Career in Real Estate!

“Real estate is the best investment on earth, however, when the music stops playing, which happens occasionally, don't be the one left without a chair.”….Steven Ivy, Attorney Entrepreneur.

Well the New York based attorney entrepreneur have hit the nail on head as in so few words he has described the real estate industry; if we call it as an industry! For me New Year’s seminars & lectures trend continued all along January & outcome is this sharing! I had been associated with Diploma Civil Engineering syllabus drafting & have suggested that with new opportunities in real estate the students must have flair of the industry. So a subject has been introduced in final year diploma of civil & the Govt Poly College called me to share my views about real estate at their place. I haven’t prepared anything special as I thought it’s sharing with a small group but when at the venue they took me to the Sir Vishvesarayya Auditorium, I was dizzy with nearly three hundred students welcoming me clapping! The last thing I want is to face college students without any preparation as to keep them engaged even for fifteen minutes is a big thing, here I was supposed to explain them real estate for over an hour! In the first place I had been called on various platforms as wild lifer, environmental person or as construction management guy but very rarely as a real estater which in common man’s words is builder! But then there was no escape route as before I could protest to the college team, my introduction has beguine & the students were looking at me with fascinated eyes as for the first time most of them have eyes on a real builder in actual!

I started with the same thread of fascination in their eyes as most of the common people when they think about real estate & builders they think money! That’s the irony of this industry as no one looks at end product but all are interested in the glamor which obviously is there for the money factor of it! It’s really difficult to explain real estate & the way it runs even to grown up people in business leave apart to students aspiring to have a decent degree & adopt this as their career. What I was supposed to tell them? You don’t need any degree, hell, even education also to become a builder! Rather I have heard many of the stalwarts in this industry jokingly saying the more you have educated the more are the chances of your failure in real estate! As on one hand it’s true that education makes you to think & the more you think in real estate the more you get aware about the uncertainties in it & then you delay the decision & delay is worst enemy in real estate! At the same time when I run in mind what are the responsibilities of a developer, there comes none! All you need to have some money in your pocket & you hire every available talent in the field & complete the building putting all the responsibility on someone or others shoulder; may it be architect or structural consultant or engineer you appoint at site!

Or am I supposed to tell them that in ever changing rules by numbers of governing bodies from PMC to Urban Development Department nothing is permanent here! The land you have acquired by checking all the known documents can be of faulty title because some of the heirs of the land owner have already entered in to unregistered document with some other builder & it comes to your knowledge only after you have paid all the amount to the land lord! And worst such non registered claim is accepted by the law & your deal goes to drain, shall I tell them this? Even if you buy the clear land then also road adjoining to your land can get shifted inside your plot or there can be probable Metro track going at some distance from you & as its FSI norms in the periphery within which your land comes, hasn’t yet finalized do your plans won’t get sanctioned! Shall I share such things to these young faces? Or when you have planned a building by setting all rules known to you yet as there is printing mistake in drafting the new rules by local governing body & now it’s not sure that when this printing mistake will be corrected & till then your FSI has been reduced if you want to get the sanction & this is going to hamper entire economics of the project, such things also happens in the industry, this I am going to share with the eager listeners? If you are lucky enough to get through all the legal claws & govt norms & able to start your project by complying all technical norms with Bar Charts, CPM & PERT like techniques; and then some stone & crusher manufactures organization goes on strike as rates of the materials has to be doubled because RTO has changed the norms of carrying materials like crush sand & khadi, so either pay them increased rates or they goes on strike, delaying every construction activity at your site. And no Govt department is intervening in this strike or rate hike demand! And then you get news that somewhere as the river sand digging auctions have not being done by the local Govt so there is no sand in the market & your contractors’ labors are sitting idle because of no sand at site! And with all these hurdles when you still continuing with your project you have to face accusing from media as well everyone around that you are making money & it’s you who is the sole cause of taking the homes out of budged from the common man!

