I was watching the movie 'Avatar' and in that the hero is talking to the God of his newly found clan. It is a large Tree and he is linking himself to the tree. As he talks, he says, "These human beings are invading this planet. They are terrible people. They killed their own mother and now are trying to kill this planet. I need some help here." His partner comes to him and tells him, "God will not take sides. He will maintain the balance of nature."
An American Environmentalist visiting India to talk to the Indian Government on how to preserve the Envrionment wrote that she was pleasantly surprised with what she witnessed in the Government Bungalow that she stayed in...she saw sweepers with broomsticks sweeping the garden and she compared that with someone in the US walking around with a petrol powered blower that makes noise and pollutes the air and all that it does is to blow the dead leaves back in to the garden. When she walked in for breakfast, she was served in a stainless steel plate and tea came in a ceramic cup. She compared that to the paper plates and paper cups used in many countries. The more she saw the more she was convinced that India has some very traditional practices that actually preserve the nature. She ended up asking the Indians not to adopt practices from other parts of the world but to go back to their old ways which were completely environment friendly.
Reading this account from the American Environmentalist took me back in time...when I was 5 years old. I used to visit my great grand-dad's house every year. The house was large, very well ventilated and would let the sunlight in from the top. The place where one took a bath had an opening in the wall and the water would flow through the opening in to the garden. It watered the plants. We never used a soap those days. It was a lentil that was ground coarse. This coarse powder was mixed with another powder made of a vegetable that smelled nice. We could apply this mixture of powder to the skin. I can now relate to that...it was friendly to the garden because the water flowed back to the garden from the bathroom and since it did not contain any chemicals, it did not pollute the soil. It was also a nice way of conserving water. The lentil powder that we applied to our body was like a face scrub that is now available in the markets. It helped clean the skin pores but did not remove all the oil content/moisture in the skin. So, the skin felt soft even after the scrub.
We did not use paper plates for eating...instead, it was banana leaves. These leaves were then given to the cows that were in the house. Disposal of waste was not a concern!!!
We have progressed but this progress has come at a tremendous cost. It is time we woke up and started using some of our old practices in our homes. We can change the world we live in by each of us contributing in a small way. I am sure that if each of us goes back to our past, to our childhood, we will find a practice that is more environment friendly than what we have now. If we can adopt that practice, we will go a long way in leaving behind a better earth for our children.
Our ancestors really cared for the environment. They treated this earth as they would their mother - with utmost respect and love. The mother willingly gave back in abundance. Today, if we really want to get the best out of our "mother", we really need to respect her. Instead we are going down a path where we will ultimately kill her. Our children and the generations to come will look at this generation of ours as the start point for the destruction of this wonderful ecosystem that can give us all that we want.
The relentless drilling, the cutting down of trees, the insatiable need for fossil fuels, the encroachment of lakes, river beds and the seas to create more land space, the relentless pollution of every aspect of the world around us are all coming back to haunt us. The changing weather patterns, the storms, the tsunamis, the flooding of large parts of countries, the landslides, the new urban diseases...all these are the ways that the mother is hitting back at us. Instead of spending millions of dollars to protect ourselves, it would be best to treat our mother earth with respect and love and she will give back to us, in abundance, all that we actually really need - clean water, clean air and clean food.
