AM I THE ONE AXING THE AAREY TREES?
“Earth
provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs,
but
not every man’s greed.”
- Mahatma
Gandhi
For
many days, now, some of my dear friends have been sending me strong appeals
against the controversial decision by the authorities to axe over 2500 trees
in Aarey forest to make way for Metro car-shed. Even though this issue concerns
all of us in this city, why is that only some feel so strong about it, and why
many of us, including myself, don’t?
Honestly, most
of us choose to see the other way. Because, it has not affected us ‘directly’, yet!
Just as you and
I, here in India, feel about the fire presently raging in the Amazon rain
forests!
Well, many of us
do know what impact can such disasters – most of them, yes, caused by human
greed in the name of development – can have on ‘life’. I didn’t say ‘human life’.
I said, ‘Life’… all kinds of Life… animals, birds, insects, plants and
vegetation… both, born and unborn. Yes, we know, the kind of toxic impact such
man-made disasters can bring about. Still, because, most of us live oceans away
from Brazil’s burning forests and, even miles away from our own Aarey, we
prefer to look the other way. The fire and the axe have not yet come to our
doors, you see. Hence!
Anyway, as one
of my friends, last night, argued with me vehemently, asking, “What can you and
I do about it?” His argument was better than someone axing my conscience,
asking, “Where is your heart when you destroy fishes and animals to satisfy
your apatite?”
I have no answer.
For, I eat fishes and animals, you see!
We all know,
that some things are not good… But, we all bury our heads into the sand and
say, “I cannot see”!
Therefore, I
find it difficult to shout slogans, “Let's save the planet Earth”!
I know how guilty I am for harming the planet earth!
As
a little boy, back home in our village… we lived in houses raised with red
soil, hay roof and floors prepared with cow-dung paste. We lived with buffaloes,
cows, dogs, chicken and drank water from our open wells and streams flowing
down from hills. Fruits, trees, grass, insects, bees, birds, snakes… yes, we
all lived together, even though we humans had gone to their place and, knew,
that, soon, we would render them homeless. We brought down hills after hills
and filled ponds after ponds; we encroached upon rivers and seas just to build
our roads, bridges, dams, and big buildings. And, we hailed our feat as ‘Progress
and Development’!
All of us from
our poor villages, including myself, wanted to come to mega cities like Mumbai
or fly to dream-lands like the US, Europe or the Middle East for ‘progress’.
Let me tell you this sincerely: None of us asked, then, how was America built?
How were the European or the Gulf nations built?
We ask about it
now!
I am living with
my own guilt. I am the co-conspirator in all the disasters caused by human
greed… be it the Amazon forest fire, which is raging oceans away from me… or,
be it the Aarey forest, which is threatened to be axed.
God, forgive me!
GERALD D’CUNHA
Pic.: Tuko
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