The dogging insensitivity
Vaatupura A Jayaprakash
Night does not fall on us these days,
We fall prey to night.
So are our thoughts,
that they do not come of us
We simply are of them.
Rain and wind and sun and moon and mist
And whatever rest we have for free
Have been here for millennia
So are they going to be.
The change is in us,
that we do not want them to be.
A way to virtue now looks vile
All good ways are but for a while.
Once they are seen and understood
We know how and when
to hoodwink the ones who come to find,
the same thing we all had once come for.
It is our religion, and our psychology
That we should venture not into sense.
It is insensitivity that we all being fed
Not to be dogged down by the opposite.
We are well off when we are cruel.
Sorry to say, not the other way round.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Alcohol and tobacco: no longer slow killers
Alcohol and tobacco: no longer slow killers
A. Jayaprakash KOVILLOOR
The medical fraternity around the world and those advocates of human welfare and fitness keep us believe that alcohol and tobacco are slow killers. This is no longer true. It is really ironical and ridiculous to be under the impression that something that keeps you live longer is called something else and something that kills you much faster is a slow killer. I do not understand why people believe that these two are slow killers.
Who in this world is interested to die a faster death than what he or she is destined to live in this sphere? Is there someone who can say that ‘I do not want to live longer in this world, so I want to die faster than I would?’ In today’s world of sophistication and comforts, there will be hardly any one who would make a wish this way.
Eventually, I am prone to ask; need there not be a little reason when these advocates make a claim of this magnitude which is likely to affect the lives of millions of people around the world and a multi-billion industry which flourishes on the same? We need to. We need to have a strict regime of terminology in place to define and brand things as they actually are.
In my opinion it is our good eating habits, healthy life style practices, encouraging and rejuvenating hobbies, our sense of humour, medical awareness and above all our will to stay away from the temptations of drugs, tobacco and alcohol are the things that make us live longer, that is, they do not allow us to die faster. They are the real slow killers. Are they not so?
Is it not true that when we do follow a good diet and healthy lifestyle, we are likely to live to be octogenarians and nonagenarians? Such people do not face faster deaths the same way the ones who take alcohol, get addicted to drugs and take on tobacco do. They do die faster.
Therefore, it is unfair to call alcohol, tobacco and their allied products as slow killers. They are fast killers, or faster killers. We have people who get killed in their thirties and forties and fifties thanks to their association with these bad habits. So long live slow killers like healthy life styles, balanced diets, timely eating habits and similar health regime.
Healthcare watchdogs and advocates of human welfare, you may please take stock and brand alcohol and tobacco as fast killers, not the other way round. I am sure it would make great changes in the way people take on these habits. Let all people die slowly and slowly and slowly, living life to the full, or taking life to the dregs. Not taking their life by drugging and drinking.
Therefore, world Tobalccoholics, beware you are on a much faster way out. And all those ones who have a little love for life, may get chronically addicted to slow killers like good food and healthy life style practices. Anymore takers for a novel addiction???
A. Jayaprakash KOVILLOOR
The medical fraternity around the world and those advocates of human welfare and fitness keep us believe that alcohol and tobacco are slow killers. This is no longer true. It is really ironical and ridiculous to be under the impression that something that keeps you live longer is called something else and something that kills you much faster is a slow killer. I do not understand why people believe that these two are slow killers.
Who in this world is interested to die a faster death than what he or she is destined to live in this sphere? Is there someone who can say that ‘I do not want to live longer in this world, so I want to die faster than I would?’ In today’s world of sophistication and comforts, there will be hardly any one who would make a wish this way.
Eventually, I am prone to ask; need there not be a little reason when these advocates make a claim of this magnitude which is likely to affect the lives of millions of people around the world and a multi-billion industry which flourishes on the same? We need to. We need to have a strict regime of terminology in place to define and brand things as they actually are.
In my opinion it is our good eating habits, healthy life style practices, encouraging and rejuvenating hobbies, our sense of humour, medical awareness and above all our will to stay away from the temptations of drugs, tobacco and alcohol are the things that make us live longer, that is, they do not allow us to die faster. They are the real slow killers. Are they not so?
Is it not true that when we do follow a good diet and healthy lifestyle, we are likely to live to be octogenarians and nonagenarians? Such people do not face faster deaths the same way the ones who take alcohol, get addicted to drugs and take on tobacco do. They do die faster.
