With yet another Ganesh immersion behind us, mandals and pandals are now in clean-up mode. Mumbai had a last darshan of the benevolent elephant-headed deity on Tuesday, stretching out to early Wednesday morning. The last prayers have been said, wishes given, flowers offered and prasad partaken at our beaches and water bodies.

Like always, there were a number of non-profits, volunteers and Good Samaritans who cleaned up the beaches post visarjan. Cynics might argue that this was a photo-op for some of the non-profit organizations, but the fact is, they did clean up the city's public spaces. Having said that, revellers, devotees and mandal organisers must take the onus of managing not just the celebrations but also the post-festival clean-up. Their responsibility does not end with visarjan. To those who were at the beaches of the city, one has to make a special, concerted effort to keep the sands clean. Mumbai has an abysmal cleanliness record on its beaches. Hordes of rubbish on the sands and in the sea, plastic and debris floating around, are part of our beachside package. We have sporadic clean-up operations that begin with zeal but fizzle out over time.