Yesterday while reading the newspaper I came across a headline, which caught my eye, ” Mercury rising, pollution too”. It was a little uncomfortable to read how the pollution levels were rising in the city, as Mumbai faces the hottest February after almost five years. Reading this news piece made me sit back and think. Not that it was the first time that I ever read or heard any such thing. Global warming, depletion of natural resources and environmental hazards are the facts we are all well aware of now. But the problem is that it only stops at awareness. What next? Are we making any efforts towards fighting these issues? I really don’t think so.
The water tank in my adjacent building overflows everyday at around 4pm in the evening for almost an hour. What a wastage I cribbed always. But did I make any effort to stop this issue? NO…. Not until yesterday when I called up the security guard and the society office to figure out how and why no one was checking this. They assured they would keep a tab on this and I was sure it would happen again. But surprisingly the tank did not overflow today. It made me realize that its better to act than assume nothing is going to change with your individual efforts.
Its not that everyone like me, cribs and not acts. Pick up the Mumbai Mirror for any day and you will find atleast one cover story detailing out how residents of certain areas are fighting builders and organizations to save their gardens, greenery and mangroves. But the irony is that they do not comprise even one percent of the city population. 99.9% individuals think like me. What difference can they make? When no one is bothered why should I be?
More than a year back PCRA had started a campaign on saving fuel. There was an advertisement wherein the child tells his father actor Ram Kapoor, that he would open a car repair shop when he grew up. He believed the way people were wasting petrol by the time he grew up cycle would be used for communication. It made the father think and he switches off his car engine. A very precise and apt advertisement I would say. But then how many people would have started practicing this after watching the advertisement? Though the thought that our children would be facing these life-challenging issues does worry us at times but not to the extent to make us take cumulative and joint action to face and overcome such standing problems. Seems we are too interested and busy with scams and money scandals all around us.
Was just a few days back chatting with an old friend on phone. She had just finished reading one of Dr. Brian Weiss’s books in which he unveils the reincarnation phenomenon with the help of past life regression therapy on one of his patients. As I had also read it, we started discussing it. I was really surprised to know that she had heard the reincarnation phenomenon, like the West, for the first time through his book. Unlike her in my growing up days reading and hearing about mythological stories was a part of upbringing, thanks to our grandparents around. Most of them had teachings on reincarnation and bearing the fruits of ones own karma in the current or another birth. Reading the book for me was a somewhat reiteration and scientific proof of what I had known. But for her it opened a door to a complete new world and along with it lot of questions like was this not our last birth? Will we be born again?
We discussed how people now are becoming more and more spiritually inclined and follow mediation and spiritual practices thanks to various psychics and healers to be able to fight daily stress and anxiety. But she argued that by doing this they are only focusing on short-term goals which is only restricted to their present birth. We will be reborn again and its not only our children but we in our future births be facing these issues. Whatever harm we do to the environment today, we will have to deal with it in our future births. The karma reaching its full circle with us getting back what we gave in the real sense. So she thought it is very important that in order to make our and our loved ones future life’s better, we should start some awareness campaign to motivate people to take every small step possible and within our reach to help save the environment and earth as a whole.
Though I could not disagree with her arguments and thoughts but then I thought was she not focusing on a too far off a goal. We still have this life to live and doing something to make our next life happy was too far an option to work upon. If everyone around does not have time to make small efforts to make this life worth living would trying to motivate them to take steps to improve future life’s work? NEVER is the only answer I got.
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