Is today a lesser Earth Day than yesterday was?

So, April 22 was marked as the fortieth Earth Day. A day designed to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth’s environment. Great! Many a rallies, protests and educational sessions by environmental groups and NGOs were held worldwide to mark the occasion. Wonderful!



But tell me, should we not inspire awareness and appreciate our planet today? Is today, or for that matter tomorrow, a lesser Earth Day than yesterday was? I think not, and I truly hope not. For India did not gain her independence by protesting and making the effort one day of the year. The Taj Mahal was not built by working on it just one day in a year.

Any monumental achievement requires a sustained, planned and dedicated effort and a paradigm shift in our approach and thinking. And bringing the Earth back to its glory days is certainly a monumental task. It requires a quantum leap from just celebrating one day as the Earth Day.

Consciousness for the planet and its environment needs to be brought into the curriculum of our life, our schools and other educational institutions. We need to have at least an Earth Hour every day of our lives if anything significant is hoped to be achieved.





Before you jump to the conclusion that I am junking the idea of the Earth day, let me put that thought process to a rest. Yes, the Earth Day, as we celebrate it currently on 22 April is significant, for it is a reminder that something needs to done. But it is sinful to give our planet just one day and forget about her the next day. That doesn't make sense to me one bit!

Look around, the seasons are tired, the wind is tired, and our rivers are tired. Even the butterflies don't flutter like they once did, for our plants are tired. It's almost as if the nature is suffering from a chronic ailment. And no amount of symbolic gesture is going to help. Is one day's care justified?

The only change will and can happen when the children demand their world back from the adults. "Kardo humare halave yeh duniya", that's what the kids need to say. "Give our world back to us, for you (adults) have not been able to care for it the way it deserved to be cared for."



For the adults I'd urge them to take a pledge to not to take a pledge just because it's 'Earth Day'. Do not be a hypocrite. Empty pledges will not change anything. We'll take a pledge today and just like a New Year resolution it will be forgotten in less than a fortnight! Pledges are rhetoric that seldom has anything to do with ground realities.

I don't say this because I am angry, I don't say this because I am hopeless and I don't say this because I am cynical. I say this because I've thought about it. And I say this with a large amount of positive energy.



What the adults, who really care, can do is to teach the children how to be better citizens of the Earth. Impart the wisdom and knowledge to the new generation such that caring for the environ is next to breathing and eating - an innate part of our being.

If we can do this then the new generation will care for the environment not because they must, but because that's the way they have been brought up. It's as simple as that and the only way to go forward.




How wonderful it would be if instead of just one day or one hour in a year our children would start their day with an Earth Hour every day? How about each educational institution inculcation and Earth Hour in their regular curriculum? Perhaps an "earth hour" could become a part of schooling like maths and science, and in-fact given more importance than any other subject.

How wonderful it would be if patriotism took a new meaning and went beyond the boundaries of one nation. Isn't it about time we got patriotic about the Earth? And shouldn't everyday be Earth Day? Think about it.

About the author: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra is a critically acclaimed filmmaker and screenwriter. He is best known for writing and directing Rang De Basanti (2006), for which he won Best Director awards at the 2006 Filmfare Awards and National Film Awards and received a BAFTA Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. He is also the writer and director of the critically acclaimed Aks (2001) and Delhi-6 (2009).

The colour of money!

Once upon a time, man and the environment co-existed in sync, with each giving and taking from the other in equal measure. Everything was fine till man discovered ambition, he discovered the power of money, he became industrious, and he became greedy!



But while the man's ever increasing lust for that 'green' wad continued, most preferred to forget that with privilege comes responsibility. Making money became the sole focus, to hell with responsibility and the impact of what you do in order to make that money!

A case in point is the California gold rush of the 1850's. Opportunists swarmed the Sierra Nevada range like parasites, rearranging its ecology, its rivers and streams, choking them with mining debris, polluting them with everlasting mercury, scalping hillsides, logging forests, overfishing, overhunting, overrunning meadows with livestock, introducing diseases, displacing native plants, ousting thousands of environmentally conscious American Indians and forever shattering the primeval stillness of the mountains.



Closer home and much closer in time is the Bhopal gas tragedy. A human and ecological disaster that beyond every reasonable doubt occurred because of the incessant need of a handful of people to make money at all costs! 25,000 people dead, lakhs maimed for life and even today we continue to pay the price of this travesty with children being born deformed. And we are not talking about the environmental impact as yet - only the human collateral.

What makes it a tragedy of insurmountable proportions is that, on that cold December night in 1984, when at least 27 tons of methyl isocyanate gas leaked from a pesticide plant in Bhopal, the company involved in what became the worst industrial accident in history immediately tried to dissociate itself from legal responsibility - lest they lose MONEY! Not only did they murder thousands, they murdered without remorse!




And that brings me to the question of the day - what really is the colour of money? We've always heard and been made to understand that money is GREEN, but in today's day and age would it be fair to call it the 'GREEN' bucks?

I firmly believe the colour of money is RED from all the blood spilt in order to get rich - knowingly or unknowingly. In the case of the Bhopal tragedy, we could even assume that money lost its colour and instead acquired a smell - that of methyl isocyanate & death.



An organization killed thousands of people and deformed generations to come and now talk about compensation (which by the way is a hilariously low amount). What could, possibly, be the compensation or punishment for mass genocide; of damaging the air and soil for years to come? That is beyond me! And while the company murdered, the politicians and the collective consciousness of our society killed the memories of the dead by the lack of any long-term compassion for the people of Bhopal.

The Bhopal disaster is just one example of how greed has overpowered all human senses and is nothing but a callous disregard for the environment and human life.




We haven't even begun talking about other examples of why the colour of money is now red - like excessive mining at the cost of ecology, excessive fishing, hunting rare and protected animals, and contamination of our water, air, soil, the atmosphere, and even the food we eat!

Though this blog (and a few more in the 'Colour of Money' series) I urge you, the reader, to voice your opinion, voice your protest and perhaps even suggest an action that we can undertake to actually do something than just speak and write about it. A movement of sorts, perhaps?

So tell me, my friends - what, in your opinion, is the real colour of money?

About the author: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra is a critically acclaimed filmmaker and screenwriter. He is best known for writing and directing Rang De Basanti (2006), for which he won Best Director awards at the 2006 Filmfare Awards and National Film Awards and received a BAFTA Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. He is also the writer and director of the critically acclaimed Aks (2001) and Delhi-6 (2009).