It is not often that you see a group of enthusiastic youngsters gather by a busy traffic junction, in coordinated outfits on a Sunday evening for a social cause. And, somewhere in the sea of white T-shirts and jeans is a large pink bucket filled with red roses. The group huddles as Neha Nambiar, 20, briefs them in detail on their task for the next two hours. There are five signals at the SV-Linking Road junction in Bandra. where rickshaws and taxis stop at each for roughly 30 seconds. That's the time the volunteers pick up a bunch of roses and start a conversation with the driver on a taboo topic — spitting. "But please don't disrupt traffic as a result," Nambiar cautions.

The 30 volunteers are divided into five groups to occupy each signal, and collect their roses and stickers, along with placards that read, "Ghar mein nahin toh bahar kyun?" — all arranged for by Nambiar and her family. "I conceptualised the campaign only a month back to primarily target habitual spitters. The issue irks all of us. In 2015, Maharasthra became the first state to get an anti-spitting law, but when it was finally enacted in 2018, the fine was fixed at only Rs 150, without community service as prescribed earlier. And, we're a nation with the highest rate of tuberculosis," Nambiar, a journalism student, says.