I was on my usual run to Rabindra colony, one of the highly populated areas of my region, for collecting insurance premiums from some of my clients in the area and some others residing abreast of the colony. There was quite a huge rush at the PDS store for green cylinders. I was obstructed in my path by a massive crowd.The mob started increasing linearly which added to my curiosity. I then slipped out of my green vehicle to personally diagnose the spot of gathering.When I sliced the mob aside and got in, I was rather predictable than stunned. A man was lying breathless on the road, besieged by a huge crowd. Beside him lay his murderer- the empty green cylinder.
Such incidents have turned up in frequency these days.The era of destruction has finally broached its way to genocide.The song of melancholy can be heard even in highest decibels. The days are gone when one runs behind the avarice of wealth, spectre of globalization and industrialization.The only aim that each individual, whether rich or poor, longs for today is just sufficient air to breath in.
Need not wobble for the words I admitted, because this is my envisioning year of 2050, where the pollution has roared up so wildly and devastatingly that the quality of air has dropped to a meagre level, where it is quite impossible for an individual to think of a place around him as being the purest and healthiest to breath in. It is because of this fact that the PDS stores are now more equipped with green cylinders, or more vividly, oxygen cylinders than ration stuffs .The definition of quality life has changed over decades.At present the quality life simply designates to the fact that how much fresh air one is able to accomplish.The days have arrived when one can trace others bargaining over fresh air.The accumulation of fresh air is a true asset these days over material wealth every individual aspires for.
After staring a bit, the unaltering expression seemed to speak something. It seemed as if it wanted to share a piece of advice or unfurl some mystery. A chunk of guilt was conspicuous which spoke the story of his downfall.
Alas! He died of suffocation , one of the ladies beside me remarked while adjusting her oxygen mask.Yes , the air killed him, the inner subconscious of mine reiterated: What an irony, the air which is omnipresent is now so obnoxious that direct inhaling of it is no less than the toxicity.The epoch has finally arrived where the fundamentals of fundamental remain no fundamental. For this reason the human beings are compelled to carry on their back a load of air. As per the prevailing situations and requirements our living standard has also underwent alterations. Almost every individual home these days have room for the devices that clean air, without which their life won’t be easy. In fact, I too am carrying a green cylinder with me to avoid chances of being choked.
Even the entire political framework has undergone renovations. Now in every talk there lies a bit of air. Countries now file agreements and MOUs over the exploitation of air across their border with neighboring nations. Exploitation of pure air is nowadays an issue of greatest political propaganda. It has become a subject of election agenda for parties during elections.Votes are now being cast by luring the voters over air .
The new face of market also gives us a transformed version of itself. Machines incorporated with various technologies capable of purifying air and water are among the favourites, which are available in abundance. Alien like people all around can be seen with masks leading out of oxygen cylinders at their back.
The greenery is a thing of luxury these days for which we have to pay at museum counters.The vast aperture of emerald beauty is rare these days.To feed eyes, the scenic lustre of nature is procured through cinema, which also showcases the unrealistic version embedded with technological artifacts.The immense charm of our mother nature is lost to the devils of globalisation. We humans are no longer humans, we have turned into machines who are at work at both ends of time. Why don’t we stop for a moment, and take ourselves to self introspection and realize what we have achieved and what we have lost? In this game of success, we have achieved less but lost all.
With revolutions in the field of technologies, many new technologies have been developed to combat the prevailing adversities of pollution and to endeavour to restore the nature’s biodiversity. But the scientists of the era are quite beyond, in terms of their envisioning limitations. They are working on the blue print of scope and chances of sustainability of life on some other planet. They look forward to broach a new era of civilization before the resources of the Earth are utilised to its fullest and leave it in the most worst circumstances of ill fate.The technological artifacts are mere a charlatan that is trying to fade the nature’s grandeur.
And finally turns up our government who has raised brows and has showed concerns. The international and national forums have joined hands and have sympathized with our blue eyed boy.They have come up with initiatives to ban the vehicles running on fossil fuels strictly and have also formulated the concept of green fuel. Vehicles capable of exhibiting eco-friendly gestures are only permissible. People are now avoiding vehicles and are rather preferring getting on foot. Also,they now say, ‘We shall pay every possible cost to restore our natural equilibrium.’
But I say, if we would have paid this cost a couple of decades ago then we wouldn’t have been in the present stigma of environmental dilemma. So ,open your eyes of wisdom, look around and act to your way because it is yet three decades to fetch 2050.
SARJANA 