Time to Celebrate or Pollute?

The exuberance and excitement of festivals approaching is common for all of us. The adrenaline pumps as we are in a haste to ensure everything is up-to-date. You don’t want to miss out on any excitement. Be it buying the stickiest Holi color or the loudest cracker for Diwali, you want to enjoy to the fullest. However, in the fun of festivities, you ruin the environment. Here is a fictional story, through the eyes of a 12-year old boy, about how improper inheritance of celebrating festivals is harming our environment. If you’ve had enough of save-the-world talk, then also read. May be, you will like the story and share it with someone.

This is my first fiction write-up. I have tried to use the story to convey a message about controlling pollution. I hope you like it.

Holi Colors

Festivals, I don’t know or celebrate much in the family. For all that I experience in festivals is a tense household. Baba comes home from work tired, frustrated, and drunk. His irate behavior during major festivals, Holi and Diwali, has annoyed us for years. All families in the Chawl seemed to enjoy the festivities with smiles, fireworks, colors, and happiness. In our house, there are fireworks, not literal fireworks, but fireworks emanating from the arguments between my parents. At times, I’ve witnessed fist fights between them. And I must admire my mom’s fighting capabilities as she manages to sedate Baba while he is drunk to the core. Otherwise, it’s the male strength that rules the household.

I am mighty scared from my father while he is drunk. However, a sober dad is a sweetheart and has been mighty lovable. He has been especially nice on mine and Didi’s birthdays. I still remember my 8^th birthday when he took us out for dinner at the Zunka Bhakar Hotel on Chowpati. We had wonderful Pav Bhaji and my gift for the night was a large balloon and a key-operated car. I still have the car, although I broke its windshield within two days of my ownership.

Coming to the present, things were pretty tense as Holi was nearing and Baba had been coming home drunk. Fortunately, there were no fights, but I could see it starting any minute in the evening. I feel that the cause of Baba’s worry is not Holi, but – finance.

He was fired by Modern Housing Society, his previous employer two months back. He was unemployed for 60 days, which is an eternity for weekly-wage workers like Baba. Our bank savings of approximately Rs. 2000 is spent. However, thankfully, he was recruited in a new society last week.

It was my 12^th birthday last week and it overlapped with Holi. My celebration or gift expectancy for this year was very low. And I would not force the issue with my parents as I know they are already strifed.

However, unexpectedly, two days before holi, Baba called and asked what I want this birthday. He said, “I cannot guarantee a gift tomorrow, but after two days I will get you a present. I expect some bakshis (festival bonus) from the society residents where I work. I will use that to get you a birthday present. I know you are my sweetheart and will not demand something that is out of my reach.” I was overwhelmed by the gesture. But, I could smell alcohol. Suddenly my excitement faded away. A drunken Baba scares me more than the Witch in my dreams, who apparently looks like my school principal. He sat in the passage outside our Kholi and had a Soda bottle, Whiskey, and a glass labeled Bagpiper placed on the floor. He had his back to the wall and I had kneeled down to talk with him. The strong alcohol smell emanating from his breathe made me a bit numb. I didn’t reply to his question for few minutes. All I could hear was the song Dhagala Lagli Kala played on a loudspeaker in the Chawl’s courtyard.

Baba asked again, “Tell me what you want as a birthday present?” I flashed back to the present. I mustered some courage and asked for something intangible. I said, “Baba, I want to spend a day with you while you go to work on Holi.” I don’t know how I asked such a favor/present. I think that I surprised myself more than Baba. But my aim was simple – investigating why is Baba so irate after work on Holi and Diwali. I could see the initial surprise in Baba’s eyes and later some distress. However, I didn’t notice anything aggressive, so I sat down from the kneeled posture. Baba looked down, and pondered hard about my request. He poured some soda in the glass and then some whiskey. He took a couple of sips from the glass. As he sipped alcohol, I stared at the bubbles fizzling in the glass. I have always liked to observe the bubble fizzles in Baba’s alcohol or in cold drinks. So, again I was moved away from the present. While I stared at the bubbles, Baba’s words brought me back to the present discussion. He just said – “Be ready at 12 noon on your Birthday. I don’t have an office to show you like the sahibs in the building, but I hope the visit will help you to understand why I want you to study and how much I work to keep my family.”

You must be wondering what his profession is. Well, I don’t have any regrets in telling that he is a cleaner. Popularly folks from his profession are referred to with a different title, which I shall reveal in some time.

