But whenever I visit other metros in India, I am still glad I live in Pune. Chaotic traffic is preferable to filth any day!

Shefaly, yeah Pune is cleaner than many Indian cities but there are beautification drives off and one. And I think there are a few people like you who are very conscious about not to litter but they are few and far between! And I am not talking of just NRI’s but amongst the general population.

I was in Pune briefly for a day in January. The city is more clean than most other cities I visited on the trip. The driver told me that the stretch from the airport to Le Meridien is exceptional but later we went to Tata Motors also and then left the city by the expressway and with a few exceptions, Pune was more orderly than most other cities.

The sign either works or is redundant

To clean one’s house and to throw the dust or rubbish on the streets is a great Indian trait, which I observed particularly in large cities like Delhi and Bangalore.

In the small cities, where I grew up, a cleaner (typically an untouchable for whom special glasses and cups were reserved in the most ‘educated’ and ‘civilised’ families) came by with a barrow and took the rubbish from homes to a central tip. It is not a great, ‘green’ practice but even now some of the modern western nations recycle only half or less of their rubbish… In fact on a recent trip to my dad’s town I noticed that it is the government that fails people even when the people have good intentions and a strong civic sense. Homes and small side streets were clean and well swept and there were even some small bins around. But the sewers and drains were open!

In short, your suggested replacement tagline would lead to even more havoc. At least in the current form, the villain is clear.

You will be surprised to see how much rubbish (packaging, tissues etc) I routinely carried around in a small plastic bag within my handbag/ laptop case when I was in India – yes, long before I became an NRI, everybody’s favourite fallguy in India. I would inevitably bring the rubbish home and dispose of it in my own dustbin.

I see things are just the same if not worse now that my sampling of Indian cities is less frequent.

I loved your replacement quote – it is really meaningful and has good impact!

The placement of this sign is on a road where pedestrians are mostly illiterate and wouldn’t be able to read it anyway. The educated classes are zipping by in their cars and are not likely to litter there. On top of all this, the road is now used couple of times a week for a street vegetable market, so you can imagine the state of the road!