‘Let me share a secret with you. Even in the Kingdom above they have a God of Litter. And all this hullaballoo about litterbugs and removal of litter is going to make this fellow very angry,’ I told Specky, my wife with a serious face.

‘God of litter? You are surely joking,’ she said, ‘so what do they call him?’

‘Litterateur,’ I replied.

‘What?’

‘Litterateur,’ I repeated, and then added, ‘well, this Ministry of Litter began there a long time back when almost all the Gods started writing a novel. Obviously, when everyone was writing, no one was really reading. And this created massive piles of printed books. So they decided to have a God to see what could be done with all their printed junk.’ I then explained to her that this God then used celestial technology to creatively use litter. So now they have litter parks, litter museums, litter roads, litter houses, litter high rises, and even litter fashion. Obviously, this Litterateur has a team of litter engineers, litter architects, litter designers, and litter masons to help him. 

Specky, being a teacher, was naturally excited. She asked, ‘This means they have litter courses and they would need PhDs in litter too?’

Well, I told her that litter was literally an art-form in the kingdom above now. The best thing is that Gods don’t have to worry about throwing garbage in the bins. So you have Gods rolling down their car window and pushing out tons of empty wrappers without batting an eyelid. They travel in trains and throw empty cans of colas without fear of being fined. They walk on the roads eating peanuts and throw the shells on the footpath. On the contrary it is an offense to keep empty or used stuff and you can expect raids as you’re then a proclaimed hoarder and cultivating hazardous habits that are a bad lesson for other Gods.

This God of Litter even has his own set of commandments and a shorter version is:

You shall feel proud of being a litterateur and shall create written litter without worrying about grammar or structure or even plot because no one is anyway going to read it.

You shall not store or hoard empty wrappers.

You shall eat peanuts and throw the shells on the floor.

Remember that each day you need to add to the litter wealth.

Honor fruits and vegetables by throwing their peels on the floor.

You shall not pick up broken parts during an accident.

You shall never bury trash like used condoms, tampon packages, and empty bottles as they are national wealth.

You are forbidden to clean up after a party as it is a punishable offense.

You shall feel honoured to throw cigarette butts, chemical filled leftover food, and chewing gum anywhere.

You must dump old gadgets on the roadside. 

Well, these commandments are governed by a long series of celestial laws and are strictly implemented. You must have noticed that the Gods too have 10 Commandments and they have developed an entire lifestyle where littering has to be done in style.

The Litterateur God has once famously said that ‘an empty wrapper of namkeen must be gently pierced and torn so that it resembles a bird fluttering’ as this would encourage all birds to experiment with their flying techniques. So they have wonderful slogans like…

Litter is Forever (The Goddesses love this one)

Just Litter! (Created especially for the athlete Gods and Goddesses)

Got Litter?

Spread Litter – I’m loving it. (A vital slogan targeting toddler Gods)

Don’t Leave Home Without Litter

Does She… or Doesn’t She Litter? (All marriage ads there carry this one)

Litter – Your vision. Our future.

Litter Everyday– It’s Style. (The Page 3 platoon there slurps over it)

As I was telling Specky these details, she was listening with her eyes wide open. All she could mumble was, ‘But what happens to the Swachch Abhiyan here in our world?’

‘Well, the God of Litter isn’t going to be happy,’ I said, ‘and despite years spent here we humans might need to do a bridge course in littering before we’re allowed to enter heaven.’ I told her that by learning all these clean habits we were simply not helping with our level of job-readiness. Human life is after all an internship for heaven and if we’re going to focus on clean habits we’re done. We’ll get fired even before we get an employment there.

But Specky being what she is, insisted, ‘Listen, if all of us adopt the logic of cleanliness, we just might create a revolution in heaven.’ Saying this she simply handed me a broom and added with a smile, ‘Clean well. When we reach heaven we’re going to create a new revolution there. I’ll teach the gods lessons in cleanliness and you blog about the hazards of being a litterbug, right?’ Now, can anyone ever argue with his wife?

.

.

.

Litter God is going to be very angry

Litter God is going to be very angry

.

This post is a part of The Great Indian Litterbug ‘Happy Hours’ prompt on Indiblogger

.

.

Arvind Passey
22 January 2015