Riot of colours across railway stations

With an intention of participating in the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, Haresh Shah, founder of Making a Difference (M.A.D.) Foundation; along with a few volunteers, adopted a colourful way to clean up areas of the city. M.A.D. Foundation started cleaning and then colouring the walls and foot over bridges of two suburban railways stations of the city. Shah elaborates, “We started with cleaning up the station but soon after, it went back to the way it was—with people spitting, betel-juice stain, etc. So, we thought that if the walls are beautified, people may hesitate to dirty them, and we were proven right as the walls are still beautifully coloured.”

The suburban projects 

The painting at Khar and Borivali stations, together, was completed in 10 days with the help of 500 volunteers. Shah elucidates, “We selected Rainbow as the theme for Khar station while for Borivali, we selected three themes: Sanjay Gandhi National Park, Gorai and Pagoda.”

Since Gorai and Pagoda are situated on the west side of Borivali, the left side (west side) of the walls are painted on those lines; while on the right side of the walls (east side), the paintings are based on the theme of National Park.  

Shah concludes, “We received full cooperation from the authorities, right from seeking permissions to painting the walls and the FOBs. We appreciate the support that people showed us, especially at Borivali station, as it is a crowded station. However, we received full cooperation, even at midnight.” 

Borivali station:

Khar station: