It was 7.30 in the morning and I was still rolling on my bed trying to read my e-mails with one eye ‘cause my other eye was too lazy to open itself. My Alexa started her routine by telling a fact of the day and she wished me “Happy Earth day, dude!” My other eye opened now. It’s Earth day! We all love our earth, don’t we? We do. It’s just that we forgot long back or we don’t know how to show that love. So at 7.35, I decided that I’ll write something to show my love towards our mother earth today.

Just a blue old earth

Let me begin with some history of how earth day was created. It all started when two men in America concerned about the environment decided to conduct a teach-in at some college campus, hired one more person to organize the teach-ups, who built a team of 85 members all over the country and on April 22nd, 1970 on the first Earth Day, there were 20 million people on the roads of America. That was the largest single-day protest by humans in history. I will not bore y’all with more history now. If you’re interested to know more details, you know where to find it. winks weirdly You can also be a part of the community by just enrolling yourself on earthday.org

Now we all know why earth day is celebrated. To protect our planet from environmental crises such as climate change, water scarcity, ozone depletion, deforestation, and these are only a few of the actual problems we face right now. I can write the statistics about how these issues are real and an immediate threat to our lives but you can read all about that on the internet. The whole point of writing this was not to bombard you all with history and facts. I wanted to write about how serious it is for us to take care of our earth and how can we give back our love to it. I’ve seen a kind of mentality in many people where they say, “How can I stop global warming”, “How can I save the ocean” and I think that’s so stupid and mediocre. If you were also thinking the same, I’m sorry but you’re wrong. I mean if YOU can’t then who can? It all starts with you. It really saddens me when someone tells me what can they do.

First of all, see for yourself if you’re harming the environment in any way. Be aware all the time of how you’re interacting with your environment. Fix that leaking tap. Close the tap while brushing your teeth. I’ve seen people who just keep the water flowing while they’re brushing because they’re used to it! rolls my eyes While washing your face open the tap only a little so that it just fills your hand and close the tap while you’re lathering up your face or hand. Also while washing your dishes there’s no need to turn your tap all the way up. Do you know how many litres on average a person is wasting the water every day by just washing the face and hands? About 50 litres! People living in Bengaluru will know how costly it is to buy water for their homes. If we keep wasting our water like this then one day water would be the most valuable commodity in our world. Also, you guys know that Bengaluru has almost run out of groundwater right?

Use public transport whenever possible, and by whenever possible I mean mostly. Bengalureans, please stop buying those cars dude. Buy an electric car if you really need one! Switch off your lights, fans and other electrical devices when not in use. Hibernate your PC don’t put it in sleep mode! Stop using straws. Reduce your consumption of fish. Did you know it’s not plastic but fishing actually kills the ocean? Oh and for god’s sake man please separate your garbage! The bio-degradable and the non-bio-degradable are NOT the same. The non-bio-degradable ones can be recycled and by mixing them you’re not only choking the recycling but you’re also paving the way to pollute our environment. Both degradable and non-degradable would mix and react to create toxic elements which pollute our land, air and earth!

Okay, you all might think now that I’m writing these things but do I follow them? Yes, I do. I’ve been doing this for many years now. I don’t remember when it all started but I’ve always had this love for nature and our planet. Maybe because I grew up in a place rich with nature! I always open my tap less than halfway. I wait for a couple of seconds to fill my hands with water because I know saving those extra 10-15 seconds by opening the tap fully I’m not going to invent the time machine. I don’t have a bike or a car. I live near my office and I walk to my office. I prefer trains over buses to travel long distance. I switch my lights off and I tell everyone to do the same. I don’t use plastic straws, plastic bottles. I’m not saying I’m a total environmental enthusiast. Like a full-blown gnani(sage) or something. I just do my best to save my earth.

Before I end this I’ll tell you about this incident which happened today. I was having lunch with my parents and I was asking my parents how and where they used to buy vegetables, how my grandparents, great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents bought vegetables and other groceries and all. It was a very interesting conversation(you should ask your parents) and today I came to know that my parents had eaten two pulses which are extinct now. Yes, you read that right. They are dead. There are no more seeds to cultivate them. I was actually sad when I heard my parents saying that. Like the same, we don’t see sparrows anymore in our homes. So many birds we don’t see them. Peacocks used to come and play in our backyard and after 15 years I saw them once this year. That’s how much we are killing our planet earth. When you start doing it, people will ask you why?! Tell them, explain to them why you love your earth and why they should also and if they don’t listen it’s fine you keep doing it someday they’ll listen. That’s what I do.

Happy Earth Day! Peace.✌☮