An additional source of income for us was the daily-waged garbage pickup assignments given by the local municipal corporation. However, as Jadhav Saahib lost the municipal elections 3 months back, even that employment was snatched from Baba. The new Saahib, who won the election, is from a party that Baba tells works well for some minority, but ignores us. I am too young to understand why it is so, Baba says.

Well, it was the D-day and I was ready to go out with Baba. We walked 45 minutes to reach the society where Baba worked. Thankfully, the weather was overcast and it helped me keep pace with Baba. The society had a gigantic entrance gate with neatly-dressed security guards patrolling the visitors. Baba introduced me to them and said that I stood first in my class. They were impressed and wished us Happy Holi. One of them also gave me a Peda, which I accepted after Baba signaled his approval.

The garden in the building is more impressive than the gate. It has a plush lawn with grass and neatly-cut bushes on the side. However, the grass lawn’s splendor was spoiled by loads of shabby plastic bags (used as water balloons), and color. I had seen such scenes after Holi in the Chawl, but they never bothered me as the Chawl was mostly untidy. Consequently, more shabbiness in a dirty place never irked me like the way I was disturbed on observing this campus. I again went into the world of my thoughts. I came back to the present when Baba asked me to sit on a bench. Baba went away and brought the broom and dustbin to clean the lawn.

It took him an hour to collect the plastic bags from the lawn. He sat next to me after picking up the plastic bags and showed me the garbage bin. It was full to the brim with plastic. I kept staring at the bin and again visited my thoughts that took me to a classroom session on pollution. I could see and hear my teacher speaking in her authoritative tone – “Kids, don’t use plastic bags. Plastic is slowly eating our wonderful earth. See this plastic demon on the chart. It is gobbling up the fertile land from where you get your favorite vegetables. In addition, cows and cattles also eat plastic bags and die. Even marine life is in danger due to the plastic demon. Don’t you like to drink milk? I am sure many of you also like to eat fish. However, if we all continue to use plastic, we could soon have a day when you will not have milk to drink or fish to eat.”

I got darn scared on this note as I love, both, Milk and Fish. Milk was a luxury at my home, but when I got it, I slept well. And Maa cooks really good Fish. So, I don’t want a time when I cannot consume either Fish or Milk. I have never liked Vegetables much, so fear of losing Veggies didn’t scare me much. However, my Didi loves Vegetables, so I would like even Veggies to stay for her.

The Pollution Demon Eating Earth

The teacher continued, “See the chart again. The world’s present plastic consumption is 100 million tonnes. That is, 1,000,000,00 tonnes. Where 1 tonne is equal to 1000 Kilogram.” We were all awed by these numbers. I am sure, like me, no one could imagine how much these numbers meant, but they seemed to be large numbers just for great amount of weight they referred to. And, my fear of losing Milk and Fishes forever worried me more. The teacher added, “No one is sure how long does plastic takes to degrade, but some say that it will take 1000 years to degrade.”

As I sit on the bench, I recall the horror of losing two of my favorite edible items. I also recall some facts about plastic displayed on the chart.

Facts About Plastic

Facts About Plastic - 2

I hear Baba ask, “Why are you staring at the plastic bags? Scared by the amount of work I do on Holi?” I say nothing, but nod. Baba assumes that I am scared by the amount of work for Baba on Holi. However, my real worry is – How to stop such an amount of plastic going into some Cattle’s or Fish’s stomach? I may be greedy as I aim to protect my food chain, but in the process I am helping mother Earth. As I think it over, Baba stretches his back, goes into a store room and comes back with another, large garbage bin.

He asks me to follow him into the building. As we reach the first storey, Baba rings the bells of all the apartments in a hurry. I see one kid, of approximately my age, open the door and call his mother, “Maa, Kachra Waala aa gaya.” Literally, this means, Garbage Vendor has come. I was shocked by this reference to my Baba. I had grown up attaching the Waala verb to vendors. For example, Ice Cream Waala to refer to sellers of ice cream or Sabji Waala to refer to Grocery vendors. As per my understanding, Waala is associated with the supplier of some tangible goods. So, as my Baba supplied cleanliness and hygiene, he should be referred to as Safai Waala or Cleanliness Vendor. Baba seemed unperturbed by this reference. He collected the garbage from all households, picked up more plastic bags and plastic balloons lying in the stairs, and moved on to the next storey.

First, the plastic heap and then the humiliating reference to my Baba. I had already had a bad day at Baba’s office. I wanted to run away, but stayed on to face more like a brave soldier.

