A Tweak Here and a Tweak There | Flash Post 362

What do you mean?

Button, it simply means that if we make small changes in our day-to-day lives, we can together, make this world a better place for all of us to live in even if it is small.

As well as for our plants and animals who are an integral part of our existence.

Absolutely.

But how do we do this? In small ways if not big!

I read an ad in the mid-day that said that if each of us take a bucket bath or a short shower bath lasting roughly 2 minutes one day in a week out of the seven days and take a proper shower bath the remaining six days, we can save around 82 litres of water per person. Keeping this in mind, a family of three can save upto 300 litres of water in 24 hours.

That’s a lot.

You do know that water, which is an essential commodity for all living species to simply survive is scarce and depreciating each year as El Niño gets stronger and rainfall gets weaker. Last year, Maharashtra was declared drought-hit amongst many other states. States that are drought-hit, cannot produce crops to its full capacity. With it comes the plight of the farmer whose produce earns very little for him while the middle men make much more by doing nothing. Now, with drought-hit states, the farmer is unable to make his land produce to its full capacity. Hence, prices escalate many times above the actual price making it difficult for the common man to feed himself and his family. Hunger is hard to satiate and when he finds out that he can’t offer his family even a meal a day, he is bound to turn to improper ways to be able to do this. This is a vicious cycle.

Now, if El Niño gets fiercer, rainfall will get scantier and there will be less and less potable water for the poor and as the rich drink bottled and mineral water and most of them even bathe with it, there will come a time when God’s less privileged children will have no water to quench their thirst.

Can you then blame the less privileged from adopting unfair means to show their desperation towards those who live in tall buildings and employ hundreds of staff to pamper them?

I sometimes wonder if the god we bow our heads to is a fair God! It’s the poor and the downtrodden who still bow their heads to the deity to give them their daily bread. Even after living a harrowing existence, their belief in God remains unshaken.

It’s a tough life. Yet the less uprivileged trudge on with the hope that someday their God will shift his gaze from the privileged towards them and, they too will have a chance to get at least one square meal a day and be able to feed their loved ones.

This is of course a very simplistic way of looking at a much much larger problem but you and I can, in our own miniscule ways, try and set an example which, hopefully, others will follow and some people, some animals and some plants will survive a little longer.

I love the song “Heal The World” sung by Michael Jackson. Pay attention to the lyrics:
There’s a place in your heart
And I know that it is love
And this place could be much
Brighter than tomorrow
And if you really try
You’ll find there’s no need to cry
In this place you’ll feel
There’s no hurt or sorrow

There are ways to get there
If you care enough for the living
Make a little space
Make a better place

Heal the world
Make it a better place
For you and for me
And the entire human race
There are people dying
If you care enough for the living
Make it a better place
For you and for me…