Wake Up

Living in a city like Mumbai keeps reminding me of the fact that we are slipping away from nature. Just the other day, while driving back home late at night, I was dozing peacefully in the backseat when a close relative nudged me awake and asked me to chuck an empty mineral water bottle out of the car. In my semi-conscious state, I obeyed automatically, but the moment the plastic left my fingers, I was struck with a nasty feeling in the pit of my stomach...I had done something which I am strictly against...I had thrown something non-biodegradable into an environment that is already struggling to breathe.

For several years now I have been trying my level best to avoid littering, especially with things like candy wrappers, bus tickets, anything plastic, fruit peels etc. It's because this is one of the things that my schooling (Whether it was in CIS, AVS or TSRS) really drilled into my mind...we have to respect nature and our environment before it is too late. The way in which my teachers taught this lesson - by means of setting an example of their own, nature-friendly behaviour in and outside the school - is something that has stayed with me. It is what made me feel guilty when I threw that bottle out of the window and it is what stops me from throwing away anything unless there is a litter basket or a garbage chute close at hand. I prefer carrying an ice-cream cup back home to throw it in the kitchen bin, to dropping it on the pavement...it's much better than imagining the angry face of my old school teacher!!!

Being conscious of such things probably does not make a huge difference to the amount of trash that people choke nature with, but it's the least I can do...and it makes me happy when I see my little cousins learning from my example. The funny thing is, I've noticed that even without saying anything, we've been able to stop other from littering (adults as well as children)...just by refusing to throw any trash irresponsibly. What we really did is change ourselves, and it's made others change a little too...at least when we're around, anyway!

Something I'd like to ask the regular fast-moving Mumbaikar is, when was the last time that he or she paused to think about the number of trees that grow in his or her neighbourhood? Has he/she noticed the beauty in a bird as small as the sparrow, admired a flowering tree or shrub or looked for shapes in the clouds in the last week? Has he/she realised that the roads we are driving on were once lush forests that housed thousands of living things that were not rehabilitated just because they weren't human (it's another matter that we don't effectively rehabilitate even humans!). When was the last time that he/she breathed actual pure air (not the kind that coats our nostrils with soot, just after a walk in the marketplace!)? I honestly don't think that many people would be able to give a spontaneous and honest reply to these questions.

We're falling away from nature and we're losing respect for the elements. Our streams are choked with filth that we could really avoid tossing into them, the ocean regurgitates heaps of our plastic every monsoon, it's getting a lot hotter because the trees are vanishing and urban builders are doing very little to replenish what they are destroying.

Without perhaps being very conscious of it, we're maiming nature...

And she's getting angry...

The way I see it, the last few months have had a very disturbing frequency of natural disasters. The terrible floods in Mumbai (and the South), the hurricanes (and now a tornado) in the USA, the earthquake in Pakistan are all warnings to which we must pay heed. Goodness knows how many other such things there have been in other parts of the world that we don't know about.

Let's try and wake up...just each of us individually. We don't have to go about shouting slogans, taking out parades etc. if we're uncomfortable with all that. Let's just try to change ourselves. A little by little, let's try to do something that shows a little respect and appreciation for nature. Apart from watching where we dispose our wastes, the tiniest thing like looking after some houseplants, looking out for rare bits of natural beauty in our concrete jungles and stopping even for a moment to truly appreciate them CAN make a difference...and a positive one at that. Let's try and wake up...