Therefore, it is unfair to call alcohol, tobacco and their allied products as slow killers. They are fast killers, or faster killers. We have people who get killed in their thirties and forties and fifties thanks to their association with these bad habits. So long live slow killers like healthy life styles, balanced diets, timely eating habits and similar health regime.
Healthcare watchdogs and advocates of human welfare, you may please take stock and brand alcohol and tobacco as fast killers, not the other way round. I am sure it would make great changes in the way people take on these habits. Let all people die slowly and slowly and slowly, living life to the full, or taking life to the dregs. Not taking their life by drugging and drinking.
Therefore, world Tobalccoholics, beware you are on a much faster way out. And all those ones who have a little love for life, may get chronically addicted to slow killers like good food and healthy life style practices. Anymore takers for a novel addiction???
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Human callousness: we need to mend our ways
Human callousness: we need to mend our ways
Vaatupura A. Jayaprakash
We all naturally claim to be beings of good reason and most of our actions are supposed to be either governed or dictated by reason or in common parlance, common sense. But it is true in most of the cases too. But if we look around, we will be able to see innumerable actions we meticulously carry out thinking that they are ineffectual and the same are not going to have any impact on others. And there are occasions in our life where we feel complacent and conclude that it is OK to be not OK, and we go o0n doing things that are not at all alright or acceptable to others. Yes, it is very difficult to do all things confirming to the expectations of others. Let us see a few activities that, in my opinion, are nothing short of chronic callousness.
· A small gutter that gets formed in front of our painted compound wall is a threat to the wall. So we callously place a huge boulder on the gutter so that the automobiles would not splash water on your wall. How many of us take time off to fill that gutter properly? Do we ever think that an unsuspecting road user is likely to lose his life thanks to this indigenous ‘road rule’? Do you not think it is callousness?
· You are held up in a traffic jam. You have the clear idea that you cannot move your vehicle unless the one in front of you moves. Still you honk your horn continuously as if the person in front of you is the reason for the block. And if possible we will nose up our vehicle to the down line and try to overpass all the held up vehicles making the whole process an unmanageable mess. We do it.
· If you are on a two-wheeler, you have no road rules. If traffic is blocked, you will take the front wheel of your two-wheeler through any narrow divide that you find in between any two vehicles ahead. The picture is clear; you have done your little share to the mess.
· Let’s come back to our homes. Imagine that you unload a tipper full of sand in front of your house, right on the public road. Instead of removing the sand dune as early as possible, we keep it protected from being washed off by barricading it with either hollow bricks or the ball like boulders that we unload for construction. They will be there prepared to fell any road user or motorist or flatten tires of any make. Do we not do it? And if the unloaded boulders and sand happen to be a little more than what is needed, we simply abandon the remaining on the road itself, as if they had been there for ages.
· You are engaged in a cleaning spree, your room, back yard and surroundings. The spree leaves you with a heap of waste degradable, non-degradable, inflammable and bursting-if-heated things. What would you do with that? We simply abandon it on the roadside. Or we pack them in a gunny bag and along with the kitchen waste, we take it to a ‘no man’s land, some public place where we not find any public. This nasty waste management is prime sign of human callousness.
· Take this example. You are in a queue. You know you are supposed to follow the person right in front of you. How many times you wouldn’t lean or leap over the shoulders of the person in front of you? You know he cannot help you. You know this behaviour of yours does not help him either to speed up the process.
· Walking up two floors takes a few seconds. And it is good to avoiding lifts and elevators for your physique. But we find it alright to wait for minutes to get the lift to the third, second and even first floor.
· Shell we take a look at the way when we walk on the road? Roads are meant for pedestrians. It was true. But today, roads are meant for automobiles too. You blow your horn one or two times when you see a buffalo on the road, it will give you way. On the other hand, you sound your horn a hundred times seeing a man on the move; sorry you have to manage your way ahead on your own.
· You may have seen mothers taking their kids for a walk or letting the baby walk. Most probably these mothers let the baby walk on the tar and the mother would walk through the roadside. The kid with spring like behaviour is a potential threat to any road user. They skip or slip off their parent’s hands and fall prey to speeding vehicles. Have you not seen this callousness of mothers?