Before we moved up, Baba asked folks from each apartment to keep a bucket full of water outside their flat. I wondered why he needed the water. Does he plan to play Holi with me or the owners at a later stage? In either case, why a bucket full of water from each apartment? The story repeated on consecutive levels of the building. Baba was referred to with the same title and I kept getting irked.

When we were through with the chore on the highest level, Baba spilled the water buckets and I jumped up as I tried to avoid the water. I was surprised!

Now, in the seven storey building, there were four apartments at each level. And, we spilled 28 buckets of water to clean the building’s stairs. As per the water consumption of my family in the Chawl, 28 buckets of water will suffice for 5-days. So much water enables us to perform our chores with ease. At one point, I was tempted to ask Baba to take away couple of buckets of water to our Kholi. But, I resisted the temptation. On most days, we received 4-6 buckets of water at 5 AM. Maa gets up to stock water supply before the tap runs dry.

It took Baba approximately 5 hours to clean the Holi mess in the society. At the end of it, we had 4 bins of plastic balloons and 3 bins full of household waste.

Baba and I kept talking about why Baba gets frustrated on Holis. The answer was clear – too much work and a tired body. However, my cause of worry was not a tired Baba, but the concern – how to protect my food supply? I may be too young to understand the gravity of climate change, which teacher keeps preaching about. However, I really understand the threat to my food chain. So, these plastic bags really haunted me more than a drunk Baba or the school principal’s look-alike Witch from my dreams.

I walk with Baba as he leads me to a large Garbage Bin located on the street outside the building. However, my concern about the plastic bags still rules my mind. I was lost in my thoughts and Baba was about to empty the bin full of plastic balloons – when I recalled the magic word – RECYCLE.

I held Baba’s hand with authority and said – STOP. Baba was surprised. I got scared as I expected Baba to hit me for interfering in his work. Before he reacted, I said, “Baba, these Bags could help us earn some money.” He exclaimed, “How?”

I explained him, as per my teacher‘s lecture, about recycling units that buy used plastic and recycle. I tried my best to convince Baba to give it a try. However, all seemed to go in vain as he seemed ignorant and couldn’t believe that someone could pay for such useless plastic. So, as it happens in adolescence, when you want something from your parents, but don’t seem to get it – you are accompanied by tears. Baba couldn’t see me weep on my birthday, so he agreed to give recycling a try. I told Baba the address of the recycling unit in our locality. I recollected it from my school lecture. Baba requested one of the security guards to accompany us to the unit and carry a container filled with plastic bags.

We reached the unit and sold the bags for Rs 20, which is not a large amount, but was good enough for an ice cream that Baba bought me. I was satisfied by doing my bit for the environment and securing my food chain. While eating ice cream in a garden, Baba asked me why was I adamant to recycle. I patiently explained him about pollution and my fear of losing milk and fish. I tried to be as authoritative as my teacher, but couldn’t. At the end of the story, as I lick the ice cream, I see that Baba is proud of me and my thinking. He smiles and I see that his eyes are moist. He doesn’t say anything, but just looks at me, smiles, and at the end, moves his hand over my hair. He had never done a gesture like this. It really felt good.

As we walked back, I confirmed with Baba whether his frustration on Holi was due to extra work? His response was yes. I let my inquisitive behavior ask one more question – Is this the same reason you dislike Diwali? His response was cold that left me blue – “Your Aaji (granny) had an Asthma attack on the eve of Diwali when you were not born. The attack was due to the smoke emanating from the extensive fireworks in the Chawl. She couldn’t survive the attack.”

We reached home and on my request, Baba didn’t buy his dose of Alcohol. He decided to relax with a cup of tea. Maa was pleasantly surprised to see a cheerful Baba. We sat outside our Kholi and had some tea and Kanda Pohe that Maa had cooked. It was 5 PM. The sun’s rays were warm but comforting as they kissed our floor. I sat there and saw the sun lowering in the sky. I felt satisfied at the end of the day. But, I am still concerned about how we have made our festivals a danger for many lives. I am just a kid and can think about pollution. I hope grownups also start to protect our food chain and the world. I will request my teacher to take lectures on pollution for all adults in my Chawl. I hope it will help us to protect the world in a small way.

