We are Criminals

We are Criminals

We are criminals, aren’t we? Yes, indeed. We have committed a heinous crime, the gravest crime to this young generation and the coming generations.

We became so much obsessed in advancing on the path of progress and advancement and so much engrossed in amassing comforts in our life that we could hardly notice how and when we have exploited our resources beyond the limits of replenishment. We forgot that even the renewable resources need sufficient time to regenerate.

Our comforts slowly and steadily, became our bad habits and these habits became addiction fighting with which was impossible for us. Our comforts and luxuries became indispensable in our life and irresistible for us even when they posed a major threat to our environment and our own existence. ACs, vehicles, machines and apparatuses, industries and technology have become a threat to our existence causing global warming, creating industrial and e-waste resulting in air, water and land pollution. However dangerous it may become, people find themselves helpless to discontinue using them.

Our unquenchable thirst for progress has led us to the world of industrialization, urbanization and technological advancement. The children of this plastic age can’t see stars at night and clear sky in daytime. The young generation in the cities and towns aren’t able to see the sky from their apartments in towering buildings and homes in the narrow streets. They don’t have open space for playing around as they are pigeonholed eating dust and inhaling smoke in their overcrowded streets.

In this modern age the colonies and residential areas are beautifully lined by the attractive trees. But alas, the birds and butterflies don’t visit them, all thanks to the fast growing technological network and number of smartphones and other gadgets. Children wake up to notice scorching heat in summers and fog has transformed into smog during winters. Pleasant seasons in between have become a thing of past.

This is predicted that there will be no water by 2050. If this generation is breathing polluted air and drinking bottled water and the future generations will have to buy oxygen and water, who is at fault?

Since ages humans have enjoyed all the bounties of nature and all the blessings of life provided by Almighty. They had the blessing to bathe in holy rivers, swim in clear streams, count the shining stars in clear sky, run in the open fields, breathe in aromatic air, dance in the drizzling showers, meditate on the mountains, hunt in the forests and so on but what about our children and coming generation? Why are they not so fortunate?

Our parents and grandparents have enjoyed sailing paper boats in ponds or lakes in rainy seasons and riding on the backs of animals. They have experienced the joy of chasing butterflies to the other end, plucking mangoes or guavas from the orchards stealthily. Running to touch the horizon point and flying a kite on the open roof are merely dreams for the children of 21^st century particularly, the children of cities and towns. What is their fault? They are paying for our sins, the crimes we have committed. If we wish to view a sunset point, stroll by the lakeside or ride a camel or elephant, now we have to plan a trip to a suitable destination. Now, if our children want to have a close look at nature, they can do so either in the poems of William Wordsworth or on the National Geographic Channel.

We have been far too selfish in satisfying our needs and amassing our comforts that we forget that this earth belongs to all the creatures equally. I would like to conclude with a beautiful thought, ‘we have not received this earth from our ancestors, but have borrowed it from our children’. Hence, it needs to be kept secure with us and transferred to them as a legacy.