CHENNAI: What he earns daily is surely not enough to make both ends meet. But it hasn’t stopped 48-year-old Mari P from single-handedly cleaning up the temple tank in Peeliamman Kovil Street in Taramani.
Mari, who takes up electrical and plumbing works, cleaned the tank from 6 am to 7 pm for seven days and collected trash that had to be carried away by Corporation’s tipper lorries, said local residents.
“I regularly visit Peeliamman temple because my family and I have been staying in the neighbourhood for around 30 years. I kept thinking that some politicians or government authorities would take up the cleaning of the tank but they didn’t,” he said.
On the first day, he went to clean the tank with the hope that his friends would join in and the operation would soon become a regular affair. However, he soon found that it was not to be. Not only did his friends fail him but also he became a laughing stock.
“They ask me what business I have cleaning the lake when I don’t have enough to keep me and my family fed. I’m a daily wager; on some days I get work and on some days, I don’t. Why sulk on the days that you don’t get work when you can still be useful?” he said.
“These days I keep reading the news that residents clean up the lakes in their areas by themselves. When they do it, people take them seriously. But when I did it, I was ridiculed,” he added.
However, it only strengthened his resolve. His previous employer, who runs a hardware store in the locality, gave him a pair of gloves every day and that, he said, was enough. Rags, alcohol bottles and over a hundred rubber tyres were removed from the around 30-foot-deep lake that now has barely any water. While Mari’s is no mean feat, his wife and children have had no clue, so far, to what he has been doing.
“I go home really dirty from all the cleaning so my wife assumed I’m taking up heavy manual work. She keeps asking me what I’m doing with the money that I got from it. I don’t know how to tell her that I’ve been cleaning up the temple tank only for free but it’s only a matter of time before she finds out from someone,” said the volunteer.
“If they come to know, my wife and children will ask me why I keep doing such things when everyone else is minding their own business.”