It was a warm twilight evening in Chennai, a decade and a half ago. While driving home through North Chennai, a traffic snarl halted me on the road adjacent to the beach. Unable to bear the heat inside the car, I stepped out, only to spot a group of urchins in a nearby fishing hamlet around a bonfire of automobile tyres. The billowing smoke was palpable on the road. I discreetly moved away, only to be followed by the smoke which irritated my nostrils. Walking towards the hamlet, I gently admonished the boys on the harmful effects of burning tyres.
One of the boys called an elder — who had just returned from the sea — in chaste “Chennai Tamil” and loudly complained about my behaviour. I soon had a group nearly pouncing upon me. I was disdainfully warned to keep away from the kuppam (hamlet), lest I would be taught a lesson. The choicest expletives were hurled. I grudgingly retreated.
I was crestfallen, not with the behaviour of the boys, but that of the elders. Living by the sea — I thought — they should be aware of ecological implications. It was never to be. Owing to this self-inflicted impasse, the fisher folk succumbed to several diseases like tuberculosis which affected them with striking regularity.
A doctor friend of mine reminded me of his experiences working in a nearby primary health centre, which according to him was “forgettable”. “…People over there never wanted to be advised on anything, leave alone sanitation…” he anguished.
My thoughts dissolved into my younger years, where we were taught to value the environment. Probably, that upbringing helped us to look at environmental issues with deep concern. I recollected the enthusiasm with which we were introduced to The Silent Spring and other books by the renowned American biologist, Rachel Carson. She was the first to highlight the ill-effects of the pesticide, DDT. I wondered how the world would be a better place to live in only if everyone cared for the environment, contributing in our little way. Sharing such concern, I reflect why education should not contain compulsory curricula that include field trips, ecology lessons for every discipline of studies.
Charity, they say, begins at home. If only everyone of us would avoid throwing garbage on the road indiscriminately; defecating in public; using plastic indiscriminately; showed concern for pollution… the world would definitely be a better place, I thought.
I never knew mine was only a retrograde thought… or a specious argument!
Today, 15 years later, destiny by chance, takes me to the same place where it all began. I painfully learn that the hamlet I referred to had been ravaged by the tsunami in 2004. I am overwhelmed with emotions and spot only a piece of land abutting the road. The sea is also eroding, albeit slowly. I am pained… Nature had its revenge. It’s omnipotent.