Picnics Can Be Fun, But Not at the Cost of the Environment
Our enjoyment for one day of the year is inflicting different kind of pollution in to the natural ecosystem, creating distress condition for birds, reptiles and insects!”
On that windy chilling cold morning, when the sun was showing off its shimmering light, I just longed for the soft, warm cuddle of my grandpa who was sitting under the blue sky covering him with the shawl.
It used to be my favorite routine in winter holidays to sit on the laps of my grandfather, covered under thick blanket and listen to stories of different genre.
However, on that particular day, seeing me coming towards him, Grandpa unfurled his arms, a welcoming gesture for me for the comfort zone. After I settled down in his embrace, I could feel something was missing, the natural flow of stories!
I thought, probably he was out of fable, fiction or mythological facts that day, so I focused on the quietness and his warm clasp.
Seeing both of us sitting in tranquil, soundlessly was inadmissible for grandma. With her eyebrows coming closer and slightly curled up, making some crease like frowning lines she said, “What happened to you, why you are so silent? The boy is waiting to listen to you but you are maintaining silence as a rock!”
“Oh! Nothing like that, just having a weird feeling of ‘keep on watching Mother Nature’ and appreciating her beauty!”
Probably the answer irritated grandma. Engulfed by the displeasure, in a teasing tone she said, “Why are you so philosophical? Are you planning to give up these earthly matters and pursue monkhood?”
Grandpa was dumbfounded by the unexpected twisting and twirling of his simple emotion of appreciation for nature into dispassion and objectiveness.
The emotion of admiration instantaneously switched over to perplexity. It was clearly visible from his jaw dropped and bewildered eyes.
Within few seconds as the limbic system of grandpa analyzed the inherent meaning of Grandma’s statement, started reacting.
First by slightly tilting head with nodding movement, curling up the eyebrows with blinking eyes followed by obscure voice, “what made you draw parallel between admiration of nature and monkhood are the same thing? And by the way I don’t feel like developing any serenity or detachment from the world yet, so don’t push me to the world of solitude.”
Grandpa’s emotional scar generated due to her statement could be felt by grandma. In order to nullify that wound, in a soothing and comforting voice she said, “Don’t get angry. You had never been a naturalist or environmentalist ever before, so I miscalculated your statement.”
In resentment loaded voice he said, “Because I had never seen the amount of abuse on nature in the name of picnicking that I encountered yesterday during our morning walk group recreation programme in that reserve forest area.”
He took a pause after delivering such a heavy loaded dialogue that raised our interest. I, sitting in his lap twisted my head to look back at him, while granny giving an intent look, trying to figure out his mentality.
In the meantime he rephrased his voice that was loaded with pain and anguish.
“You see! Recreation along with family and friends is an important aspect as that would reenergizes the individual to take higher responsibilities. But in the name of refreshment and amusement we should not be disturbing the ecosystem, adding to the pollution!
Our enjoyment for one day of the year is inflicting different kind of pollution in to the natural ecosystem, creating distress condition for birds, reptiles and insects!”
While uttering each species name probably he was visualizing the difficulty and the ordeal of these creatures was facing due to anthropogenic behavior, for which his face was showing the sign distortion.
In affirmative voice granny said, “Yeah! What you are saying is absolutely correct. At present people are more centric about maximizing pleasure, irrespective of environmental or cultural values. Of course, refreshment from mundane work is important and our culture does recognize that need by aligning the family values, month and the environment for that purpose.”
After saying these things, grandma’s face lighten up with happiness as if in her memory she encountered some facts that now she was going to share.
“You remember! in our child hood days in Poush Mash (9th month in Indian calendar) Goddess Laxmi visits her parent’s house, so does all the married ladies visit their parent’s home for a month as a break from regular household work. It was really a fun time as married ladies along with their children come together to their mother’s house and used to have lots of chatting and merrymaking. But now probably people have forgotten the essence of that age old practice and focusing on maximization of fun only which is contributing to the pollution.”
“Yes! That is the point I was pondering into. Relaxation and refreshment should not be the reason of fading out of the ecosystem, otherwise what these children are going to experience when they grow into adulthood?”- shared by grandpa in an agitated way.
Holding a sense of concern in her opinion granny said, “Vanishment of ecosystem meaning disturbance in the basic stability of life like provision of food, water, clean air and etc. that would add to the warring condition leading to hostile environment!”
Imaginary the future created a sense of frenzy in granny. In a confused and disoriented voice she said “how this little boy is going to lead a life in such an adverse environment?”
“Don’t worry grandma, I will create my own space station and will take you both with me to that station. We will have good time over there with all the facility that you would like to have.”
It brought instantaneous laughter and changed the topic, but after so long years when I encountered first hand, pollution at the beach by the picnic party goers, the erstwhile incident got refreshened in my memory.
The increasing risk of beach ecosystem due to casual approach of party lovers is sending horrendous sensation of terror as that is accumulating the force of sea erosion leading to disappearance of many habitable regions to the force of sea by eliminating the beach grass ecosystem.
This is high time that we all should care for our mother earth and in pursuit of happiness should not invade the ecosystem for our pleasure.
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