Mother Earth - Take care of her - every one of us should realise our responsibility to leave a better environment to our next generation!

 I was talking to my dear friend Sai Brindha yesterday evening. We were talking about many things and slowly the talk came to the climate. I told her that, now itself, even before the start of May, the heat waves here in Chennai are very exhausting and we should come to her house only as she is living in Bangalore.

She laughed and said you come to our house, you are most welcome but don’t come here expecting the chill weather of Bangalore 😄. Further, she added they are facing water scarcity as well. I could not believe it, water deficiency in Bangalore? How could it be possible? She said everywhere she could see only the cement roads, even the pavements and the crowded buildings. Maybe that could be a possible reason!

Last month I was there at Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh. I stayed with Niranjana and Devesh for a few days. Actually, it’s a village named Rakkar, where they are living, which is  a 20-minute drive from Dharamshala. That is at the base of the Dhauladhar range of The Himalayas. We went to one place uphill from where there was a wonderful view of the sunset. When we were there, waiting for the sun to set, chatting happily, I noticed some cuts in the mountains and asked whether that was due to landslides.

          

I was shocked to learn from the natives that it is the mining of slates. There, they are mining in the mountains for the material they call slates. The local people use those slates for all purposes like roofing, compound walls and even for decorative lawns etc.

The next day, we went to Aghanjar Mahadev temple and there we could see a very beautiful flow of water through the rocks. The water was so pure and clear without being polluted by humans. We were just watching the water flowing. Putting my legs in the ice-cold water(could not keep my legs continuously for more than a few seconds) that was crystal clear, I was reminded of another scene:

A few months ago, we went to Varanasi to purchase wedding sarees for Niranjana. There we visited the Holy Ganga. That’s the first time I saw her. I had so much expectations that Ma Ganga would walk majestically touching the east and west banks. I was very   excited to see Ganga Matha flowing with joy, but it was a sad reality that I could see all the dirty things on the banks and in the river. The scene I had in my eyes and what I saw were entirely opposite. I didn’t even feel like touching the waters. People said, it's the holy river and I should shower some water on my head, but I couldn’t do it! 

The same clear water that we can drink directly(tasty and better than all the RO water or mineralized water), when it is coming down, how much we have damaged it.

I think Niranjana also had all these things boxing in her mind when we were watching the wonderful water flow at Rakkar that she wrote on her Instagram page:

                           

Adding on to this, I heard the native people discussing that the ice formed on the mountains is much less compared to previous years. I felt very sad. What are we really doing to nature?

Chennai, as usual, is very hot. Today morning's newspaper says that the temperature will cross 115 degrees due to the El Nino effect! Bangalore lost its chillness and faced water scarcity, Dhauladhar ranges of Himachal experienced less formation of ice in the mountains, ….

We can see nature is classified into four orders: 1. The physical order, soil, metal etc.,  ,2. The bio order, the trees, plants,... 3.  The animal order, animals, birds,... and 4. The Human order. (Reference Book: A Foundation Course in Human Values and Professional Ethics, by R R Gaur, R. Asthana, G P Bagaria, Edition 2)

If we take the first three orders, they are mutually fulfilling each other, each order is getting enriched from the other orders and also enriching the other. When we include the fourth order, the human order, what do we see? We are getting from all the other three orders and are we enriching them in turn? 

Knowing that our survival is dependent on the other three orders we are not taking efforts to preserve or enrich them, right? But, we are not intentionally doing so. Ask yourself, do you want to destroy the physical order, the mountains, the rivers etc.,  , do you want to harm the animal order, do you want to harm the plants?  I am not asking what we are doing, I am asking do we want to harm the other orders? No, right?. We have the natural acceptance to enrich them, to protect them.

But, because of our lack of right understanding of what physical facilities we need(not want!) and in what quantity we need them, we are keeping on exploiting nature. If we develop the understanding of our needs we would not accumulate the physical facilities.

We are seeing a few other incidents happening in other countries too: Nearly half of China's urban areas is sinking mainly because it has 600 million buildings whose sheer weight is pushing down the land and China is rampantly pumping groundwater.

Did anyone imagine a flood in Dubai? The global media points out how the overdoing of cloud seeding has caused the deadly floods in Dubai.

Have a thought on this and every individual should realise our responsibility to leave a better environment to our next generation!