Serb picks up broom & bucket for a clean sweep of streets from Bengaluru to Gurgaon

Time of India

3 days ago

PUNE: A lone cow stares at a tall man in shorts and dusty sneakers dragging a stick broom across a litter-strewn lane in Gurgaon's Sector 55 in a video. Passersby smirk, some laugh, some tell him to stop wasting his time, while one or two join him.
"India ko saaf rakhna hai," he calls out in accented Hindi, sweeping food packets, plastic cups, and other litter into a bucket.
Lazar Jankovic, a 32-year-old Serb, arrived in India in 2018 on a modelling contract but stayed for love of the country and his Sikkimese fiancee. Its beauty and culture drew him in, but the indifference to garbage unsettled him. He then picked up a broom and a bucket and began cleaning up roads.
He started 'Ek Din Ek Gully', an initiative where he collects garbage scattered across roads and urges passersby to follow better civic sense.
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Jankovic graduated from The Academy of Criminalistic and Police Studies in Belgrade-Zemun, and prepared for a decade to work in forensics, alongside years of training in kickboxing and Krav Maga. He decided to impulsively take up a last-minute modelling assignment that brought him to Bengaluru in 2018.
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"Even as a child, I wanted to visit India, but never got the chance. I accompanied my friend for an audition in Serbia where the casting director offered me an assignment, and I jumped at the opportunity to come to India. My friends and family were shocked by my decision, but my mother was supportive," Jankovic said.
He found India beautiful and the culture amazing, but littering and litterbugs bothered him. "I was shocked to see well-to-do residents stepping over piles of waste to get into their cars.
I thought if nobody was going to act, I should," Jankovic added.
In Bengaluru, he shifted homes four times, and cleaned up the surroundings everywhere he lived. He didn't make any videos then but started recording last year. "I didn't get much traction. I then learned how to post on social media and the videos now reach larger audiences. Some videos of me cleaning up a lane near my place in Gurgaon started trending. I have received hundreds of calls and messages from people who want to volunteer," Jankovic said.
He also carried out self-funded cleanups in every city he visited in India, from Bengaluru to across Tamil Nadu, and the ghats of Rishikesh. But he reserves his praise for Sikkim for its people's attitude towards cleanliness. "The rest of India must learn from them," Jankovic said.
His street work hasn't always been met with enthusiasm. "The only support I got during my first cleanup was from a cow who followed me around.
Locals laughed at me. I couldn't converse with them, so I learnt Hindi through Kishore Kumar songs and Shah Rukh Khan movies," Jankovic said. In some videos, he is seen urging civic sense to people in Tamil.
He is pushing for practical measures like designated dumping spots on every street to make waste collection easier. "My motto is to take charge of just two metres outside your own homes. If residents from every building kept their immediate area clean, it would change everything," he said.
Earlier in August, Jankovic cleaned the premises of a temple in Gurgaon and spoke to the priests about using waste bins.
"Volunteers joined the drive, we collected four-five bags of waste. A person stepped up and called a tractor to take it to the dumping ground and even instructed the driver not to dump it anywhere else," Jankovic said.
In September, he will be in Mumbai and Pune to organise cleanup drives. He will visit Indore later to learn from their waste-management system.
Jankovic is keen on yoga and is pursuing a certification. "Yoga is a discipline. So is civic responsibility. Both are about respect for your body and your surroundings," he added.
He is clear that he is in India for the long haul.
"I love this country. I'm going to marry into it. Throughout history, people have come here to take something away. It's time to give back," he said.
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