Call for urgent action!

Our civilization is coming crashing down. The most recent US President Cancer Panel Report says that 41% of the American population will be diagnosed of cancer in their lifetime. And 21% will die from it. A great garbage patch of plastic 700,000 sq.km. is floating in the deep Pacific ocean (slowly expanding to cover our oceans completely) silently killing trillions of tiny fish. Coastal neighbourhoods are disappearing under the seas. Trees which can tell us the stories of our ancestors are being razed to the ground by the millions. Seeds of life are being burnt in huge piles.

Humankind’s timeline is limited unlike any other time in its history. Carcinogens and neurotoxins are accumulating in our tissues at a pace we cannot even imagine. We are all waiting in line to pop off out of some disease or the other. We are running out of time, whether we like it or not.

We’ve wasted much precious time in fragmentation. Our fragmented minds have fragmented the problems, created fragmented organizations that come up with fragmented solutions for fragmented action, fragmenting the world more and even more. We have the healthy and the unhealthy, the loving and the hating, the democratic and the undemocratic, the eco-friendly and the uneco-friendly, the feminist and the chauvinist, the educated and the uneducated, the communist and the capitalist, the right and the left. We’ve wasted much time.

We need to radically reinvent ourselves in order to survive in his human form and evolve our consciousness before we die out as a race. In order to do that, we need to reorganize ourselves in radical ways. Fearless people need to lead these ways.

In this radical re-organization,
Computer and cell phone screens will be more 'off' and people will spend more time face to face creating real communities.
Men will sit together to sing and cry to heal from the assault of their ‘man masks’.
Women will reclaim their power through their bleeding every month.
Children will be teachers, running around naked, exploring the world and expressing in uninhibited ways.
Hands and feet will sweat out of labour and joy.
Bodies will be treated like temples.
Every article will be created with a song of its own, and every service will be a joyous offering, and they will all be gifts and not transactable commodities.
Men and women won’t find much meaning in or reason to dictate nature.
Art will be created and not consumed.
No one will find anyone to ‘clean their toilets’ for them out of no choice.
Offensive men and women will be welcomed with love, and listened to their pains and fears.
All the material waste will be delicious food for mother nature.
Old people will be served with great kindness and gratitude.
A deep silence will hold all the music and celebration together, along with mindless noise, if there be.

And we need to do this urgently!

I don't like to bring my son here!

Do you see that three-storeyed building behind me? I am the watchman of this apartment complex. I’ve been the watchman for 9 years now. One week, day shift (6 am to 6 pm) and the next, night shift (6 pm to 6 am). When I need to take a break, I need to apply for leave. Yes, even those days everyone’s lazing at home on Sunday mornings, are work days for me. I am expected to not complain, because that’s what my job is like!

“Our wells have gone dry. The rains are failing. Go to the city for a good life! Educate your children so they may prosper in life.” I heeded these words of my parents and moved to Chennai about 10 years ago. Through someone I knew I landed this job where I’ve been stuck for so long. My ejamaans are happy with me, I am told.

I live a few bus stops away from here. My wife takes care of home, family. My son is 8 years old and goes to school. He’s very bright. I don’t know what he scores in his exams. But he asks me a lot of questions, and that makes me so proud of him. And that is the reason too that I never like to bring him here with me.

If he asks me why I am made to sit here without even a fan all night long, when everyone else turns on their split-ac to go to sleep… or

If he asks me why I need to tolerate all these mosquitoes all night long, when everyone shuts their front doors, uses their electric bats and turns on their ac… or

If he asks me why the second-floor madam yells at me for dozing off during the day on duty (from the shift changer over), when she takes the liberty to yell at me for making too much noise talking to the neighbour watchman, when her son sleeps through the day from jet lag… or

If he asks me why they make such a fuss about raising my monthly salary by 500 rupees, when the boy his age on the first floor brings out the same amount to pay the pizza guy for a large combo… or

If he asks me why that Sir living in the ground floor looks right through me as though I didn’t exist, but if I delay opening the gate for him as he enters, I’m asked ‘Are you so blind? Couldn’t you see me coming?’

I might tell my son ‘Because they are rich and we are poor!’, but I know he will be far from satisfied with that answer. I then would have to tell him, ‘They are fortunate, we are not!’ I'd rather that he grows up thinking that we're indeed fortunate for the many things we do have. That’s why I never like to bring him here with me.