Single Lady and Her Urban Problems

It is 6 o’ clock in the morning. Kuppy is sleeping. Wake up you lazy girl.

No, that wasn’t 6; it was written 8 o’clock. And the name was nowhere near Kuppy – Kuppy thought lazily about some silly story she read years ago. She had just woke up, but decided to roll over and kind of half open her eyelids to peek at the wall clock. No one ever called her lazy for sleeping till late, she never overslept.

It was that day of the week when she stayed alone. Being in the beginning of her third decade, unmarried and working in the city far from home – having the apartment to her for at least a day in the week had become a dire necessity. Other weekdays her sister stayed in with her in the city apartment; and weekends were for visiting parents in the forgotten little town just outside the city and indulging in a bit of family melodrama.

Kuppy crawled out of the jumble of bed sheet and five pillows (that’s the benefit of getting all of the bed to you) and stepped on the floor unsteadily. A straight line of morning sun rays fell on the Aloe Vera plant that her mom had installed on her windowsill when she first moved in this apartment.

With a slight dizzy gait, not at all lady like, Kuppy strolled into the next room and stopped midway.

Same thing again, and Kuppy never found a logical explanation till date. The dustbin had been overturned and everything she had been saving to dispose as garbage was scattered on the floor; as if someone had carefully arranged a time-taking bending exercise for her.

She had tried to find out all possible entries of an organism big enough to do this, and found none. And her apartment didn’t have rats or cats or anything like that. She never opened her windows at night, definitely not the door. And no one / nothing could have got in without her noticing when she is awake. The funniest thing being – this happened only on the nights she stayed alone!

Nevertheless, she decided not to think much about this funny situation and started getting ready for a long day ahead. 20 minutes later Kuppy walked out of her apartment in her gym wear and the garbage tied in a plastic bag in one hand. She would find out one of the mysterious whistle blowing garbage collectors (she heard the whistle every morning but never spotted any of them no matter how swiftly she jumped downstairs to catch them red-handed), drop the garbage in their stinky van, and jog to the gym two lanes down.

As anticipated, the garbage collector was no where around. Kuppy walked down streets in search of a government dustbin to dispose, but never found one. Some concerned genius decided to make the streets clean and thought the best way was to remove street dustbins altogether! No overflowing garbage from bins, no foul smell. So people have discovered the easiest solution – leave the garbage in street corners, at the base of light posts, and in front of under-construction buildings. Apparently there are more who don’t manage to get hold of the whistle blowing garbage collector.

From past experiences Kuppy knew she could not throw garbage in the shop owned bins put out on the street. She tried doing that at a couple of places before (and thought she could casually slip the bag in the bin, and put on an innocent face if she gets caught) and got badly yelled at. Even her bright shiny lip gloss and dark kohl-ed eyes didn’t seem to appeal to angry private dustbin owners. These shopkeepers shouldn’t be putting out their bins on the road if they want to keep it so personal – Kuppy thought annoyed. ‘Shove it up your greasy bottom’ Kuppy had muttered the last time the owner of a sweet-shop chased her for trying to throw her garbage bag.

It’s been more than 10 minutes now Kuppy is walking with her garbage bag. The empty lanes had tempted her more than a couple of times (just leave it round the corner and walk away fast before someone hurls abuses). But she couldn’t muster up the nerves to attempt that. Throwing thrash on the streets is something she herself had schooled people not to do. Now that she is running out of options she feels their pain (Karma Karma, sigh).

Idea! Kuppy knew there was a Government dustbin on her way to work. She was a hundred percent sure, she had seen vans dump their garbage there. The only problem – you got to take a bus to reach there. That’s it. Bunk gym and let’s go throw garbage.

Kuppy stood at the bus stop, her garbage bag in her hand; only the wait for bus seemed to take forever. Frustrated she pulled out her phone and started searching for a cab online. There was a share cab nearby that would take 9 minutes to reach where she stood. Booked; the cab actually took 17 minutes to reach.

Kuppy got in with two fellow travelers, both dressed in clean shirts going to office of course. And here she was carrying a bag full of garbage (Thank God it had nothing rotten, and the plastic bag wasn’t transparent – that would have been real embarrassing). Yet she decided to look outside all along, avoid eye contact with everyone in the cab.

After a meandering cab ride through the slowly waking city, she got off near the big dustbin as smartly as she could. Wow, that cost her 100 rupees. Don’t make it so obvious, pretend you are out for a morning walk by the.. (ugh) dustbin. Killing 90 seconds of her precious time (gone forever from a supposed-to-be-cheerful morning) Kuppy edged towards the bin and flung her garbage bag in one swift arm movement. Relief spread across her face. Now she can get back to her apartment in peace; only to hurry later and leave for work in another hour. This time she took a bus to head back, not worth spending on another cab already.

All the way back she wondered how she should plan her next day’s garbage disposal. Getting rid of daily garbage in the city could be so tough, costly, and time consuming. If only that animal (or ghost) would work on vanishing the garbage instead of spreading them across her floor. Another big sigh!