Thursday,
2nd August
2012.
Dear diary,
I’m writing after a long time because I’ve been really ill
the past few days. It all started a few days
back. I was just growing a stretch of forget-me-nots in the wetlands of
Siberia, when I incurred a sudden headache. It almost split my head apart. I’ve
known for a long time now that I’m not as fresh and energetic as I was a few
millenniums ago. But I never expected it to affect me so badly. Along with the
headache, I started choking. Hurriedly, I drank a draught of water and that
settled the choking a little. But this was a serious situation. I realized that
mere medicine couldn’t solve the problem. I had to find the root cause of my
deteriorating health. It was time, I thought, to assume the form of an animal,
and go down to find out what was causing this. Looking carefully, I saw that a
microscopic creature that walked on two legs had become prevalent on Earth. So
I turned myself into one of those little creatures and set off on my mission.
As soon as I descended, I was met with a pleasant sight. The
little flowers and plants that I had created were dancing happily in the breeze.
I was satisfied, there was nothing here that could be the reason for my
ailment. Oh, little did I know at that time that my jungles, beautiful and
green, had been converted into concrete jungles, by these odd creatures on two
legs, which were called humans. I had
no inkling of the fact that as soon as I grew grass, trees, bushes and
greenery, somewhere else on me, the humans destroyed all of them.
Happily, I moved on, to find that I was on an uninhabited
island. I saw a lagoon sparling somewhere in the sea. Mangroves made a
beautiful margin all around the island. I decided to explore more. During my
previous sojourn, all I had seen was destruction and devastation. Yes… that was
when a meteor had struck me, and had caused the extinction of the huge
dinosaurs. I was inflicted with a huge backache at the time and I was damaged
badly with bruises all over me. But let me tell you, that was much easier to
bear than this unknown disease that I have now.
I flew over the seas and came to mainland. And what a
terrible sight greeted me there! The humans
were dotted over the place. They had built some kind of monstrous shelters on
me, which they called ‘towers’.
They had cut off all my beautiful trees and replaced them
with ‘roads’, and ‘public parks’ which were nothing but a group of poorly-cared-for
plants that were withering out of thirst. I supposed that they believe it would
atone for their sins to build these ‘parks’ of almost dead plants! Foolish
little things! They do not know that what they have done will eventually bring my
end, and so, their own! I saw lakes and swamps, whose waters had been
encroached upon by these greedy materialists. I saw the mass destruction of
trees. I found the root-cause of my choking, polythene bags scattered all
around. I saw that not only were they gagging me, but were also killing my
other creatures, who could not distinguish between plastic bags and food and
ended up eating the toxic polythene. I saw the complete degradation of my skin,
the fertile soil. I saw them fighting against themselves for the right to own land. Don’t they know that the land
they fight for cannot belong to one person? It belongs to all my children, all
the living beings on me. I saw that their greed and ego and thirst for power
has clouded their minds and made them lose their heads. I saw the cruelty in
their behaviour
and attitude. I saw that they had intelligence, but not
wisdom. But, I also saw something that gave me a little hope, I saw that there were some of them who still had their
wits, who realized that their actions had gone a little too far. These small
pockets of people seemed to be trying to prevent the others from harming me.
They seemed to be trying to produce a little less of waste material and then
put the rest of the waste into small areas to be reused. Yes! This could give
me some renewed energy. And some of the bacteria seemed to be trying hard to
produce less poisonous gases.
The only problem was, these pockets of good bacteria were
few and far between. I feared that they were fighting a losing battle.
So, I decided to make the work easier for these good
creatures. I would help them spread awareness among people about my health condition
and about what would happen if something wasn’t done soon enough.
I roamed around the strange place, trying to find someone of
authority, so I could explain the problem to them. That’s when I came across a
bigger and brighter building than the rest. It was written ‘Government office,
Bangalore’, on it. Figuring that there was no better alternative, I went in to
lodge a complaint there. The people there told me to wait in the waiting room
for a bit, and then they would call me for a private meeting with the head
officer there. I sat on the strange thing they showed me, called a ‘couch’. It
was very uncomfortable, but being tired of roaming around, I dozed off. When I
awoke, it was night, and there was not a single soul around there. Then I
looked around and saw a peon, who had been trying to wake me up, but in vain,
for I was not used to moving from my place at all and it had been too much exertion
for me to walk around, all the more because of my current situation. The peon
interrupted my thoughts, ‘Madam, what are you doing here at this time? The
office closed long back. Now move out of here, or the Boss will scold me.’ I
took pity on the poor fellow, but I was furious that those lazy people had not
stuck to their words.
I searched for someone to confide in for many days, but
found no one at all. Everyone was too busy, and could spare no time at all for
‘trivial matters such as saving the Earth’. I almost gave up hope of living for
more than a year since then.
But then, as if by miracle, I found this old place, that the
young ones of the humans frequented every day, and came back home only in the
evening. Curious, I visited that place, called ‘school’. It turned out to be a centre
for shaping the young ones. There they were taught many of the important virtues
of life, honesty, courage, truthfulness, but most important of all, they were
taught to help Mother Earth, they were taught how to avoid wastage and misuse
of resources. They were taught that if Earth was not saved, they would all
perish. Looking at these innocent little faces, an array of hope shot through
me. Indeed, they were very lovable. Once their mind was made up, they worked
hard to achieve their goals. I smiled a little smile to myself, knowing that
though the good humans were few, they were doing their best to ensure that I,
my plants, my creatures, and my humans would be saved. It was a hard battle to
fight, but it was not decidedly a losing battle. In fact, there were a good
many chances that I would make a good comeback. It was just a matter of time. I also knew that
once the lesson was taught, the humans would never forget it, for despite their
faults, they had good memory! Hahaha!
Hoping that the issue would be solved and I would regain my
good health, I assumed my own form once again.
Even now, I am monitoring the humans’ activities. I think
the good humans are growing in number, because, slowly, my headache is
lessening, my fever is not as bad as before and my resplendent green canopy is being
regrown. Recycling and reusing are done wherever and whenever possible. I think
that the humans have realized they haven’t woven the web of life. They are but
one thread in it and whatever they do to the web, they do to themselves!
