Nagpur: After a lifetime of hard work, many people usually prefer to relax in old age. Or spending time with children, daughters-in-law and grandchildren. But there is an extraordinary person in the Second Capital of the State, who has taken up social service without resting at home. This man is making a significant contribution in keeping the parks and Nagpur clean and beautiful by spontaneously picking up garbage from various parks and gardens, a report in local Marathi daily threw light on this person.
Meet Baldev Chawla who has become a kind of cleanliness messenger for the people of Nagpur. 80-year-old Baldev, who lives in Pawansut Apartment in Ramdaspeth and belongs to a business family, serves Lendra Park, Dagdi Park in Ramdaspeth and Dayanand Park in Jaripatka every Sunday and collects the garbage there in a bag and disposes it at the right place.
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Thursday 09 Jan. 2025
Baldev has been doing this social service uninterruptedly for the last four years. Even during the Corona period, he continued the cleaning work honestly. Like “Ekla Chalo Re” he is picking garbage and plastics alone. This not only passes his time, but also helps in keeping the parks clean.
Baldev has a wife and three children. One daughter lives in Bhilai, while the other daughter and son have settled in America for work. He visits his grandchildren in America once every two to three years but prefers to stay in Nagpur as his heart beats for the city.
Baldev says, currently we are both husband and wife at home. “There was no work in the house. So I started picking garbage to pass the time. The aim of this was also to do some social service and make Nagpur a beautiful city,” said Baldev, a religious man, who walks 20 km on foot for nine hours every month.
Also, he walks for four to five hours every morning for fitness. Even at the age of 80, he is fit and active due to regular exercise. Remarkably, he does not have any disease. Baldev, who is a religious man and a pure vegetarian, walks 20 km on foot for nine hours every month and exercises for four to five hours every morning to maintain his fitness. Despite his age, he is active and does not have any disease. He has never even been to a doctor. “I never touched alcohol in life. But I have to pick liquor bottles for the purpose of cleaning in the parks”, said Baldev jokingly.
According to Baldev, Nagpurians are not at all serious about cleanliness. That is why garbage accumulates in most of the parks in the city. People, especially the youth, eat in parks and throw garbage there. He appealed to his senior colleagues to join the cleanliness mission saying that if they curb this dirty habit, a person like me will not need to do this work.
Baldev’s commitment to keeping his city clean and beautiful is a testament to his strong sense of civic responsibility and dedication to community service. His selfless efforts have not gone unnoticed, and he has become an inspiration to many in his community. Baldev’s story is a reminder that anyone can make a difference, no matter how small, and that we all have a responsibility to contribute to the betterment of our communities. His service is a shining example of how one person’s actions can have a positive impact on the world around them.
