LIGHT YOUR WORLD, LITTER NO LONGER!

Most often we do not consider several little things that can make bigger changes while it does not even cost us. We just need to develop best practices and tell of it to our children we love and the students we train. Teach values and best practices to the younger generation and the world is going to be different and better place to live. We may think, ‘how can just me make a difference…?  We can, at least for one, at a time...!

I believe many things we say or do, intentionally or unknowingly, are just because of our value system; the way we are. That’s why we need an attitudinal change in everything. What we are is more important than what we say or do; our saying and doing come out of our being. Many of us do not want to change, or throw away our old habits while we want others to change!   

LIGHT YOUR WORLD, LITTER NO LONGER!

We need to get rid of some of our bad habits and ways of life. But should we throw away what we want to discard? We need to learn to dispose, bury and burn. (Not plastics and rubber!).

  Fresh in my mind, is from a recent conference that I had attended.  Over 2,150 people were there at the conference. The prior registration was limited and not anybody could walk in. All of us where senior leaders, young professionals, graduate and university students who are mentored by us and of course, some of our grown up children; I mean, all of us were part of a homogenous group, at least for belief and life style. On the night of 31st December 2014, we lit thousands of candles, representing to 'light the world'.  By the New Year day, we had littered the grounds quite well. There were several hundreds of packets, and disposable cups lying all around in spite of the dust bins placed at the site. I think this is a crucial negligence that we cannot afford to go unnoticed. If somebody can pack and serve a cake, buying it from somewhere and bringing it to my hand; make, carry and serve a cup of tea or coffee into my hand, what’s wrong with me if I cannot be thoughtful to drop the disposable cups that I used and the wrapper of the cake I munched? 

This is a lifestyle that we are carrying on with us- throwing stuff all the time, spitting all around. We can’t hold on. We don't want to keep it any longer, let it be somebody's head ache, job or service. I agree that we don’t have any waste management system in India, but good dumping systems (Forgive if there a couple of them in some cities).  At least let us consider those who have to clear it and those who are moving it to the dumping yards. 

We don’t manage waste, we only move it!

We don’t like waste around us, so we push it to the neighbour’s plot, the public property, or to the traffic! I mean roads and rivers. The streams and rivers that were meant to bring us water from the high land to the low land are now channels to carry our filth. We assume roads can burn our wastes and streams and rivers will carry it to the sea. Many believe an old saying that means, “flowing water has no dirt”. For that reason, coovam does not flow. The blackest stretches seen on Google map of Chennai are not tarred roads but the Coovam! We keep throwing. This is true for the rea-cups that we sip from, peels of the banana we eat or the wastes of the chickens they dress! We do keep many employed! Some of us leave our trashes on the railway plat forms for the sweepers in charge of the platform to push it down to the track (at least in several places). Others of us help throwing it to the railway track directly as there are separate sweeper class employed for tracks alone.  Many of us faithfully dispose it to the right garbage bins. There are employees appointed by the corporation to move it further. At the last of the chain, they dump it in the government vacant land known as ‘dumping yards’. It’s just a matter of distance.  We dump, the sweepers and waste collectors dump, and the Corporation dump.  We do not really dispose or manage our wastes but push it or move it to a bit more far. I should stop here as I have no solutions to offer at this point. But I am really concerned that we at least could move it to the right place.  

If at home why not wherever we go?

If not for the garbage on the roadside and the wastes that lie around, Indian cities and towns will look like Hong Kong, Chiang Mai and Phnom Penh. (Sorry, I have only been to these places outside of the country). In 1986 I had been to a campsite called of UESI – Higfield in Kotagiri on the Nilgiris, for nearly two months for a camp. On day one, we were told not to litter the campus. None of us littered there. If we had eaten a chocolate, we had carried the peel in the pocket to dispose it at the right place.  I am sure anyone who goes to Highfield still will not litter around. If we could do it there, why did not we do it in Sriperumbudur ? If we practiced it in our home and campuses, why did not we tell it to our disciples?  Let us learn the best practices and pass it on. Let us light the world we live in and not litter it!

The Word: Let us ‘consider others better than ourselves’ and ‘do unto men and women what we want them to do unto us’.  If we have had put into application what we have been meditating, we should have added much meaning to many. We still can make a difference. We need to get rid of certain things, put on a few more things and focus a bit more. We should bury what can be buried, burn what can be burned. Light, but litter no longer!    Philipose Vaidyar