Somebody is turning the city's eyesores into beautiful spots. The inspiration is the Ugly Indian (TUI) movement that started in Bangalore and the latest hands to join are of The Millennium School children.
anonymous volunteers working together to tidy up the Indian streets.
The children identify the ugly sites (waste dumps of the city) in the day and clean these up at night, so that in the morning, people find a lovely painting in place of repulsive graffiti and foliage in place of filth.
Their motto, "work on, mouth shut", will please EcoAmritsar and Dilbir foundation that run cleaning-and-greening campaigns "I am the change" and "My city, my pride, my responsibility", respectively.
In their first effort, the children turned a huge dumping site into a clean area, and in their second job, the students of the Millennium School have painted a 120-foot-long wall on the Jamunwali Road, planted 50 creepers along it, and requested the neighbourhood to ensure that the spot does not degenerate again.
Dilbir Foundation, which runs the Artists for Amritsar's Transformation (AFAT) programme, helped them in this. "We are glad the inspiration of TUI is catching up. The youth of the country alone can make the change. We are spreading the word on the social media and engaging schoolchildren directly, as they are quite excited about these activities," said EcoAmritsar chairman Gunbir Singh.
{{/usCountry}}Dilbir Foundation, which runs the Artists for Amritsar's Transformation (AFAT) programme, helped them in this. "We are glad the inspiration of TUI is catching up. The youth of the country alone can make the change. We are spreading the word on the social media and engaging schoolchildren directly, as they are quite excited about these activities," said EcoAmritsar chairman Gunbir Singh.
{{/usCountry}}Prabh Boparai and Madhubani Singh, spearheads of The Ugly Indian movement in Amritsar, guided the Jamunwali Road project. "They will be the mentors for the youth," said Gunbir Singh. The municipal corporation has spotted three sites for the volunteers to create green spaces on.
"We have started planting tree saplings around Kitchlew Chowk. While anyone can do it, we do it aesthetically," he added.
The last time, they made a caricature and planted a jamun tree on an ugly spot and now after cleaning the 120-foot wall of graffiti, they painted it terracotta red. Written in Punjabi, the only words on the wall now read "My city, my pride, my responsibility". Hope the ugly Indian gets the message.