If we don’t do it, city will be messier, say people who keep Mumbai chakachak

Forty-year-old Sindhu Pundalik starts her day at 4.30 am daily. First she cooks for her two grown-up kids and cleans the house, and then gears up for another cleaning session – this time in the city.

With long yellow gloves on both hands and a mop on one of them, Pundalik everyday gets ready to the uphill tasks of cleaning the city. A seemingly menial job for many of us, but for city’s hundreds of sweepers and conservancy workers like her, it is just another way of social service. “I don’t consider my job inferior to anyone’s. Though our city does not really makes into the list of cleanest city’s of the country, we make sure that we do our job with sincerity and lessen the squalor and dirt,” said Pundalik, who on Saturday received Sant Gadage Maharaj Puraskar , a cleanliness award given by the Brihnamumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), for being the best cleaner in K-ward. The BMC awarded 20 sweepers among others to promote cleanliness at the local level.

Pundalik has to be on the field by 7:30 am and spends more than eight hours sweeping the vast stretch of lanes. “The job is just as challenging as any other. Imagine continuing cleaning while the horde of people passing by you keep littering or spitting. Sometimes it bothers, but then it’s a job and I have to do it,” she said. But this unruly behaviour of people doesn’t deter her spirit. “At least I am independent and don’t have to stoop to begging,” Pundalik adds.

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