With kids around, an usual family conversation veered to environmental issues. A grown-up told the children about microplastic pollution assuming dangerous proportions. Suddenly, the little girl in the group said, “If we adapt to microplastics, someday in future my mother will offer me a plate full of colourful plastic granules in breakfast.” Everybody burst into laughter, but soon realised that her voice had an element of fun and seriousness both at the same time. Another comment from a boy of the same age in the group, made others laugh, and think deeper, on the issue when he said, “By the time we start plastic diet in future, the Earth may be much warmer than it is today. Won’t we melt then?” Fun apart, pollution is assuming a serious proportion. Pollution has disturbed natural freshness of everything -- air, water, sound, mind, society, culture, politics, literature, art, economy, food... Well, the list may be as long as human desires.

 

It may be called contamination, corruption, toxicity, adulteration, foulness, taint, decomposition, decay, desecration, obscenity, misuse, virulence, vitiation, racism, casteism, addiction etc in different contexts. None of them is synonym of pollution, so to say, but reflects different shade of the same phenomenon -- disruption, loss of purity. Everyone afflicted by pollution is making compromises by offering own excuses for violating the purity of Nature, and of behaviour. Everyone has become networked to the extent of being afraid of taking a stand in favour of right thing. This has eroded faith in purity of heart, cleanness of personality, and innocence in relationships. One of the dialogues from popular movie franchise ‘Munnabhai’ makes a very telling comment on how pollution has affected life. In that scene, the sidekick Circuit tells Munna, “Bhai, Maa nahi dikhti hain. Mumbai mein bahut pollution hain, bhai.” Of course, the pollution he referred to in that dialogue conveys the wider sense. Sadly, most individuals have forgotten that the root cause of pollution is the most negative sentiment -- greed! Almost all the human pursuits are driven by greed for resources, likes, name, fame etc.

 

It is like people driving cars with accelerators but without brakes. Interestingly, nowadays, people have started treating driverless cars as innovations. Looking from the perspective of pollution in wider sense, it amounts to a tool for shirking the responsibility in case of accidents by saying that one was not driving the car. Similarly, people have linked sustainability to amassing surplus instead of making judicious use of resources. In the heat of things people have forgotten warmth of relationship with Nature. So, after disturbing environment in population-dense areas, they have started taking breaks to be closer to Nature, in less-populated areas. But, again, to serve them better, nature of less-populated areas is changing. And, ‘(Dharti) Maa’ is becoming less visible to human eyes. Truly, pollution is increasing. A Circuit realises this, but Powerhouses, probably, don’t. Sad, isn’t it? n