00:00We are not taught about basic cleanliness in our homes and in our schools.
00:06I observed that people over here, they put the dirt in the designated areas,
00:10but back home they throw everywhere.
00:13You wanted to prove that Indians have something wrong in their DNA
00:17and wherever they go they create filth and throw garbage and urinate on the roadside
00:22and spit everywhere, this and do that.
00:25When you said you want to talk about cleanliness,
00:28what kind of cleanliness do you want to talk about?
00:30Or would you also want to talk about cleanliness that is not visible to the eye?
00:34You go to a poor village, you will find a lot of rubbish, garbage,
00:38but that place would have a very negligible carbon footprint.
00:43And also consider that places that are very clean,
00:46spick and span, will have a very high carbon footprint.
00:50Now we are confused, what do we call as clean?
00:53Cleanliness in 2025 must have only one meaning.
00:58carbon.
01:00Carbon.
01:01Carbon.
01:08My first question is, why is that we are not taught about basic cleanliness in our homes and in our schools?
01:20I observe that people over here, they put the dirt in the designated areas,
01:28but back home they throw everywhere.
01:30However, both are same.
01:32Both are Indians over there, we have Indians, and here we are the same.
01:36So why is that?
01:38If there is no, as far as I can see, there is no deep reason behind that.
01:47Thank you, please.
01:48As you rightly said, the person is the same.
01:57And if the person is the same, and has started behaving differently, then obviously the change is not coming from within, right?
02:06The person is the same, means the insides are the same.
02:12It's a matter of the environment.
02:15And when it's the environment that functions upon you, words like understanding or light or realization or love or care, do not hold much relevance.
02:34It's not as if Indians over here or the general population over here is internally cleaner or more illuminated.
02:46And that's why you find external cleanliness.
02:51It's about the rules, regulations, the fear, the greed, the enforcement, the execution, the penalties, the incentives,
03:03the disincentives, what you see around yourself and how it influences you.
03:09How it influences you.
03:11Which also means that if the person who is here happens to go back home, he probably might find his old habits returning over a matter of time.
03:29Because the person was anyway the same.
03:33The person was anyway the same.
03:36It's a thing about the time, the place, the situation and how the laws operate there and how the whole environment there is.
03:48Now why is the environment different?
03:51Why is the general code of conduct different?
03:57Again the reason has to do with not something that is subtle or internal or heartly but with factors that are very economic and material.
04:14When you are hungry and dispossessed, then you first want to take care of the more mundane needs of life.
04:33Only after you have gained freedom from the fundamental, material, physical concerns of life that you start looking at the higher aspects.
04:53Not that cleanliness is a very high aspect of the business of living but it is still something that one does not primarily concern himself with if one is running on an empty stomach.
05:11Right?
05:12Right?
05:13Consider this.
05:14There aren't too many developed or rich countries in the world.
05:20We'll keep the word developed aside.
05:22Rich countries in the world that you will find unclean.
05:26And there aren't too many poor countries in the world that you would find clean.
05:36So, I see this not just as a coincidence but actually as a causation.
05:47You do not want to take care of other things when the mind is battling things like having a roof over the head and something to put on the table for dinner.
06:09Then you don't want to take care of these things.
06:12You take the argument further, even within India, you do have places, societies, gated communities as clean as, probably as clean as anything you would find in the first world.
06:32No?
06:33You have places, small areas in Bangalore, Mumbai, Gurgaon.
06:45When you are there and if you are not told, it would be difficult for you to figure out whether you are in a developing country or in a first world country.
06:56In all aspects of living and prosperity, that place would rival not just Dubai but Europe, US, any place.
07:06It's got to do with money.
07:11It's got to do with whether you have gained freedom from the very basic needs of life.
07:24The one that are at the bottom of the pyramid in the Maslowian hierarchy.
07:30Now one could go deeper into it and ask, well why is it then that some places are richer and others are not?
07:45If cleanliness is a function of economic growth, not that economic growth is the one and only driver of cleanliness and public hygiene.
07:57But if there happens to be a great degree of causal relationship, then what is it that drives prosperity in the first place?
08:04That could be a question we could ask.
08:06And that question has several answers because what drives prosperity in Bangalore is not what drives it in Dubai.
08:15And what drives it in Switzerland is not what drives it in California.
08:22And all of these places would count as prosperous.
08:28But the causal factors are quite different.
08:31So, our genes are not to be blamed for it.
08:38We keep saying, you know Indians kill the dirty people, that thing.
08:43No, it's not about that.
08:45It's not about that.
08:47It's just that, have you seen, when you are very hungry, when you are very very hungry,
08:56famished, as they say.
08:59For whatever reason.
09:01Happens.
09:02Or you have deliberately kept yourself hungry.
09:05Let's say you have been fasting since 16, 20 or 30 hours.
09:13How you rampage on food when it comes to you?
09:18At least some of us.
09:20And you have not done it yourself.
09:21Or you don't want to admit that you have done it yourself.
09:23Have you seen others do it?
