A load of rubbish

India has its flaws. Some I find charming, some irritating, some funny, some forgivable, but there is one flaw I cannot forgive however much I accept the rest: litter. From single scraps of paper to mountain ranges of plastic bottles, it is always, always present, always, always heartbreaking. It heaps up in ditches or under trees, trying to hide its bulk among the shadows, or flaps lazily, openly, slovenly in the street, inviting dogs, cats, cows, goats, rats and mice to inspect it and ingest it. It spreads itself over everything from the dirtiest, grimiest back alleys to the prettiest countryside scenes. You can't avoid it, escape it or quite believe it.

And unlike some of India's other flaws it is not even picturesque. A ramshackle bus, held together by hope and string, is a picturesque because it defies logic, never mind death, and it makes you smile. An ancient Babu swathed in flaming orange cloth, with draggled grey beard and smeared with sandalwood paste is picturesque (even though he demands 10Rs for you to take his picture), because he is one of the faces of India's life. Even the poverty is, dare I say it, picturesque. The suffering of a beggar girl grinds sorrowful character into her young face and her pitiful gaze demands you to hold it and acknowledge it or else look away entirely.

But litter is never, ever, ever picturesque. Everything it touches is soiled and diseased by its contact. The beautiful Brindavan Gardens, near Mysore - a favourite Bollywood backdrop - become a sickening mockery when its ponds bob, not with vital, vibrant plant life, but with discarded bottles and cans. Its bushes bloom with thrown-away packets and plastics.

Litter, and those who drop it, has the capacity to disappoint and disrespect like nothing else. I arrive in a new place full of hope and expectation. 'This one will be cleaner,' I think. But, as usual expectation vanquishes hope: the rubbish is there waiting for me, clumped in side streets where it thinks I won't look or sprawled in the bright streets, like a mangy stray cat sleeping in a patch of sun, not even caring what I see of think. It desecrates the most lovely beaches, marking the tide line like a rim of scum on nature's immense bathtub.

And my heart is instantly a little bit broken. My hopes are dashed like a dropped beer bottle and smash into a thousand glittering pieces. Even if the pieces can be gathered up and put back together, the whole still bears the scars.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder but I challenge anyone to find beauty in a greasy crisp packet flapping in a flower-thick bush, a smeared tissue crumpled near an ancient temple gate, or a broken flip-flop washed up on a sugar-white Andaman beach. I have seen all these things and I have wept for them.

Yet it happens again and again. The hill station of Ooty, was said to be a little piece of old England in the misty green Indian hills: it was a living rubbish dump of open, foetid drains, with a litter-flecked lake where even a graveyard of broken pedalos lolled insolent in the sun, in full view of tourists and locals alike.

Pondicherry's rubbish at least attempted irony, so I almost forgave it. A huge sign on the seafront pronounced mournfully: 'Pondicherry's not the same when you litter'. Below its hopeful plea had been dumped a large and deliberate heap of garbage.

Even the precious Andaman paradise island of Havelock was infected. At its star beach, simply known as Beach No 7, my heart leapt to see big green recycling bins for the mountains of plastic water bottles the tourists consume. Could someone finally be taking notice and caring? The bins were brimful, so people were definitely using them and the area seemed to be clear of litter. But when I took a short cut down a little track that lead to the beach, there under the bushes, the contents of numerous recycling bins had just been dumped there. The sea of litter was there all along, mirroring in a grotesque parody, the real translucent, heavenly sea just a few meters from it. It was hidden away like a dirty, guilty secret, but like all such secrets it had been found out.

And I refuse to add to this refuse. I absolutely cannot leave my own litter behind, however tiny its drop in this ocean of ordure. Instead I will fold and hold my wrappings and packings, stowing them neatly in my bag until I spot the rare creature that is a litter bin and will carefully place my 'treasure' there. Or if a bin does not show its face, I will take it back to my room and bin it there.

I don't do this to be smug and teach a lesson - after all, no-one notices - I do it because I believe it to be right. And does this make me a better person than the Indians whose drops create this flood of litter? Of course not. It is simply a question of education. I have been taught to leave no litter behind so that is what I do. In India it would appear that litter is at the bottom of the educational heap. Indians have been born in it, grow up in it and die in it, and so they just don't notice it. And no-one had told them not to do it. I have seen a child drop an ice-cream wrapper the moment her treat in unwrapped, and I have also seen on a train a middle-aged, middle-class lady, throw the remains of her meal, paper plate, cup, spoon and all out of the window. She leaned over me to do this, dripping cold sauce on my leg, and I watched in disgust as it traced it's greasy arc and landed on the ground - next to a hundred other plates. No-one cares because no-one has been taught to care.

But it can be done, it has been done. The Taj Mahal is a serene oasis of litter-free loveliness, the Golden Temple is always spotless and Delhi's Lotus Temple is not full of rubbish. So what's the problem with the other places? No-one lives in these monuments: they live in the streets and houses; they travel on the trains and buses; and they use the parks and public toilets. And all of these are drowning in a filthy tide of garbage.

So what's the problem? To me, it seems that the Government doesn't care. It wants to impress the tourists (Indian ones as well) so its sights are scrubbed and polished, while its cities and scenery are squalid and unkempt. Apart from in Pondicherry (ironic mound aside), I have not noticed seem a litter bin in the streets or in the countryside and I have never seen a rubbish lorry. How can people store their rubbish indefinitely if no-one comes to collect it? Sometimes they burn it. At dusk in towns and villages the smell of smoke drifts across the air, weaving its threads between the houses. This is not the evocative scent of woodsmoke or charcoal that we smell, but the acrid stench of smouldering or flaming rubbish; plastics, paper, food waste and all. It is from necessity on two counts. One, it repels mosquitoes at their most likely strike time and two, it is the only means of getting rid of their rubbish that some people have. What else can they do?

But it feels as if the Government is willfully closing its eyes to this. There are armies of beggars and unemployed in every town, village, hovel and shack. Could India not take advantage of - and equally give advantage to - these poor souls? Get them to clean up their towns and cities in return for a basic wage, then they would dignify themselves and their town at the same time.