Yesterday our blog talked of the sparrow, a tiny bird. In this era of wars waging world wide, who cares for the flight of a fragile entity, obsessed as we are with space odyssey-s? No, nothing wrong surely about the exploration of the space. Sure it shows human ingenuity, the power of human imagination and human creativity.
Yet there is a lurking fear that wonders/worries if we want to escape the earth because life hereabouts is nasty, short, brutish, et al, a Hobbesian hell where all are fighting against all! Neither is hidden the lust for expansionist colonisation, and the resultant loot of natural resources, as on terra firma 1492 onwards.
In other words, whether in big cities or even in villages where old parents are left alone to till the small piece of land, much divided after family feuds, life is a jungle. A jungle is a threatening place where roam wild beasts, right?
The need of the hour is to make the feral jungle in to a friendly forest where the natural cycle of life co-exists. Rivers flow un-damm/n-ed, and trees, insects, birds, beasts stay here in their natural habitats, and in their own normal ways. Human beings do not encroach. They may not go there like the yesteryear "Sanyasi" or during the "wanprasthashram", but rather as tourists who marvel at the alternative way of life.
Such a symbiotic communion is indeed necessary if our earth is to survive at all. When a species is extinct, it disturbs the entire eco system. If bees were to die, for instance, the whole world would collapse in a few days! Let us look at a rather lesser known example, the mangroves.
Mangroves protect the sea coast from erosion. Storms become less deadly due to the mangroves. They desalinate the sea water. They are the greatest source of security and feed for the marine life, Yet for the aquaculture industry and for sea-facing hotels and villas loved by both, the richie-rich and the tourism industry, this natural coastal cover is depleted, and severe are the consequences.
How one wishes the traditional practice of "devrai", the sacred groves which allowed the rich resources of woodlands flourish unhindered and untampered, gets resurrected! Only then would the routine ritual of the namesake observing of the World Forest Day be truly meaningful.
Pratima@ True, the "Jungle Book" existence, so lovingly presented by Rudyard Kipling, is a fantasy. Yet such fiction of togetherness must be-and-become the reality, if we all are to survive.
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