It’s summer and grass cutters are busy as bees. From morning till evening, you can hear the awful din of their weed eaters and leaf blowers. Yes, they don’t rake the leaves anymore but simply blow them away with the leaf blowers.
With the festive season around the corner, everybody wants their gardens to look neat and tidy. So, nobody seems to mind the noise even on a Sunday morning.
The municipality, too, has gangs of grass cutters busy all over Durban. While we all should be happy that the municipality is sprucing up the city for the festive season, I wasn’t impressed with what I saw recently.
One moment I saw to my delight a host of gladioli putting on their summer display; the next they were all gone, mowed down by the ruthless grass cutters. They were not planted but growing wildly on their own, beautifying the verge on the M13 near the St John’s intersection. How could these grass cutters be so stupid and ignorant, I thought, to cut down these lovely flowers?
Everything before them, whether it’s grass, weeds or plants, gets mowed down. Then again, I thought, it would be wrong to blame the grass cutters. What are the officials doing in their offices? Putting their feet up and chatting on the phone? They should get off their butt and go around and show the grass cutters what are weeds, invasive aliens and indigenous plants.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the officials themselves are just as ignorant.
T MARKANDAN
***The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media or IOL.***
Daily News