The invasion of ... Polythenes

A few days back, I went to my hometown. One tuesday, I accompanied my mother to Budhi Ma Thakurani (ବୁଢ଼ୀ  ମା  ଠାକୁରାଣୀ) temple. She is known as goddess or Adhisthatri Devi (ଅଧିଷ୍ଠାତ୍ରୀ ଦେବୀ) of Brahmapur. The temple is in a small and beautiful premise. In Odisha, tuesday is believed to be the day of Shakti and religious people worship different forms of Shakti on that day. So, being tuesday, there was lots of crowd in the temple. As soon as I entered the temple, I saw people stood in queues that took a zigzag form and I too joined the queue. People around me were wearing clothes of really bright, soft and cheerful colours. It was a delight to see such colours after coming from south India, where people prefer darker and sober colours in clothings... Then there were also people who wanted to take a shortcut to see Thakurani (ଠାକୁରାଣୀ) and ended up being threatened up by the police woman. She was a really rough lady pushing anyone and everyone without caring if it will hurt anyone. Although I appreciated her dutifulness, I hated her rough attitude.There was a separate shelf in the corner where people were lighting lamps. There was another corner where people were worshiping the Neem tree. The water used for worshipping the Neem tree overflew and made the floor really messy although workers were constantly wiping the floor. I felt proud for being in a culture where people worship trees, but wished people did not pour water and food items so mindlessly. There were lots of deities or Parshva devatas (ପାର୍ଶ୍ବ  ଦେବତା) on the courtyard of the temple and people were walking briskly to worship them because the floor was heated up in the summer sun. It was quite funny to watch the scene. I too did the same :). In another corner, two teenagers in temple duty were collecting the garbage and were throwing them outside. They seemed to be quite enjoying their work and seemed unaware of the crowd around them. Well, to me, all this was normal in temples... except one thing... polythene bags. There were many small transparent polythene bags floating everywhere... I was surprised and disgusted at how these things have easily entered into the premises of a temple, which is supposed to be sacred and we have to follow so many rules and restrictions before entering them... Noone, not even the purohits(ପୁରୋହିତ) had any objection to it. The shopkeepers outside the temple were giving stuff for Pooja(ପୂଜା) in polythene bags. People were taking them upto the inner shrine. Both the Poojari( ପୂଜାରୀ) and people were easily discarding them there itself without thinking anything. Agree that they are not made of any animal body part, they are clean and there is nothing technically wrong in using them in temples. But somehow, I could not accept the scene of polythenes inside temples.  It has become a norm in India that the sight of huge piles of polythenes implies we are about to enter a city. But not this! Not in temples. They are supposed to be beautiful. I do not find any logic to defend myself. But, even the scene of dirt and mud inside the temple premises was tolerable, not these polythene bags!! I felt like they were some cunning shrewd bad people who tricked everyone to make their way to enter to sacred places like temples so smoothly! I so wished to tell someone that, anything but not these polythenes! How come?! 

Even machines need shelter in nature

This afternoon, I came out of the library to take a break and started walking around the campus... Its always a delight to walk under green trees and watching the beauty around me... As I entered this stretch of the road, I saw the beautiful tall and green trees along the stretch. The way these trees are growing, in a few years, they will provide a complete green cover to the road. :) And this road is the most green with tallest and thickest trees in our campus. But I noticed something else too. The Cars... parked nicely under the trees from the beginning to the end of the road. It was funny... When we have the engines on, and AC is on, we give a damn to what happens to those trees, we want wider and wider highways for our cars, more and more parking lots, we won't step out in sun and will remain in car, we won't create a space for plants in our houses since that will waste space, but will carefully design a space for cars, ... and we are very happy with that, since we are progressing, we are rich, we have status, we are modern.  And the moment, the engine goes off, we are desperate to find a shade to park them! It all seemed so funny to me... Even the machines need nature... It looked like a class of small naughty kids were meekly sitting near their teachers not due to the fear of punishment, but due to their helplessness... that they did not have any other option. 

As I walked smiling at myself, I thought, how nice it can be if the parking lots are made of trees? An area with regularly spaced trees, so that cars can get sufficient space to move around. I agree, it sounds stupid and selfish that we are thinking of trees when we need to take care of our cars. But they are nevertheless better than the cemented, heat radiating and ugly parking lots for which so much of money is spent. hmm... not a bad idea! :)