Not much, it seems—just another chapter in the long, disgraceful saga of Indian public hygiene, or rather, the complete absence of it. Air India Flight 126 has inadvertently exposed, once again, the appalling state of travel etiquette among Indians—a condition that I have lamented since the 1960s and one that has only nosedived into further depths of selfishness, filth, and sheer disregard for others.
Let’s be clear: this is not about poverty, nor about lack of education. This is about a deep-rooted cultural apathy towards public spaces, a brazen “me-first” attitude that turns every shared environment—whether a railway station, an aircraft, or a temple—into a cesspit of human negligence. During my three-month train odyssey across India, I witnessed it at every stop: reeking toilets, corridors lined with garbage, passengers treating the railway compartments as personal dustbins, spitting gutka onto every surface imaginable. It’s not just filth—it’s a fundamental lack of responsibility, an attitude that screams, I don’t care, as long as it’s not in my house.
And now, this mentality has made its way to 35,000 feet. Flushing plastic bags? Clothes? RAGS? On a long-haul international flight? The sheer idiocy of it is staggering. It’s not just about clogged toilets; it’s the symbol of a deeper malaise—the belief that someone else, always someone else, will clean up the mess. It’s the same attitude that turns public parks into trash heaps and heritage monuments into graffiti-covered urinals.
The excuses are predictable. “Air India’s maintenance is poor!” Yes, Air India has its flaws—anyone who’s flown with them can attest to that—but even the worst airline in the world is not designed to handle the industrial-scale misuse of its toilets as garbage disposals. “But Westerners also make a mess!” No, they don’t. This is uniquely, embarrassingly, an Indian problem. The same Indians who behave like savages on home soil suddenly find their best manners when they land in Singapore, Dubai, or London. Why? Because they fear fines, embarrassment, and social consequences. In India? No such worries.
This is not new. This rot has been festering for decades. I remember the first time I set foot in India, hopeful, expecting a land of grandeur, history, and civilization. Instead, I found train stations where people defecated between the tracks, restaurants where waiters wiped their noses with their hands before serving food, and buses where everyone shoved and pushed like rabid animals. I thought perhaps it was a passing phase, a symptom of post-colonial disarray. But no—things have only gotten worse. The economy has boomed, the country has sent rockets to Mars, but basic civic sense? Nowhere to be found.
There will be outrage over this. But the wrong kind. Some will be furious at Air India for “embarrassing India on the world stage”—as if the real embarrassment isn’t the passengers who caused this mess. Others will brush it off with the usual, “India is too big to fix.” No. Japan is small, yes, but China isn’t. Yet their public transport systems are pristine, their citizens clean up after themselves. It’s not about size; it’s about accountability.
It’s time for a reckoning. No more blaming governments, airlines, or “the system.” The system is YOU. Indians need to look in the mirror and ask: am I part of the problem? Because right now, as Flight 126 proves beyond a doubt, the answer is yes.
