Living in India requires one to re-establish a relationship with trash.
The American model is to pretend that trash doesn't exist after it is disposed of. You are reminder that it *does* exist only when you occasionally see a landfill first hand.
Instead, in India you have to acknowledge trash at every turn. It's everywhere, reminding you of its existence and also reminding you that maybe all of this "disposable" stuff is just not all that disposable after all.....
I personally learned to make a change in my relationship with garbage at the coconut stands. I drink coconut water on the side of the road with some regularity. Especially when it is hot, it's a great thing to do.
I used to take the empty coconut shells back home and throw them away. It was not feasible to keep doing this. They are really big and that fills our small garbage cans up very quickly.
So, I did what you are supposed to do. When I finish one, I throw them behind the person serving me onto a considerable pile of coconut shells.
See, the system is that when that coconut shell pile gets high enough, the low caste women who sweep the streets push them off the edge of the road and light them on fire.
No, I am serious. That's the system.
So, I contribute to that system. I gave in. I have became like the Indian people on this particular practice.
Otherwise, I have maintained virtually all of my other Western habits.
So, when I was on Juhu Beach last week, I got an ear of corn. Cooked on raw coals by a guy waving a banana leaf - good stuff.
But then I had an eaten corn cob in my hand.
And I had a long walk ahead of me back to the hotel.
And I frankly did not want to carry the eaten ear all of that time.
I did what any Westerner would do, I scanned far and wide for a trash can. I mean, Mumbai is not Hyderabad - it's a really big city. This was a famous beach. They surely thought of garbage cans!
Nope.
So, I did something that made me laugh to myself for the rest of the night. I found another discarded corn cob on the beach and put mine down next to it. Now there were two neatly organized corn cobs left next to each other on Juhu Beach. Somehow I felt like I didn't really litter.
I guess in the final reckoning on the matter - I did litter. Sort of like that time I left my shoes in Malibu