So many scenes flashed in my mind which I myself have faced as a builder & I too am an engineer! But then I reminded myself that I was there not to shoo them off from being a builder but to encourage them to be part of real estate! It is fact that to become a real estate developer you don’t need to be a qualified engineer but things are changing fast & this was true for first genre of the developers. Now most of the second generation of real estate people is qualified & that too fields related to real estate such as civil engineering or management. This is because the clientele has changed, no more the buyer is a couple at retirement but it’s a lot matured young blood that is face of real estate customer & they are mostly either technocrat or educated by themselves. And no educated person will like to have his builder as uneducated especially when the product is home, which is one time buy for most! So this is a good news to all engineers, is what I told them. At the same time if an uneducated person can build a building then surely as a civil engineer it’s your responsibility to build better than him & to show the society that you can build better because you have better knowledge. So being an engineer & in the real estate gives you an edge over the non engineer or non educated competitors! Indeed to make this possible is a tough challenge but then what fun in working without any challenge is! Education is a weapon & it’s up to us how to use it; don’t let it become a shackle in your capacities but apply it to find new ways in doing your job. 

Things have changed a lot in the recent past & clients does expect better product & they do appreciate it too. Our knowledge has been given to us to find new avenues of doing the age old things in new ways, which in the end will be in benefit of the customer only. And best part is present real estate buyer understand this.

At the same time being in real estate doesn’t mean just become a builder, that’s one of the roles in the industry. The industry needs good contractors, construction management consultants, structural designers, services like plumbing & waterproofing providers & much more. As the more educated people will come in this industry the more refined it will become. Agreed presently its most non professional profession but then that’s not fault of real estate but the people it has. As any business or industry is gets reputation not by the money it generates but by the quality of people it’s associated with! Real estate’s policies & non professional face is because of the people it has & which were always bothered about end product which for them was money & not a good home! The country’s over one hundred crore population is in a way boon for real estate; as that mean so many homes are needed. A home is one of the basic need of a human being & we have become self sufficient on food & clothing i.e.  “Roti, kapda” but the “makan” i.e. home is still far less on supply side than demand. Presently the current Central Govt has taken housing as a serious aspect & the Honorable Prime Minister has said to set a target of nearly two crore homes in coming three years, so imagine to money as well opportunities involved in the segment! That makes real setae as best industry for making your carrier & with a degree in civil engineering you have far more chances of surviving here than any non technical person, is a fact.

Another aspect is creativity in real estate which a non technical person may not ever realize as what fun it’s there in imagining a structure on an empty land & then making it reality! Presently what this industry lacks is ideas which will change the age old practices, right from design too construction techniques too marketing the product! Fronts like Green Buildings & Affordable Housing are very much unexplored; as R & D is the weakest link here! With your technical knowhow you can fill in the gap which the industry is facing. Look at automobile of any other industry where there are thousands of option made available to the customer as per his needs & capacity to buy & at the same time look at real estate & the options it gives to the customers; we lack too much here also! I have full regards for every branch of education & yet real estate chiefly deals with civil engineering & obviously the one with education of the field held upper hand here is a fact. Also it doesn’t mean that someone couldn’t get education so he is unfit for the business but then mostly its inaccessibility to the education makes someone not getting it; no one remains uneducated by choice is a truth! You should be considered yourself luckier than those who couldn’t have their education & it’s this luck of your which is your responsibility to deliver the product in better way; then you may be a structural designer or contractor if not a builder!

Home is probably costliest product in our country & a once in life purchase for most of the buyers. And while you become successful person in real estate by selling your product to the client don’t forget your social responsibility i.e. your duty towards the society which has made you an able engineer. By me, being a successful real estater doesn’t mean how much is your bank balance or size your car fleet but what you have given back to the industry & the society! Neither success is how many sq ft of area you have built or the numbers of flats you have made but will count the success in how many numbers of families you have made happy by giving them their own home in the way they have dreamt for the same, as this is what makes real success! It’s that later part of success’s definition is what going to make your teachers real proud & to your own self too or else the real estate has enough builders who are successful. And lastly always keep in mind that you should be an engineer first & then the builder & not vice versa, that’s what real estate expects from you!