Some tips to reduce pollution:

• Use traditional clothe bags to buy groceries
• Use steel bottles to drink water in office
• Switch-off monitors while you move away from your desk
• Avoid using plastic bags or bottles
• Use more fans and avoid Air Conditioners
• Cycle to work if possible
• Maintain personal hygiene so that clothes don’t get dirty
• Spill less water
• Celebrate Diwali with minimal fireworks
• Celebrate Holi with natural colors, less water, and NO PLASTIC
• Use Handkerchief instead of tissue papers

Also, see the following video from www.ted.com:

References:

• Waste Online
• Are Plastic Grocery Bags Sacking the Environment?
• Clipmarks

Click here to download the post as a PDF File.

Thinking Like a Human

Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?

Henry David Thoreau

Observe the people around you or apply these questions to yourself. Are they/you perfect? Are they/you happy with the way they/you look? Do you think their/your race is better than others? Or, do they/you think their/your community is better than others’?

Well, when I pose these questions directly at you, I am sure your responses would be rationale. However, when answering for others, your responses will be more populist. That is:

• Most people feel that they are better than others (close to perfect), hence continue to gripe about others’ decisions, appearance, clothing, or whatever they want to
• Most people are not happy with their appearance. They may all wish to have looks like Tom Cruise or Marilyn Monroe, or whichever externally appealing individual they may know
• Majority trust people from their own, race, community, or whatever link that originates from made-up and geographically co-incidental origins. Most races, communities, and religions in the world are a result of geographic incidences – thanks to the mother nature

If you are different enough to not comply with any of the three above points, tell me how do you achieve this.

On Human Nature and Beauty

We all are similar in most sense, but it is an inconvenient truth.

• If you don’t like a person’s behavior in office, you go straight to your close associate and gripe. Even the person about whom you gripe, may moan your behavior with others.
• If you are given a chance to see questions that will appear in your interview test, you are very likely to take a peep.

I can list many more instances wherein I could predict your behavior. However, such as we are, we believe we are different and moan about almost every aspect of our life; or, as a matter of fact – we gripe as long as we live.

When we decide our initial level of trust in another individual, here is the order in which we (human) are likely to set our preferences:

1. Same color
2. Same religion
3. Same community
4. Same region
5. Same country

You may feel the order is wrong or discard the list as it gives a very critical scrutiny of the human nature. But, I bet it is very near to the truth.

You may differ on the order, but just sit back and do some soul searching – were you ever new to a place and were relieved to meet a person from your place of origin, religion, community, or race? We all seem to use these points, may be unconsciously, to set initial level of trust in new people we meet.

Let’s play a game in which you are allowed to keep the right answer to yourself and there are no prizes to be won (sorry to take out an incentive before the game starts.) Bonus: There are no buttons to click :-).

Question: If you win an Astin Martin in some stupid game show and are given a model that happens to be black, will you return it? Note that you cannot change the car color.

1. a. Yes
2. b. No

Now, you don’t need to give me any prize to guess your answer, which is – b.

Why didn’t the color influence your decision?

I guess it was because: how the hell can the color of an Aston Martin matter? An Aston Martin is an Astan Martin. Its mechanics, speed, looks, everything are a killer.  The difference between the engine, injection, piston, or whatever crap that goes inside all Aston Martins is basically – ZERO. So how can color matter? Darn the color. What say?

Yeah, you are right. Darn the color for a lifeless output of mechanics, which is produced and sold at a price that can support an entire city/town/village, which is facing serious humanitarian crisis like famine or the recent quake in Haiti.

Why does the color matter so much when it relates to human? We human, despite differences in skin appearance, are same from the inside. I am sure there is no need to get into the bio-demographic segmentation of humanity. The internal machinery that operates inside us is bloody similar. Just like an Aston Martin, even our machinery expires and experiences change in appearance with age.

An Aston Martin may satisfy the self esteem need of an individual, but is it worth the value of human lives – whose numbers may go in billions? Refer to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to read about self esteem needs.

Consider us, human. Are we really beautiful? We look at a spider, toad, lizard, or a cockroach and may exclaim – YUCK.

Just for a moment imagine that these wonderful creatures can speak and think. Will they not exclaim – yuck or their version of DEMON on seeing us? If they make such statements, they are justified as most of human race is slowly turning filthy, destructive, and thoughtless and is living like creatures with no brains. We just follow what others do in the name of fashion, trend, or blindly follow marketing gimmicks.

Just another uncomfortable fact – we hold and emit more poo than any of these creatures may in their lives. So, who is filthier in real sense?

