By Jagmohan Parmar:
I told my friend that night, “Please don’t litter. It is our city, our country.” And the reply he gave me on my face was “Ye India hai. I will keep London clean”.
Global warming, soil erosion, habitat destruction, acid rains, electronic waste, water crisis … and the list never come to an end … and to be candid it will only increase. And the oddest thing attached to this is that whether we are educated or not, somewhere we are well aware of these problems … it is evidently all around us. Thanks to our media!
Chandigarh became the first city to say “No to plastic bags”. But still we find them everywhere around with people carrying them for just about anything. Now the question is – the government took the initiative, but then why do we people fail to fall in the bracket. There are regulations for pollution check as well. How many of us actually go out of our way to make sure that our vehicles are not polluting the environment if it was not for the traffic police.
Diwali is the color of lights, but from where has the tradition of burning crackers been initiated? And now, on top of everything, even crackers are considered to be a social status symbol. A race to crown the one who gets the best and the most expensive! People prefer burning their hard earned money on crackers rather than sharing and spreading the joy with friends and family. Does this at any level mean that Indians are classier, that they are capable of – bursting expensive crackers on the festival that in reality has nothing to do with crackers?
A lot of hue and cry was raised in the nation for botanically-treated vegetables. But what about the air we are inhaling at present while reading this? I see a lot of organizations raising their voice against environmental issues but what about the action at an individual level. I remember a friend who went to a shop to buy a pen of Rs.5/- but he never said no to the plastic bag the shopkeeper gave him for carrying that small pen he could have easily accommodated in his pocket. If we cannot understand this, then no scientist sitting at NASA or doctor sitting at Fortis can help the human race.
The Day The Earth Stood Still! What a brilliant way of requesting the human race to change. But after watching the movie, we (most of us) discussed the male lead and the camera movements and not what actually one should have discussed. Electricity-driven vehicles were treated as mock up articles to be made fun of. Solar cells are another example invented, but ignored by us. All these show that somewhere somebody is working to save the earth, to be nice and genuine towards the earth. But what we do is make fun and only contribute to the destruction.
Charity begins at home, but this is not meant to be practiced. It is difficult for us to travel in public transport whenever possible; it is difficult to carry things in our own handbags rather than in polythene bags. Schools and colleges cannot take assignments in electronic form, they still depend on piles of sheets and files. We cannot stop bursting crackers and cannot help keep our city clean. We cannot even appreciate the inventions made to support the environment; trying them is altogether a different thing. We cannot recycle and replenish. Why? Because now we have the purchasing power? Does this render us with power to do things that are ruining our home?
Small gestures and actions can lead to big differences! We can travel in public transports; it’s not about status but about our own habitat. It is only a matter of carrying a hand bag along rather than poly bags. Education makes sense only when we are applying it in the right direction. A lot has been said about saving the environment. It’s about “doing” now.
Image: http://www.tork.com.au/Pages/SimplePage.aspx?id=101489