Sometime he disagrees with his next-door shopkeepers and commuters for littering the area or just for spitting on the sidewalk but any amount of dissuasion has failed to dampen his fortitude. Each day he accomplishes what he has to do. Generally he sweeps up the area more than five times to make sure that each place is spotless at the end of the day.

A resident of Hyderabad, Raju Bhai was born in 1961 in a Hindu-Jain Swetambar family. Rajendra Kumar Jain graduated from Osmania University with a degree in commerce; he came to Diphu with an aim to establish business around 20 years ago and since then this small town has become his real home. Raju Bhai is married to Mrs Manjula Jain and is the father of two daughters and a son.

“I am cleaning up my surrounding areas since last 10 years. I want to see that citizens of Diphu should feel happy while passing through this area, which I clean every day. While walking through the road or footpath they should not confront with any filth. I believe that, if at list 25 percent citizens of Diphu take interest in what I do as self appointed duty, I suppose our town will be neat and clean and if God wishes ours will be cleanest town of Assam” Raju Bhai supposed.

“I admire this person for his sense of belonging and responsibility, he is religiously serious about the hygiene issue, he never compromise nor give any excuse. He just perform his task like a committed soldier of crusade. If we by mistake litter our surrounding Raju Bhai will silently clean the spot and tickle our guilty emotion” Anil Barua, fellow shopkeeper and neighbour of Raju Bhai in the same commercial block, said.

Few days back during a government sponsored cleanliness drive, Chairman of Diphu Town Committee Mohan Tisso and Additional Deputy Commissioner of Karbi Anglong Brojen Chandra Das was leading a large procession of volunteers for sanitizing the town. The drive began from the area where Raju Bhai had already brushed off every morsel of filth and muck few minutes earlier. The whole group of volunteers could not touch down their brooms while crossing the area. Astounded Brojen Chandra Das then noticed the lone and long-limbed Raju Bhai giving finishing touch to his opening action of the day. The intellectual Assam Civil Service officer immediately made out the raison d’être “Who is that gentleman? You are saying he is doing this since last 10 years? I am elated to see such a selfless person. Please let us do something to honour him publicly and at least let us try”. Happy-go-lucky Raju Bhai, when told about the admiration he received, turned bashful “I have not prepared my bio data yet. Actually in my petty business I never required one and do you say I will be honoured by government. It’s good but never it occurred to me. Please thank everybody who observed me, actually I did nothing to deserve such commend”.

Sushanta Roy