There was a time, when we were poor and our only source of earning was agriculture. In the name of savings we have two huge, old trees one was of NEEM at our doorsteps serving as a shed to our courtyard and was like a family member and other was of A Sheesham tree. I had grown seeing these two getting all the love from the family. We had limited resources yet my mother knew how to make us look rich. She has this biggest art of converting one old into another new. She knew the extraordinary ability of old clothes to provide relief from Indian summers. She was never in favour of throwing anything away. My mother and the other women of the village have mastered the art of recycling and reusing. I have seen them making daris, foot mats, fans out of old and not in use material. They have the great knowledge of using resources tactfully as they knew they cannot get them in abundance.
With the growth in economy and GDP becoming the measures of a country's wealth, natural resources has been given a back seat. We were always taught that the natural resources are limited still mankind had made it sure to use every single ounce of the same present on the earth. An ultimate urge of becoming rich and ahead of everyone has taken a place in everyone's mind. We have left behind the lessons that our fathers and forefathers have taught us. In the era of progressive world, we have actually forgotten the meaning of real progress. Progress in the terms of wisdom, in terms of satisfaction level are nowhere in our diary. We Indians have this great rich heritage of wisdom written in the books that has no connection with the GDP and that is why it has no value in our day today lives.
With the arrival of technologies in our lives, we have gained the access to plethora of things. We now don’t realise the need of repairing and reusing things as we have the option of buying the same obviously because we have been blessed with lots of money. Yes, we are rich enough to buy the things that has been man made, but has never been rich enough to buy and manufacture the things that has been provided by the nature to us and in this entire process, we have lost our century old arts and crafts, some rituals which were a part of daily routine back then and had made the human completely relying on technology for every little thing.
When I was in graduation, I had only 3 dresses to wear on daily basis and I was really happy about them. As I grow up and started earning and all of sudden, I had enough money that I bought so many clothes and my wardrobe was full with new clothes but rarely had occasions to wear all of them. There were few clothes that I had rarely wore 2 or 3 times. And then one day, I read the entire process of making of clothes, if we leave the employment part, it was a total loss. I bought a 3000 rs top, used it only 3 times in 3 years and now not willing to use as it is too old and the worst part, in this entire dress making process, so many chemicals were used, fertilizers and pesticides to grow the crop, dyeing agents, bleach etc etc and creating a hazardous environments for so many living creatures.
Chhatisgarh, a state well known for tribal areas, has a dense forest and some of hidden treasures of nature and in my opinion it is only preserved due to their love towards nature and not the lust of becoming no.1 using the resources that they have. The tribes always had this long traditions of loving and caring for nature. They are not modern like us and that is why they are not so much attracted towards creation of wealth using all the resources they have. There have been so many forest fires that have been ignited by man for their own monetary welfare.
Modern education has provided us all the materialistic knowledge and but perhaps had failed in providing the knowledge that we might need to succeed as a human, the most intelligent species on earth. We have been taught to move forward but have not been told where to stop. We have been taught to be limitless but this earth has a limited area and limited resources. We have a full curriculum to cope up with the technology but not with the nature. We celebrate Earth day once in a year and thinks that we have done a favour to mother earth. We have a no. of slogans to save earth but we always forget we don’t have to save earth, we have to save us. Earth already had a history of swiping off a whole civilisation and giving birth to a new. We the most intelligent species on the earth should need to know that we are nothing without nature.
The history had been a witness to the fact that whenever we have tried to concur the nature and exploit it, It has resulted in something real worse. We have seen how satisfied and happy our ancestors were in the lap of nature. We acquire a more lasting happiness watching a butterfly than a Lamborghini, a drizzle than an artificial snow fall, a drop of dew than an ac room. We have to trust the nature for our right upbringing. Do not trouble it while chasing our materialistic dreams. Dream in the sync with nature to experience the magic of life. Be simple with your choice. Use your wealth for helping others. A simple living and reusing every little thing like a poor Indian is what we need in this hard time for creating a sustainable environment.