Sanjay Deshpande

Sanjeevani Dev.

Please do visit my blogs to know about our philosophy at Sanjeevani ! (Click the links below)

http://visonoflife.blogspot.in/2015/02/story-of-toilet.html


http://jivnachadrushtikon.blogspot.in/

Social Side of Sanjeevani ! (Click link below)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/65629150@N06/sets/72157627904681345/

For any of your complaints about city, log in at link below

http://www.punecorporation.org/GRS/Complaint/LaunchComplaintCitizen.aspx

Think Green, Think Life

www.sanjeevanideve.com  

Biodiversity, Whose Baby Is It?

“The only biodiversity we’re going to have left is Coke versus Pepsi. We’re landscaping the whole world one stupid mistake at a time.”...Chuck Palahniuk

Charles Michael "Chuck" Palahniuk is an American novelist and freelance journalist, who describes his work as transgressional fiction. He is the author of the award-winning novel Fight Club, which also was made into a feature film. But what he has mentioned isn’t fiction anymore as the way we are reading everyday some new species of animal, fish, birds or any plant getting extinct, sooner or later his words will be a reality! Biodiversity is a matter of concern all around the world & Pune isn’t exception to it! Good part is many are aware about this front of the city & we have numbers of NGO’s working for biodiversity conservation; bad part is the efforts are not supported by govt, common man & media! All is conveniently blamed on specie named builder who builds homes for the specie he belongs to i.e. human being!

In our city as I mentioned many ngo’s are working sincerely making people aware about importance of biodiversity in & around the city. Many of us might know the meaning of term biodiversity but may not be able to correlate its importance for our city life. Many may not be knowing it at all, except they might have come across the term in news paper or taking study of their kids as fortunately now the subject environment science is compulsory from school itself! Or  for those lucky ones who never ever heard the term itself, biodiversity is a term used to define or indicate the richness in variety of species i.e. we get around a particular place. For e.g. when we say Pune’s biodiversity then on large scale it’s the types & numbers of birds, animals, insects, fish & plants we get in & around Pune. Here animals means right from squirrels too stray dogs & plants includes large banyan trees too congress grass & birds includes our local pigeons too common sparrow & fishes means whatever you get form of floating life in the rivers we have, if we dare to call it river! Friends its matter of concern & recently I was fortunate enough to be part of a panel discussion organized by a well known NGO, named biosphere & title of the event was “Pune jaiv wiwidhata, dasha aani disha” i.e. Pune’s Biodiversity Status & Direction its heading! Pune has been blessed with some real crazy people who has given their life to conserve things like rivers, trees & hills of this city & its such people’s existence is Pune’s cultural backbone. Actually they are real celebrities of our culture, to name  a few, Sacin Punekar, Hema Sane Madam, Niand Ghate Sir, Rajguru Sir & Mahajan Sir are these names; all of them have studies various aspects of biodiversity & they are living encyclopedia of Pune's environment! The panel discussion’s guests were who’s who in the field of biodiversity of Pune & except me all others were plus side of seventies by age! Just to inform their authority on the topic, one of the participants has done his PhD on Pune Rivers in 1960! They all has been studying Pune’s rivers, hills, surrounding since last 60 years & very much concerned about the subject. On other hand I am part of Pune since 1986, that way very late & I have seen the river in polluted form only! So I decided just to listen what these stalwarts says & then decide how I will be contributing to the subject!