· Haven’t you seen cyclists taking the right side? Two wheelers overtake on the left. Auto-rickshaws plying crammed with scores of kids and their bulging school bags suspended all over the upholstery? And tell me what haven’t you seen? Still, do you not do it at times?
The above said are a few of our civilized callousness. Using mobiles while driving and riding two wheelers, indiscriminately eating things that kill us, making the world much more noisy instead of making it peaceful when you find some happiness in your life. Shouting, whistling, hauling, bursting crackers and so goes that list. Racing two wheelers much faster than the machine can do and ramming against speeding trucks, alter that two wheeler with all the noise making devices to make the people in the vicinity suffer from heart attacks, channeling our effluents and green water to the surroundings thereby threatening the neighbours and the society with communicable and water bourn diseases; and the list is endless.
We all need to be thinking minimum two times before we do any one of the above-mentioned callousness which we do presuming that they are not harmful, but they actually are. Because these behaviours have claimed many lives, made many crippled and a lot more better-dead-than-living. Shall we make amends in the ways we behave? For good of course.
Vaatupura A. Jayaprakash
We all naturally claim to be beings of good reason and most of our actions are supposed to be either governed or dictated by reason or in common parlance, common sense. But it is true in most of the cases too. But if we look around, we will be able to see innumerable actions we meticulously carry out thinking that they are ineffectual and the same are not going to have any impact on others. And there are occasions in our life where we feel complacent and conclude that it is OK to be not OK, and we go o0n doing things that are not at all alright or acceptable to others. Yes, it is very difficult to do all things confirming to the expectations of others. Let us see a few activities that, in my opinion, are nothing short of chronic callousness.
· A small gutter that gets formed in front of our painted compound wall is a threat to the wall. So we callously place a huge boulder on the gutter so that the automobiles would not splash water on your wall. How many of us take time off to fill that gutter properly? Do we ever think that an unsuspecting road user is likely to lose his life thanks to this indigenous ‘road rule’? Do you not think it is callousness?
· You are held up in a traffic jam. You have the clear idea that you cannot move your vehicle unless the one in front of you moves. Still you honk your horn continuously as if the person in front of you is the reason for the block. And if possible we will nose up our vehicle to the down line and try to overpass all the held up vehicles making the whole process an unmanageable mess. We do it.
· If you are on a two-wheeler, you have no road rules. If traffic is blocked, you will take the front wheel of your two-wheeler through any narrow divide that you find in between any two vehicles ahead. The picture is clear; you have done your little share to the mess.
· Let’s come back to our homes. Imagine that you unload a tipper full of sand in front of your house, right on the public road. Instead of removing the sand dune as early as possible, we keep it protected from being washed off by barricading it with either hollow bricks or the ball like boulders that we unload for construction. They will be there prepared to fell any road user or motorist or flatten tires of any make. Do we not do it? And if the unloaded boulders and sand happen to be a little more than what is needed, we simply abandon the remaining on the road itself, as if they had been there for ages.
· You are engaged in a cleaning spree, your room, back yard and surroundings. The spree leaves you with a heap of waste degradable, non-degradable, inflammable and bursting-if-heated things. What would you do with that? We simply abandon it on the roadside. Or we pack them in a gunny bag and along with the kitchen waste, we take it to a ‘no man’s land, some public place where we not find any public. This nasty waste management is prime sign of human callousness.
· Take this example. You are in a queue. You know you are supposed to follow the person right in front of you. How many times you wouldn’t lean or leap over the shoulders of the person in front of you? You know he cannot help you. You know this behaviour of yours does not help him either to speed up the process.
· Walking up two floors takes a few seconds. And it is good to avoiding lifts and elevators for your physique. But we find it alright to wait for minutes to get the lift to the third, second and even first floor.
· Shell we take a look at the way when we walk on the road? Roads are meant for pedestrians. It was true. But today, roads are meant for automobiles too. You blow your horn one or two times when you see a buffalo on the road, it will give you way. On the other hand, you sound your horn a hundred times seeing a man on the move; sorry you have to manage your way ahead on your own.
