Long before he became known as Bengaluru's "Footpath Mayor," Arun Pai was a schoolboy captaining neighbourhood cricket matches in the same locality as a young Rahul Dravid. Today, Pai is better known for a very different innings, camping out for 24 straight hours beside Church Street's worst garbage dump in 2008, and going on to build a citizen-led cleanup model that has since gone national. The IIM Bangalore alumnus, founder of Bangalore Walks and the man behind The Ugly Indian collective, shared the origin story at a recent talk, admitting the whole idea began simply because he got tired of everyone blaming everyone else.