It was interesting to know things about biodiversity of city from the people who are here for more than 70 years; it was like looking at a flash back of the city itself! Some interesting facts I came to know like, in 1940’s the river water was as clean as filtered water & people used to drink directly from the river, in 1960’s a study of river life was made & at that time there were nearly 70 species of fishes in the river. Presently there are hardly 2 types of fishes in the river & mostly they are Tilapia, an African fish who isn’t native & it has killed every other species. There were orchids along the river bed & the biodiversity was so rich that nearly 200 types of various plants, creepers, trees were found along the river bed from city to vitthalwadi i.e. sinhagad road; now all we see in river bed is hysinth growth & hardly any vegetation, leave apart orchids! Worst is no one knows who has the control on river & its maintenance as PMC says its Irrigation departments job & vice versa! Animals or birds like Civet cat (ant eater), Mongoose, monitor lizard, snakes of many types, peacocks, rabbits & dears were seen abundantly around the city. There were packs of languors i.e. monkeys which used to visit city center in day time & in evening went back to forest areas in katraj or sinhagad. Now their corridors which were in form of huge trees all along the roads from city to outskirts have been chopped off & so are their trips to the city! There were 40 types of frogs in & around Pune & now you get to see hardly 3 or 4 types of them even in monsoon as there are no breeding ground left for the frogs! The river use to flood regularly & the water level use to rise till today’s modern college! The sky at night was clear & thousands of stars can be seen with naked eye & now we see only smog & deem moon!

Well, all above looks like its being talked about some ancient city like forbidden kingdom; kingdom of biodiversity! One of the speakers, who were professor of botany, was in tears by remembering the way she used to take her students for a stroll along river bed & explain the subject live, so much variety of floras was there which is gone now! As I mentioned one thing all of them agreed up on that biodiversity of this city is dead! And it’s a very serious loss as unfortunate part is the present genre doesn’t understand what they have lost! Rather many ask these question what’s big deal, haven’t we making progress, isn’t development more important than some weeds or creepers, what it makes difference if we don’t seen snakes & monkeys around, don’t we have better things on our mind & the debate is on! Very true, it’s difficult to make someone understand importance of biodiversity who hasn’t felt it or lived with the nature!  As today’s needs rather greed are different, all we care is amenities or specifications in our home, our buildings elevations & ambiance of our work places. Our cars & enough fuel for them, obviously cars need parking places & roads to drive. We need water in our taps & up to until it’s there we care a damn, how & from where it’s coming! We don’t care that our roads are encroaching river beds destroying every vegetation there & our garbage dumping in river is killing habitats of hundreds of birds & fishes.  

We call our self wise & intelligent & at the same time we think we are the only specie who has right on every natural resource the earth has! We are so blind in our greed that we have forgotten that development doesn’t mean destruction of other species! And when it comes to take the responsibility of the damage we have done we point our fingers to each others! Though there was some good facts also shared, such as Pune is probably richest in biodiversity of species of big trees in country as a city; with nearly 500 hundred types of trees in & around the city! There were only 14 gardens in 1940 & now there are 114 gardens around the city! But this is not enough, unless some real positive steps are taken the future looks black on biodiversity front is a naked truth & for that someone has to be come forward to take ultimate responsibility of biodiversity! And that someone lives in each of us & not in form of any govt department or ngo!

After listening to what the city was & now what it has become, for a moment I was really speechless; though I too have seen my share as when I came to this city, nearly thirty years back & it was surely much more livable then. But population, pollution & failure in planning are the curse we have got & that’s why the city has come to the stage of loss of biodiversity. When all eyes turned at me, all I could say was, “Yes, I m responsible for whatever damage the city has faced on biodiversity front & I should play my role to restore it as a builder!” We can’t go & live on trees or in open; however we may love nature & respect the environment. But we can build our structures keeping in mind what damage we have made to our surrounding biodiversity & how we are going to patch it up. In nature there is no command like “undo’, as whatever we have destroyed it has been here for ages & we just destructed it in few years! So the huge open drain we call river will take ages to flow again in normal mode & make people able to drink water from it directly & then again there will be life in & along the river; but at least we can start the process from today & from me! I can plant as many trees & make them survive while I build my buildings along. One major front is making people aware about their role as an individual in conserving biodiversity, which as a builder I can surely do with my customers. Many a times when I walk along a bridge on river near my residence , there is a board on the bridge appealing people not to put garbage in river, especially residuals from the Puja of God at their respective homes. But each day I see some person standing right below the board & throwing their garbage in the river. Well these are no builders, they are just common citizen of the city like you & me & by this simple act they are damaging a water body which was home to many species. But they don’t understand impact of their small act & there is no one who is telling this to them! I think as a builder I should promote not only my buildings but importance of conserving nature also & best way is by my own acts!

