but also those who have more than they deserve. Who are living only for their Instagram. Here average isn’t referred to the status one holds in society or how much money he makes. Here average is referred to the mental status of most of us.
1. You can’t teach them using resources in a sustainable manner
Reading this category you might think that, “oh, I don’t fall in this. I am a responsible person”or “I am a true Shaktiman fan, and do obey all lessons that he taught”, but please, honestly tell me, while your way from school/work to home how many leaking taps you saw and tried to close or report about it. Since you are in India, you will find many such taps but you definitely can’t stop at every nukkad for this Nobel cause. But my point is that even if you do it once, or at-least spread the word, it will make a huge difference. Even though I, myself miserably failed teaching the importance of resources to my maid, but this never made me stop. Few days later when I found her daughter in my “Sarva Shiksha” class, where I taught different subjects to students as a volunteer, I realized that my hard-work didn’t go in vain. Not to mother, but I was able to teach her daughter the same lesson. Later when her mother told me about her daughter saving water and food, I really felt good!
2. You can’t teach them healthy eating–
The perk of being an Indian is that not only you get awesome food but also different types of food. And it’s a huge advantage,you see. After all, it was the masale which invited 200 years of slavery. Anyways, today, our mothers and grandmothers have learned the lesson that “use it all, before someone else claims on it”. And they use us as for safekeeping! They don’t have to do anything with proper diet and health. For them the food is healthy till it “has love”, which in Indian homes mean “homemade food”. Feeding on the fat loaded, spicy meals,six times a day does no harm but a burger is a poisonous! And if she is a non-vegetarian then, the fruits and vegetables are not more than grassto her!
3. You can’t teach them to follow rules
Rules!! You must have read that “rules are mead to be broken” and I am sure it must have come from a person with desi mindset. Honestly, as soon as we get some rules, we want to break them. It’s like, as soon as we get bubble wrap, we want to burst all the bubbles. If we are bound by the rules, we feel our very freedom is snatched away from us. And we also aren’t afraid of facing the later consequences. Call it being a daredevil or stupid, whatever you want, but that’s how our brains work!
4. You can’t teach them to pee in toilets-
Well, I don’t know whom to be blamed for this, the management for not providing and maintaining hygienic public toilets or the people, who are therefore forced to go on roads because they don’t have any alternative or they are too poor to build a proper washroom. But it is definitely embarrassing and obviously unhygienic, shopping vegetables next to someone who is peeing(my latest experience). I really find public urination the most disgusting and shameful action! Though in big cities, public urination laws are being followed in india, but the performance in small cities is dissapointing.
5. You can’t teach Indian mothers to throw away old stuffs-
Be it the bundles of old newspapers, sweet box, chocolate boxes, old dresses, which doesn’t fits to the youngest sibling, nothing can be taken away from them.They protect them like their cubs! They call it souvenir, memory or way of earning an extra penny (through kabadiwala). But, honestly, I love this habit of theirs. Though in greed of that extra buck only, something is being recycled. But also,it’s hard to convince them to donate the stuffs like old clothes, at least for my mum it is a hard task! And don’t ask why because in India you can question the government but not mum. And never even dare to question them!
Vidisha 