Dubai
Last week, I was glad to see people celebrating Diwali with fervour in Bur Dubai. However, soon I noticed that their careless and nonchalant action was causing a great deal of damage to the environment. I was aghast to see how some local residents had sourced firecrackers, which are illegal in the UAE. I also noticed, people throwing trash in a sand field instead of in trash cans. But, the next day municipality workers cleaned up the area to give it the usual clean look.
With the onset of evening, again revellers gathered near the field and burst crackers and again threw trash on the field without giving it a second thought. The next morning was the weekend and so a day off for the workers, and nobody came to clean the field.
There is a saying, “practice what you preach”. With this thought in my mind, I took charge and gathered other students who were part of my ‘We Care’ environment group and decided to clean up the area. We got gloves and eco-friendly polythene bags and walked to the open sandy field and started collecting the trash.
To my utter surprise, we collected so much that we ran short of garbage bags. It was a bright, sunny day but we continued picking up the trash till the field was clean.
Even though we were tired due to working so long in the heat, we were immensely satisfied that our small effort had made some contributions towards making our environment and city clean.
Diwali is a festival of light and cleanliness. We clean our house, but we dirty our surroundings. We should enjoy our festival, but we should also take the responsibility to clean the place instead of leaving it for the workers to do so. The Dubai authorities do not leave any stone unturned to keep our city clean. And they are liberal enough to allow us to celebrate our festivals, but we should not take undue advantage. We should enjoy, but at the same time one should consider the pollution and dirt it leads to.
— The reader is a student based in Dubai.
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