To make this possible the builders should be open as well accessible to people like Sane madam or Mahajan sir & take their guidance in planning stage itself while making any project. The environmentalists also need to change their attitude towards the builders as ultimately builders are the one who are going to build the buildings, so unless they haven’t been taken in confidence the change won’t be possible! There is strong need of a common platform where the builders & the environmentalists should come together as there lies the future of biodiversity. 

For this cause media also has role to play as no news of such efforts or seminars ever makes to front page, so how the common man will get aware about all these matters? Why can’t like sports or finance page each newspaper have a  “green page”, where information will be shared as well efforts of individuals on green fronts will be made public! Whatever damage has been made to the biodiversity, each of us is somewhere responsible for that, may it be directly or indirectly. Many will say how come I am responsible as I never throw garbage in river, I have never cut a tree neither I have killed any sparrow! Well, does our job ends just by doing nothing, as it’s high time to ask ourselves, what I have done to conserve the biodiversity & not to boost about what I haven’t done to damage it! Ask have a planted a single tree & tried to make it survive. Ask to your builder what he does about conserving biodiversity while building his buildings. Ask to your elected member that why the stream which are nallah has been concretized instead conserving the plants & trees along them. Ask to area engineer of the local body why the roads are being hard paved with no soil exposed which could have been used for absorbing rain water as well can be dust baths for sparrows. Write to every media including Face book, what you feel for nature around & make every person you know aware about his duties for the same. At least start raising your voice on everything which you feel should have been done for the nature conservation & isn’t being done!

Friends’ biodiversity around us is what makes our life colorful & livable; instead of trying to explain it in words one should learn to live the term. It’s said that each specie has a life cycle of seven million years, & human species has completed its two million already but these two million years are equal or more than seven million years the way we have destructed other specie’s life cycles & in the process our own also! So we don’t have five million years in our hand, all we have to conserve the nature is today; if we understand this basic truth then there is point in calling ourselves humans or else we don’t have a chance to survive even what dinosaurs’ had! The end will be worst than we imagine as it will be a life without any color or fragrance but black & whites around. And even if we survive there will be nothing worth to live for!

 Sanjay Deshpande

Sanjeevani Dev.

Please do visit my blogs to know about our philosophy at Sanjeevani ! (Click the links below)

http://visonoflife.blogspot.in/2015/02/story-of-toilet.html
http://jivnachadrushtikon.blogspot.in/
Social Side of Sanjeevani ! (Click link below)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/65629150@N06/sets/72157627904681345/

For any of your complaints about city, log in at link below

http://www.punecorporation.org/GRS/Complaint/LaunchComplaintCitizen.aspx

Think Green, Think Life

www.sanjeevanideve.com

Story of a Toilet!

“Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” …John F. Kennedy

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, commonly known as Jack Kennedy or by his initials JFK, was an American politician who served as the 35th President of the United States from January 1961 until his assassination in November 1963. At age 43, he was the youngest man to have been elected to the office, the second-youngest president (after Theodore Roosevelt), and the first person born in the 20th century to serve as president. To date, Kennedy has been the only Roman Catholic president and the only president to have won a Pulitzer Prize. No need to introduce more JFK probably the most popular US President till date & most controversial too. But it’s his above quote has been a historic & inspiring one; as we often forget that when we expect something from a system named Govt or country then we also are supposed to give back to the system! Real eye opening quote indeed! The purpose I remembered this quote is a small activity we started a year back has been now considered as path breaking & living to the words of JFK. I am referring to adoption of a public lavatory which we undertook a year back in Pune.