· You may have seen mothers taking their kids for a walk or letting the baby walk. Most probably these mothers let the baby walk on the tar and the mother would walk through the roadside. The kid with spring like behaviour is a potential threat to any road user. They skip or slip off their parent’s hands and fall prey to speeding vehicles. Have you not seen this callousness of mothers?
· Haven’t you seen cyclists taking the right side? Two wheelers overtake on the left. Auto-rickshaws plying crammed with scores of kids and their bulging school bags suspended all over the upholstery? And tell me what haven’t you seen? Still, do you not do it at times?
The above said are a few of our civilized callousness. Using mobiles while driving and riding two wheelers, indiscriminately eating things that kill us, making the world much more noisy instead of making it peaceful when you find some happiness in your life. Shouting, whistling, hauling, bursting crackers and so goes that list. Racing two wheelers much faster than the machine can do and ramming against speeding trucks, alter that two wheeler with all the noise making devices to make the people in the vicinity suffer from heart attacks, channeling our effluents and green water to the surroundings thereby threatening the neighbours and the society with communicable and water bourn diseases; and the list is endless.
We all need to be thinking minimum two times before we do any one of the above-mentioned callousness which we do presuming that they are not harmful, but they actually are. Because these behaviours have claimed many lives, made many crippled and a lot more better-dead-than-living. Shall we make amends in the ways we behave? For good of course.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Love at the times of life
Love at the times of life
Vaatupura A. Jayaprakash
By way of definition, it has been hard for people of all ages to come up with a complete one for love. It is one for one and another for another. Parents to their children, husband to wife, wife to husband, brother to sister and sister to brother, teacher to student, student to teacher, a friend to another and god to his devotees, devotees to their idols; and so goes the dimensions of love. And it is the only force that life has got to deal with whatever dimensions it takes in its course. It is so ubiquitous in the sense that it is found even in the severest of adversities and in the minds of the cruelest of adversaries, to be precise.
However, by way of definition, we have failed to come to a conclusion on what love actually is. This failure could be either our strength or our weakness. The interesting thing about this is that love is able to make us strong when we are weak, and it is at the same time able to make us weak when we are strong. It binds us together when we are at odds. It even makes us touch the extremes of our potential. It enables us to salvage ourselves from all depths. And there are instances to prove the fact that love is able to bring back people from the brinks of death, abysses of despair and deluge of utter doom.
Unfortunately, it is this same love or one or many of its dimensions that make people kill their fellow beings. A good number of murders are committed out of love; love for money, love for blood, love for pleasure, love for lust, love for dignity, status, social value, and there are murders committed just out of the love for seeing people suffer and die. If we take a cursory glance at the reasons for murders, we may understand that love down human history has killed much more than what hate, animosity or disputes have killed. It is the love for one’s country that makes a warrior kill and again it is the love for one’s nation that makes many soldiers face bullets with their bare breasts.
Jesus was a victim of love. It was his love for his Master or his disciples. Judas was a victim of love. Satan was a victim of love. God himself was, and so were Adam and Eve. And all their descendants are but the same. Father, mother, brother, sister, friends and foes, neighbours, both good and bad, lovers, male and female; and who else does not come under this labyrinthine fabrics of love that lie encompassing the whole cosmos?
Love, if thou art so unfathomable in these fleeting times of life, I would love to dwell deep in you so to know yet another dimension of your visage. It is in the prayers that Gods live, not in their answers. So is love. It is in its manifestations that love lives, not in its definitions. At these turbulent times of love, it is better to fear love than to fathom it.
Vaatupura A. Jayaprakash
By way of definition, it has been hard for people of all ages to come up with a complete one for love. It is one for one and another for another. Parents to their children, husband to wife, wife to husband, brother to sister and sister to brother, teacher to student, student to teacher, a friend to another and god to his devotees, devotees to their idols; and so goes the dimensions of love. And it is the only force that life has got to deal with whatever dimensions it takes in its course. It is so ubiquitous in the sense that it is found even in the severest of adversities and in the minds of the cruelest of adversaries, to be precise.
However, by way of definition, we have failed to come to a conclusion on what love actually is. This failure could be either our strength or our weakness. The interesting thing about this is that love is able to make us strong when we are weak, and it is at the same time able to make us weak when we are strong. It binds us together when we are at odds. It even makes us touch the extremes of our potential. It enables us to salvage ourselves from all depths. And there are instances to prove the fact that love is able to bring back people from the brinks of death, abysses of despair and deluge of utter doom.