I am sure many animals call us DEMONS in their own mode of communication. Thankfully we have not yet decrypted their communication. Otherwise, poor fellows would have been under more human threat as they could have been caught calling names and curses. And that too cursing the most brainy and beautiful, yet destructive and divided, race of living thing on the plant.:-)

It is in human nature to show anything that originates from a different place to be asymmetric and hence ugly. For example, all alien artworks are slimy. We unconsciously see beauty comparatively. And, we compare it with ourselves, our race, community, country, religion, or whatever we can think of. Hardly any views are neutral.

One refreshing piece of art that deviates from the stereotype is the movie: Monster Inc. The movie starts off with a typical portrayal of monsters, which is they are scary and ugly. However, the movie ends with the message that love and happiness are very powerful and a living object that looks different from a particular race is also capable of making people smile. 🙂

Dark is beautiful, small noses look cute, small eyes are a killer, small lips are pretty, brown is the bridge between white and black, and white glows when all fades. They are all beautiful in every sense. Don’t these lines justify the beauty of all ‘skin’ races? Then why the differences when logic easily advocates unity and love? Why does a market exist for fairness and other crappy creams?

On More Divisions – A case of Indian Unity/Diversity

The easiest way to get close to someone is to moan about an individual who, coincidentally, may be hated by you and the person with whom you talk. In other words, you can easily get close to someone by griping about an individual who is an object of your common hatred. You will have exceptions when an individual may be against back-biting against others. However, in most cases, you will succeed. In addition, while assessing people, we tend to overlook their positive behavior and concentrate on their shortfalls. This tendency to overlook the positive, or nice behavior, is one of the most exploited and vulnerable human weaknesses.

As I said before, unconsciously, we tend to let our perspectives be driven by a person’s ethnicity, religion, or race. So, will this be left unexploited when someone wants you on their side? Surely not. From politicians and terrorists to marketers, all look to exploit this weakness at a grand level, and your friends or associates at a lower level. Your friends or associates’ influence may cause you to hate an individual or community, but even their rationale will be, in some way, inspired from a leader – the leader may be a politician, goon, terror marketer, or some historic personality.

For example, let’s consider the differences in the Indian Social setup. The traditional setup of the Indian society encouraged division of work based on a person’s family and sect.  The society was divided into three main sections:

1. Kshatriyas, rulers entrusted with the responsibility to govern the society
2. Bramhins, responsible to oversee the religious rituals and worshiping
3. Shudras, maintain hygiene and maintenance of the environment

The aim of such a system was to let the society function smoothly. With all due respect to the creators of the system and without doubting their intentions, I opine that they overlooked the human weakness to look down on others. I hope that the creators had learned Edward De Bono’s six thinking hats, or psychology, so that they could have used the hats to analyze the, possible, negative impacts of the system. J But unfortunately, they didn’t have such scientific tools of decision making. Everything was driven by gut, myth, and the decision makers’ will to safeguard themselves and their community. Consequently, we had the Shudra being oppressed by the Bramhins and Kshatriyas for centuries.

Refer to the Human Map below. It depicts the segregation of the Indian society into innumerable divisions. It may be humanly and timely impossible for a working class person like me to give a detailed map of differences. However, the image below surely gives a glimpse at the microscopic level of the way our society is divided. If you think this map is cluttered, just imagine the mess in a diagram that maps the  world’s communities and races?

The marketers and politicos exploit the human tendency to focus on the differences and cons of other communities or races. As you may  perceive from the diagram, they have innumerable target points to divide us and benefit from our weakness.

There may be innumerable vulnerable points, but the solitary and most powerful unifying theme – humanity.

The first religion we should follow and preach is humanity. All religions are derived from humanity. However, over the years, they may have been tweaked by few people for their self interest.  There have been true prophets of religions.

However, few may have been corrupt. It is these corrupt individuals who have tweaked religions to serve their self interest. So, will it not make sense to practice humanity rather than follow someone else’s word? I don’t advocate dropping your present practices. But, I do advocate critically reviewing them and following only those that are in sync with nature, humanity, and betterment of the world. For instance, it is a Hindu practice to disperse holy stuff, used in worship, in water. I have stopped my family from doing it as this practice pollutes water. The most recent examples of tweaking religion and race are terrorism, reservation in various organizations or institutions, etc. So, like you do in money matters, use your grey matter and conscience.

Never say no to your conscience. It always shows you the right path. You just need to wait, take a deep breath, smile, and listen…

Disclaimer: The post does not aim to demean any religion, race, or community. My apologies if it does and do let me know if you feel that any part of the post demeans any sect.