Let me admit I myself didn’t think it’s something great or it will pull so much of attention from media or even by the system including local body & rulers but sometimes things just happens. It’s a small step by a small company with some good intentions to make the surrounding which we call the society a better place, that’s all! To those who don’t know the background here is a bit past tense or let’s say flash back…

Nearly one & half year back when I wasn’t playing my routine badminton in mornings due to my shoulder injury, I used to walk to Vaishali to join my friends over cup of tea. And on the walk from my home to Vaishali at FC road, I used to cross a place nal stop chowk at karve road. It’s here a public lavatory was situated which was in real bad condition , structure wise & use wise also; it used to stink & the stench was so bad that you can’t even walk past it so I used to cross the road near that lavatory & complete my walk. And in traffic hours to cross the road in front of that lavatory was a real hassle. Even the residents around had complained to PMC to remove that lavatory as it was nusscence than use! So one day I thought of doing something about it & contacted few friends in PMC is local body & asked why the lavatory is in so bad shape? As expected replies were no funds, insufficient man power types; so I said what if I maintain it? Sure they must have thought I am mad or joking, but when I said I am serious then seeing my determination the concerned officers said I will have to give application saying so as never any such thing has been done by any private person or institute; I meant no one has requested such weird thing to adopt a public toilet on his own out of nothing! 

Immediately from my office I gave my proposal that I will maintain it & without any consideration in any form, not even advertising on the toilet! And at that time I wasn’t sure what & how I was going to do it, so I had a small meeting with few of my colleagues who thought it as one more new fad of their boss but agreed as boss is boss! We worked out that we can makeover the present condition of the lavatory & the best way is keep a full time janitor there as to start with that seemed only logical solution to keep the poor thing in shape! But after giving such application nearly for three months there was no communication from the PMC authority & my crossing or road continued near the lavatory but the thought of maintaining it got stronger with each day!

Then one day in a function I came across Sandeep Khardekar & MP, Vandana Chavan & over informal talks the issue of civic sense came up & I told them about my application regarding the lavatory & how no replay is there from PMC. To my surprise both of them immediately got in action & in a day I got call from Vandana didi to come at Municipal Commissioner of PMC regarding the subject. There things moved fast with intervention from MP level & I got a letter from Mr. Suresh Jagtap, Dy Comm of Solid Waste, saying we can maintain the lavatory on our own but strictly no advertisement as well periodical checking from the health inspector at PMC ward level will be there. We got in contact with Madhuri Sahstrabudhhe who is local elected member of the ward & she assured all help. When we went to inspect actual condition of the lavatory one more hurdle popped up; there was no water connection! I told to Madhuri madam that I can get a small tank but from where I can get water as to use daily tanker will be impossible job. Over this she said she will arrange water connection & she did arrange in a weeks’ time. So now most of the things were in place & civil work wasn’t a big thing for us as being in construction industry by our self. So including initial touchups like tiling, painting to plumbing & having a small sintex water tank, all was in place within fifteen days.

One more thing, the surrounding small open space around the lavatory which I thought should be needed to be utilized properly as it was a dumping yard for all sort of garbage i.e. from liquor bottles to what not! So we thought of making a flower bed in it & again we got permission from Jagtap sir as well Madhuri madam. We planted flowering plants like “Ratrani’, so its fragrance would help in making the surrounding better & it does worked. Then we started for looking a janitor who will be willing to do a job which isn’t much lucrative as well he would have face to the public which may not be friendly. And we did get it in the form of a college dropout but fit boy Sushil & a salary of ten thousand is agreed upon. We explained him the job & provided him all the cleaning material as well a little bit of training were given. It’s decided that after every twenty minutes he will clean/wash the urinals as well instruct people using that to keep it clean & not misuse the same for wrong purposes. This bought up another problem as why the people would listen to him? So we put a small board at the toilet with permission of authorities saying the toilet is under maintenance of Sanjeevani & displayed mobile numbers of two of our staff members for any assistance regarding lavatory condition. We put some decorative planters around the lavatory & the entire look got changed.