Unfortunately, it is this same love or one or many of its dimensions that make people kill their fellow beings. A good number of murders are committed out of love; love for money, love for blood, love for pleasure, love for lust, love for dignity, status, social value, and there are murders committed just out of the love for seeing people suffer and die. If we take a cursory glance at the reasons for murders, we may understand that love down human history has killed much more than what hate, animosity or disputes have killed. It is the love for one’s country that makes a warrior kill and again it is the love for one’s nation that makes many soldiers face bullets with their bare breasts.
Jesus was a victim of love. It was his love for his Master or his disciples. Judas was a victim of love. Satan was a victim of love. God himself was, and so were Adam and Eve. And all their descendants are but the same. Father, mother, brother, sister, friends and foes, neighbours, both good and bad, lovers, male and female; and who else does not come under this labyrinthine fabrics of love that lie encompassing the whole cosmos?
Love, if thou art so unfathomable in these fleeting times of life, I would love to dwell deep in you so to know yet another dimension of your visage. It is in the prayers that Gods live, not in their answers. So is love. It is in its manifestations that love lives, not in its definitions. At these turbulent times of love, it is better to fear love than to fathom it.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
The World E Day: Are we going to Pick Right?
The World E Day: Are we going to Pick Right?
Are you going to seriously pick something right to save the environment you live in? If yes, please start doing it from May 5, for it is the World Environment Day. All the national debates, seminars, symposiums and even the periodic ritualistic intentional summits on environmental protection like the last Bali conference notwithstanding, the real change is going to take place only when we think in terms of proactive lifestyle picks aimed at either saving the already harmed environment we live in or not harming it anymore in anyway.
It’s all fine to be concerned about the environment. But all the concerns get their due meaning only when they are translated into responsible actions that every thinking individual is capable of performing. However, our very attitude towards environment is more of words than of deeds. We hardly do anything on this line unless the so called environmental hazards start affecting our personal lives, the lives that flourish among the four cozy walls of our homes, to be precise, in our bed rooms. We claim that we are educated, civilized and advanced. Though it won’t be too far when we happen to have such a hazardous environmental scenario, we individually do precious little to save the planet.
On this day, May 5, let’s all reiterate that everyone is responsible for whatever environmental impacts we are suffering from and it is we who are going do our due shares so as to cut down on environmentally unfriendly deeds. What shall we do individually to Pick Right?
1. Shall we learn to live with smaller families and minimal needs and comforts? It pays to be taking what one actually needs from the environment. This will help the nature maintain its recycling mechanism in tact so that the whole world will be able to sustain whatever number of beings that may come to occupy in it in all the ages to come. We are able to do something towards this, I am sure.
2. It is the well being of the world outside that is actually going to decide the well being of our world inside our homes. Therefore, never ever spoil, litter or deface the environment thinking that, oh, it is some else’s issue. If you think so, please remember that you are a mere someone to every other person you see outside your family. So, think inclusively. Please ensure that you help the society process the wastes of all types that get generated in your homes. Do not discard gunny bagsful of your wastes on the wayside. It is hazardous to be so uncouth.
3. Buy things that come with very little wastes attached. Go natural for your personal care needs. It is the personal care goods that leave the biggest chunk of waste in our indoors. Tubes, sachets, containers, covers, packets and their inlays and consoles are unmanageable. They come for a price and they come here to stay. So please adopt responsible and eco-friendly shopping practices.
4. Meanwhile, please keep a shopping bag with you. It would discourage the most hazardous plastic carry bags. Don’t buy things that harm your well being. Take a decision today that you would never buy things that come with freebees. They are threats to environment. In today’s commercialized world order, you get much less than what you pay for. There is nothing called a free meal. No manufacturer is idiotic enough to offer you things for free. So, responsible shopping is more environmental. Make good buys, and say good bye to all those things that the market forces thrust upon you. They may force you to buy. But you need not force them to sell.
