Folk artistes launch cleanliness drive from temple
LUCKNOW: Taking forward Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s swachhata mission, folk artiste Malini Awasthi on Wednesday kick-started the ‘Swachhata Yajna’ from Chandrika Devi temple in the city.
“A temple is meant for the public, but most people visiting it feel that it’s the responsibility of the priest and the municipal authorities to keep it clean. This is a false belief. So, we decided to start our campaign from here. We want a strong message to go out to the society,” said Awasthi, who got a personal letter from the PM for carrying forward the government’s cleanliness mission.
“All religious places are equal and (such initiatives) can give a strong message -- be it at a gurudwara, a mosque or a church,” said Awasthi adding, “After we received the communique from the Prime Minister, we thought why not start work during Navratri?”
In her endeavour, Awasthi was joined by many other folk artistes, including Sheelu Rajput (Aalha artiste), Angad Yadav (Biraha artiste), and Renu, Alka and Preeti Singh. The artistes not only participated in the event at the temple but also crated 11 folk songs on the theme of cleanliness.
As the artistes cleaned up the temple premises they also sang songs to motivate others present there. Later, the participants were took pledge to keep their surroundings clean and motivate others for the same.
Awasthi, who led the campaign, plans more action under the drive in the coming days. She said that the Awadhi, Kajri and Aalah songs, created by the artistes, would soon be released as an album.