This all took nearly four & half months from the date I applied to PMC for adoption as this sounds proper word than maintained; & exactly on 28^th Jan 14 we started officially with a cozy get-together at venue in presence of all the concerned. We didn’t made it public as we thought let it run firs & let’s see are we able to deliver what we have committed! We also kept a remark book there which at first people find weird as at what kind of public lavatory janitor asks you to fill the remark book as, “how you feel about using it?” But there were good remarks about the condition of the place as well about our efforts & our confidence increased! Time fly & suddenly in second week of January 15, I realized its nearly one year & I called Sandeep Khardekar, who said why not celebrate its birthday? And as on 28^th Jan 15, all were there again including Hon Mayor of Pune city Mr. Dattaji Dhankawade & MLA Medha Kulkarni, off course Vandana didi & Madhuri madam with Suresh Jagtap too were present. Shop keepers around the place as well residents expressed their feelings that how it was a big disturbance & now it’s a best utility in the locality & I think that’s was the real receipt of the work. Its decided that this pattern will be made public & make more people/companies to come forward & follow the path. My friends Vikrant Vartak & aditya javdeakr who has already doing it with a women’s lavatory joined in. It costs Rs 15,000/month to maintain this one set up is what we have calculated inclusive of all expenses & I am sure that much many of us can afford! And needless to say the money will make the janitor boy to complete his education which is added bonus!

Friends I am not sharing this to advertise something unique we have done; all we did is just as it come to our mind & we could do it because we listened to our inner call. It’s said that kitchen of a home tells you the culture of that home; similarly public toilets of any city tells you culture of that city & now let’s ask our self what’s culture of our city? We call our self “Oxford of East” or “Cultural Capitol of the State” & look at our public toilets; it’s a shame to all of us the conditions most of them are in! And when any outsider is visiting our city & uses the public toilet, if at all he dares to use one, then what kind of opinion he will be making about our city? Many of us has traveled abroad & wondered about cleanliness over there, have we ever thought who keeps public places over there clean; it’s nobody else but the public itself! After all what is public but we all who are living here! Why we should be depending upon Govt for everything when we our self also can contribute? If some day our house keeper guy doesn’t turn up then do we wait till Govt comes & clean our home? Same way the roads, the toilets, the gardens or any public places are our own & we can surely give a try to make them a better place. Also see the employment it will generate & there are nearly eight hundred such public toilets in the Pune city only & still the numbers are insufficient is a fact! We spend for so many things including birth day parties to marriages & what not, mostly to show off what wealth we have but some where we have forgot to spend for society of which we too are part! And it’s not only maintaining the toilet but we can have even signages around in the neighboring locality mentioning way boards to the public toilets. So more people will come to know about it & instead making the surrounding dirty they will come to the place to use the facility! Here a small expectation from the rulers or local bodies is they should promote such concepts so as their own work load will get reduced. Let’s remember that any system is for making common man’s life better & if the common man himself is getting involved in process then what more we need!

Lastly this may be story of just one toilet but it can become story of every public toilet; as it’s said that however long any journey may be but it starts with only one step in the forward direction & nobody but our own self prevents us from taking that step! Instead of cursing the system lets become the system as that’s what will makes us a society or else we will end up as just bunch of brainless animals killing our own future; choice is ours only what we become!

--

Sanjay Deshpande

Sanjeevani Dev.

Please do visit my blogs to know about our philosophy at Sanjeevani ! (Click the links below)

http://visonoflife.blogspot.in/2014/01/wanted-leader-for-real-estate-industry_8.html

http://jivnachadrushtikon.blogspot.in/

Social Side of Sanjeevani ! (Click link below)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/65629150@N06/sets/72157627904681345/

For any of your complaints about city, log in at link below

http://www.punecorporation.org/GRS/Complaint/LaunchComplaintCitizen.aspx

Think Green, Think Life

www.sanjeevanideve.com