Environment and India(ns)

I have been thinking about writing this for about a month now and just did not have enough enthusiasm to write but I could feel the urge slowly increasing and now the time has come to set my laziness aside and write it. I might offend a few (if people actually read this!!, which I truly doubt) with my thoughts here and examples but so be it.

Few days back I was with one of my very close friend and was discussing why I don’t take cab back home from work if I am late. Its free (for me at least) then why not was his argument. My reason was unless it was very late 11.15 or later it takes me same time to reach home from a cab or via the tube and in using the tube I save some carbon emissions. So why not do it. His response was who the $#$$ cares about carbon emissions. I was taken aback! I have great respect for this guy but this is somewhere I think he is wrong and his offhand manner was a bit of a shock for me. Having said that, I have heard some comments like these from a lot of people, whom I come in contact with on a day to day basis. I have had a lot of discussions with people who don’t turn off their comps on the weekend and I have asked them a number of times to do the same but no changes.

What bothers me is not that they have least regard for the environment but that these are the guys who are amongst the most educated in the world and if they take such a stand what can we expect from the others. What is more regretful is the fact that most of them have roots in India. They must know how we used to worship the environment. The five elements from which the human body is made and to which it returns at the end of the journey - Each being an integral part of the environment. I know all this in today’s world seems a load of crap and you don’t have to believe in this. My guess is that the whole concept of worship of the elements, the sun, the water, the air etc was because we thought them as important and sacred. I think that there is no reason to believe that it does not hold true even today. If anything I think they have become even more important. We Indians were at the forefront of preserving the nature and we are the people who don’t care about it anymore! What has happened to us?

The answer should not come to you as a shock - I think that we were so blinded by globalization (westernization?) that we forgot our own culture. We did not think about the fact that we should only be taking the good things from the new culture we were trying to adapt to. We had mastered this art in the past. We were good at integrating with a new culture, keeping the good things and improving our culture but this time we failed and failed miserably. The price we are paying for this is huge and we need to get back to our old ways. Even if you don’t believe in Sun being a god and Air being worshipped no body can argue to the fact that they are important. Its still time for us as Indians to lead the world to a better tomorrow before it is too late and our children drown in the very water that has been the source of our progression through ages or die of the gases that we have produced so that we can have a more comfortable life. Aren’t we the country where parents do anything for their children?

It is time we paid more attention to the environment and may be to our culture