[Translation: Their job is to keep the environment, including the city streets, clean]
Sanitation (n.): Conditions relating to public health and hygiene.
[Translation: Sanitation refers to the act of keeping the environment/surroundings clean]
That’s the general definition of these terms.
General, not Indian. India being India, of course we have our own versions.
Sanitation workers in India: People who can be spotted on the city streets in the morning hours with a broom in hand, engaged in the activity of displacement of dust.
Sanitation in India: Displacement of dust.
Displacement of dust.
Yes.
What else would you call the act of a person sweeping a street with a broom, only to cause a balloon of dust to rise up in the air, be carried by the wind in its prevailing direction, with some of it entering into people’s lungs via the doorway of their nostrils, while the rest settles elsewhere on the same street.
I call this Displacement of dust. Re-positioning the dust particles from point A to points B, C, and D. C and D being the two lungs of a passer-by.
That’s what our street sweepers in India do. Sweep the streets, yes. But not to remove dust. Not to sweep away the dust. But to sweep the dust to some other part of the street. And then to go that part of the street and sweep it back to where it originally resided.
At times, two of them can be seen playing at this game together. You send your dust my way, I’ll send mine yours. Let’s see who wins.
Day in and day out. And get paid for this.
And cause much chagrin to the morning crowd while at it.
Their job profiles must read something like this:
Occupation: Street sweeper
Expectations:
- Should be skilled in effecting aggressive movements of a Displacer (yes, I created that word. I do that) so as to cause fine particles of organic matter to sail into the atmosphere and come to rest at an alternate location in the vicinity of their original place of operation.
- No such particle alluded to above should remain in situ.
- The maneuvers of the Displacer should be in such a way so as to cause the particles to float in the general direction where most of them can be transported inside the olfactory organs of unsuspecting victims.
- Failure to do the above shall lead to the punishment as outlined in Annexure A.
Annexure A: Punishment
The guilty shall have to sweep the same street continuously till it is swept clean of all dust present on it.
(Author’s Note) Which, if not realised by readers yet, is impossible to achieve due to the axiom of Displacement of dust.
And we call them cleanliness workers. How ironical.
Or, genius perhaps.
For they do clean the streets. Clean them by shooting the dust up into the air, so that they can be gathered by the faces, clothes, and lungs of the people around, and carried elsewhere with them.
Genius, I reckon.
What do you think?
Let me know in the comments below.
