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KATHMANDU, JANUAR 9
Dear students, kindly impart some 'ecological' wisdom to your teachers, and on a larger scale, dear children, allow me to ditto the request with regard to your parents, too. Yes, you read it right, and likely deducted that it should be the other way round. Nonetheless, I stubbornly stick to it, and assert that it's no puerile sense of humour: now, parents and teachers have oodles of serious 'ecological' stuff to learn from their children and students, in Nepal.
One salient aspect of government schools in rural Nepal is the presence of a big chaur, or a buzz-cut lawn, where students can frolic, play, run or even take lessons on a sunny day, while it's freezing inside classrooms.
Such chaurs are practically non-existent in urban schools, and even if some had them in the past, they are now morphed into concrete surfaces. Hence, from the very beginning, 'urban schools' unfairly prevent students from enjoying the greenery, while simultaneously unearthing the rich vegetation and the macrofauna therein.
Hence, in cities, students would be better off to ask teachers an 'embarrassing' question: why are such sprawling green carpets transformed into cemented surfaces? Of late, school chaurs in the countryside are facing multiple threats, too: they are shrinking or even disappearing because of new school buildings catering to a larger number of students, a dirt track disfiguring or eating them away, etc. Besides, today's school chaurs are often littered with plastic and paper. Hence, students may pertinently ask the teachers why such vivid green and chaurs are at risk.
Now, let's return home from the classrooms. At home, dear students, make sure that you snack on your favourite makai vatmaas and shun the junk food that, the custodians of global health insist, will ruin your health. Have you noticed that the 'junk' arrives in colourful wraps? The next question you may ask your parents: why is your karesabari – instead of blooming with vibrant green salad, yummy cherry tomatoes, redolent coriander and lil' jire khursani - full of colourful bottles, wraps and packages? Finally, dear students, the world is adopting an ostrich-like approach on ecological issues. You, as the global youth, no longer enjoy the privilege to stay unconcerned. As a student, do you know what greenwashing means? If we all - be it big corporates, small factories, schools or individuals - somehow conceal our behavior contributing to environmental degradation, then we are all resorting to some sort of greenwashing. Hence, your role may thrust itself into great attention and all, including your teachers and parents, may behave in a more ecologically friendly manner. Thank you. and ecologically yours!
A version of this article appears in the print on January 10, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.