5. How about our eating habits? Do you know one thing that our ineffectual tongue does greater harm to our environment than all the industrial exhaust pipes and chimneys do. In order to satiate the taste buds, we go for exotic dishes and junk food. They are hazardous not only to our health but to your natural wealth also. You eat much more than what your anatomy needs. It creates imbalance in the supply demand chain. As you demand more, the nature and manufacturers have to produce more. More production leads to environmental concerns of various types. Producing more by spending too much raw material, exerting undue pressure on the power grid, burning a lot of fuel in transport, emitting a lot of gases and fumes in the process of production and transport, and so goes the list of environmental disorders you make out of your efforts to satisfy your taste buds. So it is a better idea to eat to be fit and be fit to be eating all life long. It is not only environment friendly, it is you-and-your-family-friendly also. Go for home-mades and thus go green. Glass bottles, ceramic cups, containers and plates are much better than their disposable counterparts.
6. When it comes to our mobility, what if we walk short distances? And for moderate distances let’s have a bicycle ride, and for family trips we may go for our cars or two wheelers. What if make long distance journeys in buses, stage carriers, trains and such modes of mass mobility! It is fun travelling together. It is great fun when you travel with strangers or people who you have no knowledge of before. Doing so, you are not burning petrol or diesel for your selfish travel comforts, your vehicle does not add to the traffic congestion and the pollution thereof, you do not face death and deformity on the way in the form of accidents, and finally your wallet will have regular breathers. Walking, the healthiest of human actions, is mentally and environmentally relaxing. Agreed!
7. Luxuries like palatial homes, their exotic interiors and power supported appliances and light fittings, costly mobiles, automobiles and similar cosmetic social value parameters, our insatiable greed and ever increasing glut for more, our chronic obsession with what is in store for us and finally our uncouth attitude and criminal indifference towards whatever is not ours are much more hazardous to the environment than all those parochial claims and petty counter claims the developing and the developed nations exchange at international environmental forums and climate summits.
8. Please remember, it is the above said human behaviour that necessitates this life threatening environmental uncertainty. All claims on carbon emission, green cover loss, temperature rise, ozone depletion, melting glaciers, rising sea levels, climate change and the like are results of the same human behaviour. So it is time we all came to the picture, an all encompassing frame.
If we all could live sustainable and mutually depending lives, the environment we live in will be a much better place in the coming days too. So, on this May 5th, we may take a resolve that our coming days are more environmentally responsible days, and every one of us stay bound to do our shares not to harm the surroundings any more, no matter whether the Bali Climate Summit is rejected by the US, or the Kyoto Protocol is a farce for some nations or the developing countries are bearing the brunt of global environmental impacts necessitated be developed countries. The onus lies in every one of us.
Please act, not react. And we all may pleasantly come to understand in the long run that every responsible action is a reaction and every such action will make many a people react in more ways than one. Will this May 5 mark the beginning of such a responsible behavior from you and me and all around us? Please say, yes. Yes, from this May 5 onwards, I repeat, right from this May 5 onwards, I am going to Pick Right lifestyle choices.
Are you going to seriously pick something right to save the environment you live in? If yes, please start doing it from May 5, for it is the World Environment Day. All the national debates, seminars, symposiums and even the periodic ritualistic intentional summits on environmental protection like the last Bali conference notwithstanding, the real change is going to take place only when we think in terms of proactive lifestyle picks aimed at either saving the already harmed environment we live in or not harming it anymore in anyway.
It’s all fine to be concerned about the environment. But all the concerns get their due meaning only when they are translated into responsible actions that every thinking individual is capable of performing. However, our very attitude towards environment is more of words than of deeds. We hardly do anything on this line unless the so called environmental hazards start affecting our personal lives, the lives that flourish among the four cozy walls of our homes, to be precise, in our bed rooms. We claim that we are educated, civilized and advanced. Though it won’t be too far when we happen to have such a hazardous environmental scenario, we individually do precious little to save the planet.
On this day, May 5, let’s all reiterate that everyone is responsible for whatever environmental impacts we are suffering from and it is we who are going do our due shares so as to cut down on environmentally unfriendly deeds. What shall we do individually to Pick Right?
1. Shall we learn to live with smaller families and minimal needs and comforts? It pays to be taking what one actually needs from the environment. This will help the nature maintain its recycling mechanism in tact so that the whole world will be able to sustain whatever number of beings that may come to occupy in it in all the ages to come. We are able to do something towards this, I am sure.