09:26Yeah?
09:27It doesn't matter to you that you are spluttering it all over and what it's doing to your shirt
09:36and to your mouth, to your moustache, to your beard.
09:41Do you mind it?
09:42No.
09:43What happens to etiquette?
09:46What happens to hygiene?
09:48No.
09:49That's it.
09:50Out of the window, sir.
09:51I'm hungry.
09:52I'm hungry.
09:53I'm hungry.
09:58Seen how kids behave?
10:01Because that's their most urgent need.
10:05Seen how they eat?
10:07That's how we are.
10:08If you are hungry, then you do not care about other things in life.
10:22Because we are first of all, emergent from the jungle.
10:28A large part of us is animalistic.
10:34This body, the entirety of it, we share with our animal friends.
10:41When you serve something to your cat or dog in a bowl, does it take care not to spill it
10:49over?
10:50It doesn't.
10:51That's who we are.
10:54Take care of your stomach and in the process.
10:58If you are creating mess all around, then there is no problem.
11:04Now friends, allow me to come to that part of this question which has not been asked.
11:14When you said you want to talk about cleanliness, what kind of cleanliness do you want to talk about?
11:23Just the cleanliness that is visible to the naked eye?
11:27Yeah, this is very clean.
11:29Very clean.
11:30Very clean.
11:31Or would you also want to talk about cleanliness that is not visible to the eye?
11:39Yes?
11:40Should we?
11:41Okay.
11:42Alright then.
11:43Fine.
11:44There is dirt and squalor in the third world, specifically India.
11:53Yes, that's there.
11:55When you say you are dirtying stuff, is it only about plastic?
12:01Is it only about general dirt and filth?
12:08Or is it also something, also about something called emissions?
12:14Yeah?
12:15Not really, because places, if you see, it's very interesting.
12:21Places where you find a lot of material filth are typically not of the places that generate
12:30a lot of filth by way of emissions.
12:33Please see.
12:34Please see.
12:36You go to a poor village.
12:39You will find a lot of rubbish, garbage.
12:43But that place would have a very negligible carbon footprint.
12:48Am I right?
12:50And also consider that places that are very clean, swick and span.
12:56Very clean.
12:57The global north, the global north.
13:00And will have a very high carbon footprint.
13:05Now we are confused.
13:08What do we call as clean?
13:10What do we call as clean?
13:13Yes?
13:14If you have general filth on the road, is that unclean?
13:23Or if you are living in a society, in a place, in a country, in a city, that is generating
13:31horrible amounts of carbon emissions.
13:36Is that relatively more unclean?
13:39Yeah?
13:40Which of these two kinds of dirts can be cleaned up more easily, I am asking?
13:50Your question stands upended.
13:53What do we call as clean and what do we call as unclean?
13:57We are creatures of these senses, you know?
14:02Yanindriya.
14:04Hmm?
14:05So just because I cannot see something lying here, I say, I say, this is clean.
14:12Is it clean?
14:14Is it clean?
14:16Hmm?
14:27Shubhankar and her team has gone bonkers looking at the size of vehicles here.
14:37And he is finding it very impressive.
14:42Huge vehicles.
14:45Hmm?
14:46Do you look at the overall cost of that?
14:55And when one place generates emissions, they do not remain contained within the national boundaries.
15:04Do they?
15:05The atmosphere is not a place that honours any kind of national restrictions, does it?
15:18You can have cheap fuel.
15:20You can have a zero or a minimum tax regime.
15:25And that will incentivize people to buy new models every two or three years.
15:39So the vehicles will not only look bigger but also cleaner in the sense that not a single dent on any vehicle.
15:51Not even on taxis.
15:56With a microscope you can look for a scratch and you won't find it.
16:02That too looks like an aspect of cleanliness, doesn't it?
16:08But at what cost?
16:10What cost?
16:13The biggest threat facing this planet today is climate change.
16:19Take an example.
16:20When you talk of clean energy, you do not talk of energy that is not associated with household waste.
16:34When you talk of clean energy, you talk of energy that doesn't generate CO2 and other kinds of greenhouse gases.
16:44If that's the more accurate, subtle and technologically agreeable definition of cleanliness, then tell me please.
16:57Is the third world unclean or is the first world unclean?
17:04Tell me please.
17:05So which are the dirty countries of the world?
17:18No, I am not standing here as an Indian nationalist.
17:21But very realistically I am asking you, which are the dirtiest countries in the world?
17:25No, no, no, the entire global north, right?
17:42What do we do now?
17:45What happened to your question?
17:47We wanted to prove that Indians have something wrong in their DNA and wherever they go they create filth and throw garbage and urinate on the roadside and spit everywhere and do this and do that.
18:04Yes, of course, we need not do that and all of that is dirty.
18:09But when it comes to cleanliness, there are much worse ways of dirtying the planet, dirtying it to the extent of suffocating it, actually absolutely killing it.
18:23Not only for ourselves, but for the future generations and future generations, not only of homo sapiens, but of all species on the planet.
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