P Gopakumar

Kathmandu:

I am not an environmentalist in the fashionable sense of the term. That does not mean that I enjoy life at the cost of the environment. I will root for dams and rainwater harvesting if they can solve drinking water crisis. I will keep away from plastic bags and carry my groceries in bags of naturally made fibres. If electricity-driven vehicles and LPG-driven motors will clear our lungs ensuring a healthy life, I will root for it.My generation had a glimpse of an era when the resourceful use of the resources was a creed. We were taught to use the pencil stubs by fitting them into old fountain pen holders. The eraser had to virtually become non-existent before it was replaced. One instrument box saw us through school. School textbooks were carefully handled and passed down to younger siblings, as were uniform accessories.

They have their own stories of deprivation. They walked many miles up and down to pursue education, while we were privileged to have motor vehicles to ferry us to and fro. They studied by lamplight and cooled themselves by palm leaf fans and cooked food on firewood while we cannot manage without electric lights, fans and gas stoves.But sometimes I worry that our minds will atrophy with all the software programmes available to us today. We can safely stop thinking for months and years and not even know it.I find that I have become a part of a new consumer society that is choking on its own glut. Where we know the price of everything, but value of nothing.