Chandrakant Damodar Kulkarni is paying for cleaning India

Chandrakant Damodar Kulkarni, 67, a retired teacher from Pune's St Joseph Boy's School and the 11th among 13 siblings, inherited the spirit of service from his parents.

"I lost my father when I was about 13. My mother would cook at people's homes and (that's how she) took care of us. I never saw her complaining about anything. Hence social work or trying to help others in whatever capacity has been part of my nature," says he.

A resident of Pimpri Chinchwad, Kulkarni is now a famous man: Prime Minister Narendra in his Mann ki baat address to the nation acknowledged his contribution to the national cleanliness mission. Kulkarni gets a monthly pension of Rs 16,000 and has already sent 52 post-dated cheques of Rs 5,000 each for the programme.
 

His mobile phone hasn't stopped ringing since then. Kulkarni talks to all without any irritation. "It took the prime minister's office almost 10 months to accept my contribution. They said that I was perhaps the only person who was using his pension money for this cause," says he. But celebrity-hood hasn't consumed him: he is reluctant to get photographed.

Kulkarni says that he can afford to contribute almost a third of his pension for public hygiene because his financial commitments are limited. His son and daughter are well-settled, he has no vices and fortunately no health concerns either. "It's my pension, I will decide how I want to spend it," he says.

Kulkarni shares that it was Modi's Independence Day speech from the Red Fort in 2014 that made him think about the state of cleanliness in the country. "I was inspired when Modiji said he was the Pradhan Sewak (principal servant) of this country. I studied whatever he said for two-and-a-half months and then decided to be a part of the campaign," he adds.

The National Democratic Alliance launched the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan in 2014, under which more than 10 million toilets in urban India and half-a-million toilets in rural India will be built by October 2, 2019, in order to end open defecation.

More than cleanliness, what is close to Kulkarni's heart is the service he renders at the Samadhi of Ramdas Swami at Sajjangad, a fort near Satara in Maharashtra.

"I have travelled across the country - Kashi, Rameshwaram, Amarnath- but everywhere people are after money. At Sajjangad no one asks you for money. Even if you want to stay there they will not charge you. If you want to do seva, come and do it, no questions asked. And this is where I spend six months in a year in seva," he says.

What touched Kulkarni the most was Modi's gesture to meet him when he visited Pune on June 25 to launch the Smart City programme. "I have a simple phone, so when his office called me, I didn't understand. Later my son called them and told me that the prime minister would like to meet me. He was meeting some other people too. But the moment my chance came, and he was 10-15 steps from where I was standing, he took my name twice or thrice and greeted me. He was extremely respectful. And then, when he met me, he continued to hold my hand and talk to me," he reminisces.