A Success Story: The ugly Indians – stop talking, start working

Today, what could have been a better topic than The Ugly Indians with “U” ?

I feel proud to write about a bunch of anonymous volunteers on a mission- “No Lectures, No activism, Just hard work”.  The group originating in Bangalore and named - The Ugly Indians (TUI,) takes up spot fix activities every week in Bangalore and now the concept is being adopted in other cities of India in last few months.

Drawing inspiration from “Work is Worship” and “Talk less, work more” , the group applies simple and smart solutions to implement the makeover for  eyesore spots like filth on footpath, stains on walls, open dumps, cigarette litter  or open public urinal spots . Sometimes they involve civic agencies when they need to go deep into the problems as they believe in working with the existing systems rather doing sit outs on what is not working.  Volunteers are all citizens like you and me without the cynicism that things won’t work - employed in big, small companies in the near about places with a mentality to change the face of the place by doing work silently. The folks in T-shirts, brooms, shovels are not into any kind of propaganda to join hands, rather expect people with the serving mentality to be drawn towards the activities.

Their website page bears testimony to the success stories of the makeovers done and FB page is witnessing a rapidly increasing likes. Groups from outside India are showing interest into knowing these spot fix activities having similar mindset of service beyond self. Additionally, their work is recognized by every citizen in Bangalore whereby, the Ugly Indian has been voted as a Bangalore Hero as part of the last Bangalore Mirror campaign.

Their motto is to show people how the change looks like and believe that people will surely change along with the change happening around and get  attracted in doing more – time might be longer, path might be steeper. 

It is high time that we stop thinking that problems are someone else’s and someone else or government will take care of things. While there are talks of many public private partnership projects around – some materializing and some not, this is a fine bit example a “Muh Bandh, Kaam Chalu (stop talking, start working) movement in action and in reality to change of hygiene condition of our beloved country.

I urge my readers to visit their pages and get involved.

Volunteers @ work