Crowded Trains and choked streets

Here comes the weekend and wonderful idle time. So, what do I bug myself with this weekend..?? Well.. It is my close friend grafila's birthday and with the added burden of remembering her birthday comes reminiscences of wonderful days back in college. But, if you know me, I am now an eternally depressed soul, and so my thoughts always waver to the darker more subtle nuances of life. So, this takes me back to the train journey to tirupati about two and a half hours from my college, it wasnt my first time but in the general compartment..yes it was..!! Thanks to my dad I never really travelled second class through my life. So, as they say life was cool and comfty with beautiful trees and scenic setting just whooshing by from the sunfilmed glass in the air conditioned compartment. But now, here I am in this train with no space to even breath. My only respite was my girl clinging on to me looking me in the eye with a pleasant smile telling me its all gonna be over soon..!! What was I taking flu shots.?? I had been feeling increasingly uncomfortable with the journey, as it was getting more and more crowded every minute…. it was crowded enough to rival the commuter trains of Mumbai (during the time I lived there – almost a decade ago. It being too crowded, I had to take a car ride part of the way and catch a bus from a place half-way through, a thoroughly discomforting option to a person like me who hates any kind of travel except by train or air….

Leaving the discomfort part aside, I think any other guy in love would see this journey as a two hour cuddle. It was, in the beginning until a monstrous looking hag decided to camp right by my side and scream the living daylights out of me. They say people in love forget their surrounding and lose themselves in the eyes of their love. I am fairly romantic guy but in a scenario like this, I am inundated by thoughts of regret and remorse over my precarious situation. Now, lets get back to my girl, who noticing my distinct lack of interest in her, starts to lecture me on how I have to learn to live a normal life and get away from luxuries, to see life in a common man's shoes. She has a philanthropic fibre which I am very proud about, but a lecture in this scenario?? please spare me. But then she smiles and I see the faint glimmer of hope, a chance to lose my self in her eyes(told you i was a romantic), sweet talking all through the journey, of course utter drivel and gibberish to the people around us. Time just flies and after the wonderfully long cuddle, I just look forward to my sweet kiss goodbye and a long hot shower. All said and done I see bliss in my unmade hostel bed, and the rest is history.

Well, yesteryear’s incident left me pondering over the phenomenal growth of population that India – let alone the whole world – is witnessing. Ten years ago when my family shifted to my present hometown, the main roads were so empty that we – children – could run around and play on the roads… To visit a friend of my mom’s we passed through what appeared to be acres upon acres of fields and countryside. Today, the traffic snarls at railway crossings remind me more and more of badly planned metropolitan cities.

Our population exploded into staggering numbers in the 1970s and has been growing steadily since. The enormous mass of people who are always on the move, eking out their livelihood in jobs high and low is growing by the second… how long will this last…??? How long can the land feed us or support us…??? Today, we Indians, who pride ourselves to be one of earth’s oldest civilizations are struggling to live a comfortable life… Oh sure, there are people who live extravagantly and those who are decently well off… But what I ask is, in a population of 1 billion (in 2001) is around 40% a majority…??? What is going to be the fate of all those who make up the 60%...? The high and mighty say that they have long forseen this doom, but what is the use of foresight if no action is born of it…???

Rural India is losing out on its major food winning job – that of agriculture… Lands have been used to grow crops for so long that most of the nutrients have been leached away. The use of fertilizers led to the green revolution which caused the population boom, but the food supplies are now not adequate to feed the ever growing number of mouths, it is becoming a jungle where the strong prey on the weak… Ironically, real jungles are more civilized than anything that we have created for ourselves. There atleast a weak beast has a chance of putting up a token resistance. Here it is not so, the case is such that a person’s survival depends not on himself, as it would in a jungle, but upon others who do no care whether he/she stands or falls…

What then is the solution to this, you may ask.... Well, I’d say that the only step that has to be taken immediately is to see to it that people are enlightened to what is going on around them… People like you and me, who have a chance to contemplate on things like this should enlighten the others – others who have no time to spare (sigh..!!! I wonder what keeps them so busy… Well, you guessed it right, they’re trying to keep themselves and their family alive in all this cut-throat competition… Ironical isn’t it…???)

What should we enlighten them about? , you might ask… Tell them to think back to their younger days… Tell them to think of those days of peace when there was less smoke and more fun… Ask them to remember their childhoods and do something, anything to try to take the quality of life back to what it was then… Or, if they are a product of this population explosion, people who have grown up in this grime and dust, ask them to think of how beautiful a life without all the annoyances would be… Ask them to come up with solutions that will change the way things work in their families and t pass on the message to their friends and relatives… This way, resources can be streamlined… This is the first stage… After this, everyone has to come to realize that having kids is not the only goal in life… And remember this, all ye Indians, my fellow-countrymen, a girl child is no less than a boy, please do not go on begetting children to get that one boy… You are degrading the quality of all your children by doing that….

What we in India need right now is the streamlined use of resources coupled with proper enlightenment of people everywhere… And, NO… Its NOT upto the government… you and me can do it… You and me can start off this small revolution right here… We can be the spark that kindles the blaze, speak out on this topic to your friends and relatives… Speak out against unnecessary wastage… And most importantly speak out about reducing the population by the only means possible – Family planning. Remember vasectomy doesn’t make a lesser man of you, neither does hysterectomy make a lesser woman… Plan for kids in advance, have kids only when you are sure you are stable enough to bring them up well, and one child is more than enough, atleast at present… Give all your love to that one child… By doing so, you will have a wonderful daughter or son and you will also be doing a great good to the country – if not to the entire world.

Need brooks no delay, it is said, yet delay we have had… Better be late than never… Do your little bit, contribute in your own way… By our actions today, we will experience a better tomorrow…