You like Delhi for the green, spacious roads, Mumbai for the supreme charm of Bollywood and beaches, and Bangalore for its laidback easy-going charm and greenery. Similarly, a lot is reserved and rightly so for the piousness of Varanasi, the ethnic charm of Jaipur and the cultural vibe one gets to experience in Kolkata, Ahmedabad, and Hyderabad, given its culinary culture and historical landscape.
Having said that, what about Indore?
Let this be asked.
Is Indore, rather the citizens of Indore and those who know, understand the city from an outsider’s perspective just content in appreciating this important city from the point of view of good food alone?
How can that ever be?
Why on earth, it must be asked, should Indore, the cleanest city in India (did you know) only be viewed from the perspective of being a city laden with foodie delights alone or being home to a culture that’s not only easy-going but one where everybody, given the relatively small size of the city, ends up knowing one another?
While every city has some unique dishes that truly charm one’s taste buds and there’s never a harm in that, can’t a city be more?
Therefore, is it time that Indore got the due it usually never gets from a wider perspective?
You may not annihilate the question therefore that can’t there be more to a city than the cliches it comes to co-habit?
It’s about time that one stepped out from the relative comfort zone of tagging Indore, an unsung city, truth be told, as being just another happy go lucky place or one where the simplest pleasures of life mean more than the fatness of one’s wallet or the largeness of one’s home.
And while this city has all of the above and in copious amounts, what it also has, something which ought to be celebrated more, are citizens that are conscientious about their habitat and the culture they belong to. Perhaps this is why a single man himself took upon the task to clean up the cluttered mess that had threatened to spoil the inherent charm of his city.
To make matters clear, an IAS Officer, Asheesh Singh, belonging to Indore took just 6 months, not a day more, to clean up as much as 13 lakh tonnes of garbage from a city that most in the remainder of India are happy just calling ‘mini Bombay.’
Indore is so much more; it’s a rendition of vibrant India. It’s a beautiful melting pot of India’s culture, culinary charm, ethnic beauty, and a simple-heartedness that makes our country Incredible India; more than a famous award-winning ad campaign.
So, who is this earnest man and just what exactly happened?
The city, in recent times, had been facing a rampant garbage problem. During the month of May, in 2018, Mr Singh was appointed as the municipal commissioner of Indore Municipal Corporation.
And in here came the difference he himself brought in.
Instead of outsourcing the work of cleaning the city to some corporation, in this case, a contractor, Mr. Singh took it upon himself to clean up the mess he was amid.
The result?
Around 13 lakh tonnes of garbage, that was actually spread around 100 acres of land was cleared in a period of merely 6 months.
Who says the impossible rather ‘seemingly impossible’ can’t be achieved in India? As long as there are bright, hopeful, daring men like Mr Singh, anything’s possible. Right, Indore?