March 25 every year! At 8.30 per annum, across the world, be it bulbs, tube lights, and what have you as electric contraptions get switched off for an hour. All the important monuments the world over are shrouded in total darkness.
For about an hour, one is supposed to try simple but genuine activities such as chat, joke, sing, and so on. Powerfully power off, so to say! Aai and I used to follow this exciting earth hour.
Well, does the earth hour indeed save electricity? Yes and no. It does undoubtedly save a certain number of units. More than such saving, what matters the most is the symbolic value of the event. There emerges this awareness that finite are the resources, while infinite is the demand for their (mis)use. Subtly but surely, it has an impact. May be, thereafter, at least a few people would not keep lights on in rooms where none is up to nothing!
Such symbolism indeed matters. Remember three years ago, when the pandemic panic pitch started soaring, there was this chant of "Corona, go", and the quite (in)famous banging event. You could bang stainless steel dishes, you could beat drums, you could play the castanets or you could simply clap. Well, i do not think anybody was fool enough to believe that a virus vanishes thus. In extreme uncertain times though, the group activity gave a feel of togetherness when the unknown future stared hard and bleakly back at us. May be, subtly hope, optimism, staying put despite the absent yet present fear got suspended at least temporarily. In brief, symbolism indeed matters even when practically it may not sound/appear oh-so-very useful! No wonder, when flags flutter, to every heart everywhere, it matters!
Pratima@"Willing suspension of disbelief" that S T. Coleridge talked of is a poetic truth that enriches prosaic banality of daily lived lives!
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