Clean and Green Villages

I was rewinding my memory as I read an article in Times of India today about the cleanliness in Indian rural areas. The green fields of my village ran through my mind. I could feel the cool breeze coming from the lake near by striking my face. The early morning walk was always a pleasant one. The traffic was so less, except for the occasional city bus, that children could play hide and seek in the streets. The only traffic sound was the cycle bells. It was a peaceful atmosphere. In today's article, the author has mentioned rightly the villages are no more rural in nature. They are catching up the urban culture in all respect. In terms of education, economy, and technology. The sad point is they also catch up urban areas in terms of dirt roads. Lush green is converted into less green. Everything urban is considered to be modern. People from Rural India are copying everything from Urban India. It is what they think is growth. I remember the late Cho Ramasamy once said the life in rural India is better because the people there fear God. They obey the village elders believing that's what is good for the village social life. I can't remember what he said exactly. This is what he meant. Why can't we use this behavior for improving the rural environment? Why can't we use village system of elders council for a positive change? In India, almost every village has so many temples. Almost every month there is one festival. Why can't we involve the temples in India to clean the village during each and every festival? Cleaning the village/town may become part of the ritual. We have not changed the rituals for a long time. There is no new addition to the rituals. It is time some innovation is introduced in our society. 1. Before and after the each festival, the particular community must take up the work of cleaning the village streets/ parks etc., This must be part of the religious festival. If this is done, places like Varanasi can be kept clean at least for the most part of the year. 2. Each temple, as an organizing institute, may call for people's participation in keeping the environment clean. This can be done keeping in mind that during the festival time many outsiders would come into the village. The health of villagers and that of the visitors will be taken care of with this measure. 3. If this is projected, as service to society is service to God, a sure way of taking them to heaven, we can expect many would fall in line. 4. Of course, there is one thing, though people can help in cleaning the village. The law of conservation of garbage (in India especially) is that the mass of garbage will never decrease, we can only transfer from one place to another place. The recent incident that took place in Delhi where one person died as the garbage slid onto the road, should remind us that we are only transferring the garbage, not treating them. Here comes the role of municipalities. The municipalities should be given the technological know how, money, place, a long term plan ( which can sustain at least for another 30 years) and man power to treat the garbage. The motto of our municipalities must be "Good Health" and nothing else. Of course what else we need?

Kahani - a bed time story for children

Long Long Ago…. There were three angels - Kalpana, Hashya and Nidhra - living in a village known as Nellai in India. They had a beautiful house with a huge garden where every child in the village liked to play. The children would tell a lot of stories to their parents whenever they returned home after playing in the garden. Each day all the three angels went to different directions and met the children. Kalpana would give the children Dreams. Hashya would make the children Laugh. And Nidhra would make them Sleep peacefully. This went on for decades. One day the three angels were sitting and talking over a cup of tea. They were sharing their experiences with the children. Hashya said, “I enjoy whenever I meet children and meeting each day a new child keeps me going on. Otherwise, I would get bored of being an angel”. “Yes. Being an angel we don’t have to work. As we don’t need anything. No hunger. No sickness. No worries. We are always happy”, said Kalpana. “But even though we are meeting every day one or other child, still I feel we are making only some children happy every day. Not all”, said Nidhra. “Of course. How can we be everywhere, all the time?”. That was Hashya. “I’m planning to go to God and ask him for a solution for this”, said Hashya. So they decided to go to God the next day. The next day they went to God and presented before him their problem and asked for his help to solve this problem. God gave them a gift covered with a beautiful red silk cloth. He also gave a magic word. He said upon saying the magic word their problem would be solved. The three angels left for their home with the silk covered gift. As soon as they reached their home, Kalpana eagerly opened the gift. It was a book. Nidhra took the book and saw it was all blank pages. Hashya took it and saw only blank pages. They were confused. They were thinking why God gave them a blank book. Then they decided to say the magic word. They kept the book on the table and sat around. They said the magic word. As soon as they said the word, they felt they were pulled towards the book. They became all letters and started falling on each and every page. The letters - “Ka”, “Ha” and “Ni”- the first letters of their name took the place on the first page. It was looking like this." "Kahani". The angels were not to be seen anywhere after that. But the book was printed many times. Each time when it was printed a new story appeared. Now all the children can “Dream”, “Laugh” and “Sleep” after reading these books. All the parents read the book to their children before bed.