India is a very dirty country. There is an enormous amount of filth, garbage and stink in its cities, on its roads and in its public places. People are loud, rude and inconsiderate. Even in the most educated of environs, such as universities, there is an shocking lack of civility.
It is laughably impossible to find a clean toilet, with soap and towels, at a public place in India. Paan-chewing, spitting, road-side defecation and ``anywhere urination'' are just a few of the appalling traits one finds in this country. The bus stands, the railway stations, the airports, the cinema halls, libraries, markets, all are pervaded by a sense of crowdedness, of being pushed about, of getting dirtier the longer one stays there ...
Diseased animals roam the cities. Heaps of masonry and Melba keeps lying for months and years on public spaces. There is no sense of a regulated traffic even in the most metropolitan of cities. The rivers in large cities have stopped flowing due to the accumulated filth. The walls of public institutions are strewn with vulgar film posters, political exhortations, advertisements for soap and for dubious-sounding sexologists. There are walls prohibiting defecation near them with warnings which are themselves a shame.
In towns, public land is encroached upon. The few green spaces and parks, mostly unmaintained, are strewn with beggars and the homeless. Public buildings beg for renovation and paint. The hospitals are damp and smelly. The banks have policemen inside them and metal chains on the door. ATM's are protected by guards. The courts are a madhouse full of hurried and harried multitudes.
In trains and buses, people throw their garbage out of the window. Despite laws to the contrary, they smoke with impunity. The toilets in the trains disgorge their contents on the railway lines. The roadside dhabas on the highways are where one finds inedible food, dirty dishes, unwashed cooks cooking with their unwashed hands, ...
What has happened? Why this breakdown? Why this outrage against decency, trust and courtesy? Why this total disregard for law, form and symmetry? Why this insensitivity to ugliness and unhealth? Why, after all?