'Will you return to work in India?' I asked Aresh. Here was a teenager studying at one of the best schools in the world, at Winchester in Britain. With sports, extra-curricular activities and academics blended harmoniously in the curriculum, he was a future leader. 'No, the filth puts me off. I get sick!'

Radha, a student at Harvard School, said: 'The drive from Mumbai airport via slums, tattered roads, tonnes of trash, is a traumatic welcome to India.' She loves India but cannot work there.

Filth is all-pervading in India. Urban roads overflow with garbage and trash. Garbage collection is inefficient, irregular and incompetent. We use archaic modes like brooms and shovels to garner thrash from streets. We transport it in filthy, stinking lorries, which are neither clean nor disinfected. The garbage collection system alone is not culpable. Citizens throw thrash on streets, spit on walls and shun dustbins. Residential buildings neglect garbage collection and disposal.

The attitude is: keep your home clean, so what if the homes of others and roads become recipients of our filth? But no family is an island by itself. One home's hygiene cannot be another home's sickness!

We need the 100-metre rule -- have dustbins at every 100 metres on streets and mechanise the collection and disposal of garbage in cities.

As a child, when I was growing up in Mumbai, I remember tankers of water were used to clean the footpaths in the nights. But I have not seen this in Mumbai in the last 45 years. However, roads are cleaned regularly in the nights in Saudi Arabia and Dubai.

In Oxford Street, London's busiest shopping zone, mechanical sweepers work throughout the day to ensure virtual 'online cleaning'. Towns like Rio de Janeiro and Curitiba in Brazil are kept sparkling to woo tourists.

In smaller Indian towns, the hygiene is even poorer. Streets are narrow and congested, housing more dense. Garbage disposal operations are fledgling. In many interior areas in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Bihar, donkeys carry garbage. Towns are growing rapidly, but they do not have mechanised garbage handling. Drainage systems are inadequate. There are no covered pipes. Putrid water flows through open drains, attracting flies and other insects to spread disease. Dead rats and reptiles float around during the monsoon.

Indian villages retain a modicum of cleanliness, due to the initiatives of the villagers themselves. The fields provide an outlet for water during the monsoon; hence drainage is not a serious issue.