Confession of a Hypocrite

            A well-wisher of Nature and Earth, an animal lover myself, I confess it is hard to cling onto some good policies that save our nature.  I have vowed not to use or gift leather products, and also to use less plastic materials as possible. The quick adapters called humans restrain from modifying their habits and routines. Over-consumption of plastic has latched us; even exorcism of any kind cannot save us is a reality yet to be grasped. We love to get anything at free of cost, and so we love to get free plastic covers from the shops. Some big marts have chosen to charge the plastic covers, but the affluent ones are ready to additionally spend few more coins. The place I live has its unused grounds turned out to be a wasteland, a filthy plastic-filled land. One can notice with one glance the bright and subtle colors of the plastic kits which adorn these wastelands with explicit ado and black swine feeding on the contents inside the plastic covers. 

            I had also promised myself not to get plastic kits from shops, but hardly have I ever taken an extra shopping bag or cover with me. I have always wondered that how many of us worry about the condition of nature and our planet. I would like to see that the posterity lives in not-so-bad Earth. Are we planning to shift to another planet and dumb this one?  Most of us being hedonists are tuned to blindly follow what our fellow humans do. I am not able to cut down the plastic usage at home, even the pens to chairs and mats, plastic has found safe seats. Trying to maintain a good home budget, at times even I have had to resort to plastic. May be I am a hypocrite, or a dancer to somebody’s tune, I need to be more stubborn and say a big NO to plastic. But is that possible however I try? Will the other tenants of this planet let me keep my policies intact? However adamant I am these thoughts are hard for us to materialise, that is a truth which we don’t acknowledge unless we are tough ascetics.

            Surfing through the online shopping sites, just to choose a good wallet for my husband which isn’t made of leather had raised few thoughts which I wouldn’t like to believe. Wallets not made of leather is hard to find and are scarce like diamond, non-leather wallets don’t satiate my taste or his. Non-leather products stand below leather products in terms of looks and durability, but being stringent animal lover I had to suppress my aesthetic sense. It also cross cuts my partial stand on YOLO (You Only Lives Once) thoughts. Finally I had to leave my expedition in the middle and stopped hunting for wallets. Jute wallets aren’t much available online and being a temporary resident in a rural area, I can’t wish for things that are still queer to this place.

            Leather or non-leather, plastic or non-plastic doesn’t make much difference for some people. At times, I agree that belonging to such a class with no independent thoughts or policies are good for themselves but at the end it can accumulate and beat all of us in the form of a catastrophe which none of us have ever thought of.

            Anyone in my family is not bothered about such matters; to them all these are the most trivial ones. To instill and inculcate such ideas to our children is mandatory; all of these must start from home. Lots of e-waste can be excavated from my home, and I actually don’t know how to dispose them. I also doubt that I am that typical Indian who preserves used things as a souvenir, and as a reminder of the past. Haven’t we progressed to “use and throw”, but doing so doesn’t that hamper our personal preferences? Hurling all those vapid objects will make those wastelands more into a dump yard and poison-generating spot.

            Staying now in a remote area of the Karnataka state, I overvalue the cleanliness of my native place in Kerala. We collectively know that writing or speaking on such issues can provide no solutions; to tackle this is hard, even when we get on-the-field it’s even harder one to crack. Who should be caught, if we were to catch the people who spoil the nature with stale, plastic and non-decomposable litters, and then all of us would have hands inside the cuffs.