Anupam- The Dreamer

The case of severe air pollution

Among all activities that we do all day long in our homes, we try to keep things in order and places tidy. We arrange our rooms, our clothes, our food etc etc., because we care about these things. We decorate places to improve their aesthetic beauty. But, what is the one thing that gets least attention in our homes? It is nothing but the dustbin!!!! Yes, because once the utility of something is over, we stop caring about those things. What was once a favourite dish like noodles, pizza, biryani etc., becomes a waste just a few minutes later when we throw the leftover/extra into the dustbin. And after it goes into the dustbin, who cares? Literally no one! Only, the “kooda guy or kachra guy” has to worry about the dustbin waste in the morning (I remember there was a movie called Lagaan, where the person of no utility was literally named “Kachra”). For us, it is something that the “other” guy has to worry about, and why should we? But, we must not forget that what we throw in dustbin comes back to us in some way or the other- like the pollutants in our food chain, soil pollution, land, pollution, water pollution, etc.

Similar is the case with air pollution! Whatever, we do all day long in our homes, our workplaces, our factories, our farming, our industries, our travelling, our adventure activities, etc., we care about the things that affect us directly like our salaries, our comfort and leisure, our hobbies. We keep dumping pollutants in the air through many activities like waste burning, vehicular pollution, industrial pollution, construction waste etc. For example, if we have to construct our new house, do we care to keep construction dust in control? Do we pay extra money to install protection walls, or nets around the construction sites or over the trucks? People will say “पगला गए हो क्या?  यहाँ घर बनाने को पैसे कम पड़ रहे हैं, और ये dust control पे पैसे खर्च करने की बात कर रहा है!” Likewise, when we waste electricity in our homes or workplaces, do we care about the industrial pollution taking place due to burning of excess coal or natural gas to provide for that excess wasteful usage? Turning our heads in the sand like an ostrich doesn’t take away the problem at hand- i.e. the burning of excess coal will result into more particulate matter and dust going into the atmosphere which will add to the smog. The examples can be many, but I think you got my point.

In all our activities like the ones listed above, we treat the atmosphere like our “dustbins” or “dumpyards” only. We live as per the ideology of “Use till it benefits us, then throw it away in the dustbin when the utility expires. After that, it is none of our concerns”. It is only because of this ideology, that we have reached a sad state of affairs in terms of severe air pollution in many of the cities across India, and even across the world. Now, the “dustbin” or the “dumpyard” has become full, and it has started throwing back its garbage on our face. And now, we cannot say that we didn’t do anything or feign absolute ignorance about this very fact. When we have put shit in the atmosphere, it will repay us back with interest! And we shouldn’t cry foul that why it has happened to us, we are such good human beings!

We actually never cared about the air pollution, or for that matter water pollution, soil pollution, or bigger problems like climate change, till these problems have started affecting us significantly! In earlier times, when the human population was smaller and the resource degradation limited, the issue of different types of pollution was basically a non-starter in the everyday conversations. But, now when we have used, misused and abused the nature so much, and it had started costing us back in terms of pollution, that we are suddenly coming to realization that what is this happening to us all of a sudden? “All of a sudden! Seriously?????” It is time that we go back to our rooms and watch our faces in the mirrors and ask this question to ourselves! Then, we would realize that this is not a sudden phenomenon, rather it is a slow and steady tragic movie of our own making, of which we are the main characters (the humans). The end of this movie wasn’t thought as dreadful as we are witnessing now, but it can be even more dreadful as we look into the future!

The air pollution now has attained glaring proportions that even some people have fallen prey to the various respiratory diseases. Some have even got admitted to the hospitals and have lost life due to complications! Now, the air which was hitherto treated like a dumpyard of all human activities has become saturated. It is like “राम तेरी हवा (गंगा) मैली हो गयी, पापियों के पाप धोते धोते”!

As we have done enough sins (paap), so naturally we have to do repentance. It is time that we start caring about our dustbins like the way we care about many things in our homes. Dustbin here is a metaphor for each and everything that we ignore after using! We have ignored air pollution for so long, because we thought whatever we do and dump into the air, the nature will take care of its own! Nature tried to do that, but now even the nature has started to give up! And when nature gives up, there are only disasters and catastrophes which can wipe out centuries of development!

Therefore, if we care about our own present and the future, we have to put our house back in order! And what better place it could be than to clean up our dustbins first!

Till next time….