I am not cut out to be a leader, and neither I have a wish to be one. So here is a story from my past.
Last month I was going on a trip. The shorter way to the airport had accidents on it. My son took a detour, taking a longer route. It was littered the whole way which was a sickening sight.
I was shocked. How could this happen? Why the people in charge have grown lax? This was happening in Houston, Texas. I couldn’t fathom.
I used to be unhappy over the state of cleanliness back in my home city of Peshawar, Pakistan. The people are poor and illiterate. They are surviving the bombs, the drone attacks, the refugees from neighboring Afghanistan and what not?
I always wished that the powers that ruled would solve the no electricity problem, the corruption that is running rampant in the country, and the foremost one: to levy a heavy fine on throwing trash everywhere other than the designated place.
I would train the new helpers in my home to cleanliness. It was a struggle. First of all they took it as their birthright to throw trash wherever they pleased. My repeated admonishes had no effect. They went in one ear and left from the other one. I would kept enforcing my rules with frequent scoldings which weren’t taken seriously at all. It only helped in making frown lines appear on my face.
There is an empty plot next to my home. One wish I kept wishing was that the owner would build a house over it. The owner had no such wish. The price of it is astronomical now and the lucky heirs will be the beneficiaries once he departs from this world.
When I was there I kept a watch on it so that it won’t become a dumping ground for trash. Where I lived you have to carry your garbage to the designated area from where it is daily removed. The neighbors’ servants did this job, but their employers never kept a watch as to where the garbage was thrown. The next door plot looked an ideal spot to the lazy ones in the area.
The month my husband died I spent the whole month at our village home, away from the city home. Before that the hellish months were spent in hospitals in other cities. The whole month was a blur of pain and waking up to the realities of life. I had a lot of things dumped over my head and I was trying to solve them. The state of plot next to mine was totally forgotten.
I had gone with Lala (my elder brother) and sister in law to my parent’s village (different from my husband’s one) for a relative’s funeral. When we returned I was still holding remains of my lunch in my left hand. I had it all the way back to the city.
Lala deposited me at my front gate. I got down. My sister in law galanced at my hand and said, “Why are you holding it?”
I told her that I would be putting it in my garbage bin. Why not there? She indicated to the left. I shook my head. “But it’s piled up with rubbish”, she said.
I turned around to a horrible sight. Needless to say I spent the whole time till sun down in clearing it with my servant Noman. I held him responsible, because I wasn’t home. He didn’t stop the ones who were doing it and he added his own rubbish to it too.
I was dying when I finally entered my home.
DAILY PROMPT
The Fun Platform
If you were the new leader of your country and had the chance to transform something that’s currently an annoyance (or worse) into a very fun activity, what would it be? How would you go about the change, and why would you choose that particular thing?
Flowers and Breezes 