2. It is the well being of the world outside that is actually going to decide the well being of our world inside our homes. Therefore, never ever spoil, litter or deface the environment thinking that, oh, it is some else’s issue. If you think so, please remember that you are a mere someone to every other person you see outside your family. So, think inclusively. Please ensure that you help the society process the wastes of all types that get generated in your homes. Do not discard gunny bagsful of your wastes on the wayside. It is hazardous to be so uncouth.
3. Buy things that come with very little wastes attached. Go natural for your personal care needs. It is the personal care goods that leave the biggest chunk of waste in our indoors. Tubes, sachets, containers, covers, packets and their inlays and consoles are unmanageable. They come for a price and they come here to stay. So please adopt responsible and eco-friendly shopping practices.
4. Meanwhile, please keep a shopping bag with you. It would discourage the most hazardous plastic carry bags. Don’t buy things that harm your well being. Take a decision today that you would never buy things that come with freebees. They are threats to environment. In today’s commercialized world order, you get much less than what you pay for. There is nothing called a free meal. No manufacturer is idiotic enough to offer you things for free. So, responsible shopping is more environmental. Make good buys, and say good bye to all those things that the market forces thrust upon you. They may force you to buy. But you need not force them to sell.
5. How about our eating habits? Do you know one thing that our ineffectual tongue does greater harm to our environment than all the industrial exhaust pipes and chimneys do. In order to satiate the taste buds, we go for exotic dishes and junk food. They are hazardous not only to our health but to your natural wealth also. You eat much more than what your anatomy needs. It creates imbalance in the supply demand chain. As you demand more, the nature and manufacturers have to produce more. More production leads to environmental concerns of various types. Producing more by spending too much raw material, exerting undue pressure on the power grid, burning a lot of fuel in transport, emitting a lot of gases and fumes in the process of production and transport, and so goes the list of environmental disorders you make out of your efforts to satisfy your taste buds. So it is a better idea to eat to be fit and be fit to be eating all life long. It is not only environment friendly, it is you-and-your-family-friendly also. Go for home-mades and thus go green. Glass bottles, ceramic cups, containers and plates are much better than their disposable counterparts.
6. When it comes to our mobility, what if we walk short distances? And for moderate distances let’s have a bicycle ride, and for family trips we may go for our cars or two wheelers. What if make long distance journeys in buses, stage carriers, trains and such modes of mass mobility! It is fun travelling together. It is great fun when you travel with strangers or people who you have no knowledge of before. Doing so, you are not burning petrol or diesel for your selfish travel comforts, your vehicle does not add to the traffic congestion and the pollution thereof, you do not face death and deformity on the way in the form of accidents, and finally your wallet will have regular breathers. Walking, the healthiest of human actions, is mentally and environmentally relaxing. Agreed!
7. Luxuries like palatial homes, their exotic interiors and power supported appliances and light fittings, costly mobiles, automobiles and similar cosmetic social value parameters, our insatiable greed and ever increasing glut for more, our chronic obsession with what is in store for us and finally our uncouth attitude and criminal indifference towards whatever is not ours are much more hazardous to the environment than all those parochial claims and petty counter claims the developing and the developed nations exchange at international environmental forums and climate summits.
8. Please remember, it is the above said human behaviour that necessitates this life threatening environmental uncertainty. All claims on carbon emission, green cover loss, temperature rise, ozone depletion, melting glaciers, rising sea levels, climate change and the like are results of the same human behaviour. So it is time we all came to the picture, an all encompassing frame.
If we all could live sustainable and mutually depending lives, the environment we live in will be a much better place in the coming days too. So, on this May 5th, we may take a resolve that our coming days are more environmentally responsible days, and every one of us stay bound to do our shares not to harm the surroundings any more, no matter whether the Bali Climate Summit is rejected by the US, or the Kyoto Protocol is a farce for some nations or the developing countries are bearing the brunt of global environmental impacts necessitated be developed countries. The onus lies in every one of us.
Please act, not react. And we all may pleasantly come to understand in the long run that every responsible action is a reaction and every such action will make many a people react in more ways than one. Will this May 5 mark the beginning of such a responsible behavior from you and me and all around us? Please say, yes. Yes, from this May 5 onwards, I repeat, right from this May 5 onwards, I am going to Pick Right lifestyle choices.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)