Raise Your Voice: Care for Your Planet
Eavesdropping; a bad manner, known to every individual since their childhood, but on some occasions, the situation compels the person to behave like a nosy!
Eavesdropping; a bad manner, known to every individual since their childhood, but on some occasions, the situation compels the person to behave like a nosy!
On that morning, as I started walking from my home, two individuals just crossed me and started walking in front of me in my morning walk route.
Out of these two individuals, the smaller one was a girl child, must be in her early elementary school years, and the other seemed to be her father, in his mid-thirties!
The hand-holding gesture of these two forerunners was clearly visible that one is a caregiver, and the other one, an explorer of life.
Within ten strides, I neared them, and was about to cross over the father-daughter duo, I overheard something, that slowed my stride, stimulating my curiosity to listen more, and pushed me to remain behind them.
“Tell me na Papa! Why are you keeping silent? Answer me, na, Papa. Papa please!” In a demanding voice, after saying those things, the girl decisively shook her father’s hand.
Responding to the involuntary shuddering movement of his hand, the father instantaneously reacted in a harsh voice, but immediately realized his mistake and readjusted his tone.
Father’s first reaction had already hit the bull’s eye, making the baby girl disengage her hand from her father’s hold.
After a couple of seconds of her father’s remorseful persuasion and pleading, the baby girl emotionally returned to her natural self and tried to narrate the story before asking her father the real question that was in her mind.
“Papa! You know, those big trees that my friend ‘Niti’ had in her front yard are no more! All are gone now. In fact, the entire row of all those big trees, staying on both sides of the lane, near my friend’s house, that were there till day before yesterday, are now absent!”
“Okay, so what do you want me to answer? Where it all vanished to or whether you should replant some other trees or not, what is your question?”
I could feel the sarcasm hidden in the father’s question that the baby girl could hardly articulate.
“Noooo… Paapaa!, Absolutely; not at all these questions.”
The elongated response of the daughter in a grumbling voice, along with the disapproving facial expression, communicated that she took pity on her father’s dumbness.
“Papa! How come you are so slow and simple? No, I can’t ask those child-like silly questions, Papa! I am a big girl now, and I can understand many more things.”
After delivering a self-glory precursory note, she added,
“My question is, many of those big trees were sweet fruit-bearing trees that ripen during the summer, like Jamun, Sapota, Mango, and Bael, and so on, and how could anybody cut all these trees, especially when they are loaded with the tender fruits, Papa? How can any person be so cruel as to do such harm to the trees, as to completely cut those voiceless from their trunks, giving no scope for them to heal themselves, eliminating the chances of regeneration?”
Father was having difficulty giving a sincere, direct answer to his child’s logical query. So, he coughed momentarily, breathed in some air, and prepared himself to answer.
“Look, dear, what you are saying is right, but sometimes we are bound to do certain things, even though our ethics do not give us permission to do so. Probably, there is a sanction for road expansion, and the workers are bound to cut the vegetation to widen the road, so the situation sometimes compels us to do certain actions against our will.”
In an annoying and irritating voice, she said,
“Papa! You are only justifying all those cruelties with your answers. Big trees are not only a compendium of leaves and branches, but are more than that. Have you ever seen how many squirrels, birds, and other smaller animals were taking shelter in those tree houses? How were those trees’ shade regulating the summer temperature in the vicinity, providing relief to the commuters and stray animals? Do you have any idea? You are only justifying the need for road expansion, but what about the global warming and climate change context, Papa? By cutting down those big trees, you elders are only justifying your action in the present; but what about our future?
From excitement, her tone slowly turned into slumber disappointment
“Our teacher was saying in a class that climate change is accumulating with every passing year, Papa. We need to take proactive steps to arrest the warming process by caring and conserving more vegetation, or else how could we live in this world, with all the lost greenery, and harsher climatic conditions, Papa?”
It was a mind-numbing question coming from an elementary school student. I could make out, from behind, father’s struggle to find an appropriate answer that would satisfy his baby girl while making her aware of the ground reality of the need for economic development. However, I couldn’t listen any further to their conversation, as I had reached the road divergent point where I had to take another route, leaving the duo with all their question-answer moments. But the girl’s simple question lingered, tingling within me the search for the right answer.
“If in the name of economic development, you elders will cut down the trees and ultimately aggravate the global warming condition, then how could we live in a harsher world? Your forefathers gave you all a soothing, comfortable environment to live happily. What will we do in the future with all the ecosystem services gone, with the trees being cut, that you all are doing carelessly, even without thinking about us?”
On the forthcoming Earth Day, which we celebrate on 22nd April every year since 1970, we need to reflect more critically about the health of our mother earth and need to take note that, “we have not inherited this earth from our forefathers but borrowed it from our children.”
Recommended for you
Leave a Reply
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
