Reverse Gear

Last few months have been somewhat hard. I am not talking about me but about the humanity, about our collective future (may be a little about me too ;)). Its long time that I have written something, it is not that I do not want to write or I do not have anything to write. There have been millions of thoughts and words kept forming in my mind but feeling was so overwhelming that containing those in single blog was not so easy. Therefore, I capitulated; thoughts flowed and lost like a river in sea. However, I had to overcome that hesitation at some point of time, regardless of what my personal crisis is, so here I am.

If you are going to continue on this blog then I should add a disclaimer. Please do not relate your personal life with the content written in the blog. Please make a note that if I would have been in your shoes, I would have actually acted in the same way (I actually am in your shoes). This is just the sentiment expressed keeping the bigger picture in view, and you might have to open your other eye to experience that view.

By just having a cursory glance around me and a small effort to look at the world I get a déjà vu that I am looking at some scenes from Matrix. Every scenes are pre-scripted and people are like robots who are doing exactly the same things that they are supposed to do (Again ex-claimer – Not saying I am any different). The interesting thing is, this movie has only three recurring scenes – one - a constant exercise of facial muscle along with multitudes clicking of camera, two - frantic typing on the keypad of phone, three - many stone face statues travelling in car, buses and bikes with earphone plugged in their ears. It just gives a chilling sensation of being in a bad sci-fi movie where whole world is remote controlled by some mighty corporation through the tools like earphone, camera and phone. We are living in a uni-dimensional world with our sight limited to a 45-degree view. We are missing or willfully ignoring the other 315 degree. It is I, my future, and then my children and their future, and many of us goes long way and reserve future for some thousand generations ahead. Forget about the atrocities we are perpetrating on the mother earth in the process, we cannot even think of our own next generation (except for some material wealth that might not even have significance) and what future they might have if we do not stop and change track.

India’s population is currently 1.324 billion. We are ready to overtake China (1.379 billion) any day. Currently our population growth rate is hopelessly high (~1.7%) to even dream to stabilize it to optimum level. We are already beyond the sustenance level that the earth can support. 2.4% of land in India is already supporting 17% of world’s population which itself is a nightmare in current state. Think about all those stampede death in Mumbai, traffic jam in Bangalore, huge crowd in Kolkata, sea of human in Bihar and UP and so on. This is the chaos that we face at current population level. Think about next 50 years. Even if we manage to miraculously lower the growth rate to 1% (which is next to impossible), our population will still be 65% more than today (2.178 billion). That means 850 million more people (around the combine population of whole Europe and Brazil together). Think about situation of Local train of Mumbai, roads of Bangalore and street of Kolkata with those extra 850 million people. Think about what will happen to our water system, our forest, our biodiversity, when we have 850 million extra mouths to feed. We cannot even achieve that for current 1324 million after depleting all our natural resources. It is a nightmare, which should haunt each one of us. However, are we even concerned? Do we even think about it? All we care about is to get a degree, get a job, get married, and start family and proliferate the Vansh (I cannot even fathom the Vansh crap). We do not even have slightest compunction about our contribution in making this world worse and worsen. It is the high time that we stop swooning over babies. We should stop thinking about it as a boon and start treating it like a grim moment. A moment that keeps propelling us towards the doomsday. Five thousand years ago, human race was fighting for its survival and reproduction was integral part of that survival plan. 5000 years later, we have entered the 21^st century and human race is again on verge of survival war. Only difference is this time war will not be fought with other species, this war will be fought among us and we will eventually sink and will take every sign of life on earth along with us. In order to win this survival war and save humanity along with the biodiversity, we need to embark upon a different path. Instead of celebrating creation of new life, it has to be made as a somber moment. A moment to stop and think about the future of those new lives and their expected contribution to the ongoing eternal survival war. I know, the moment you read these words it might seem blasphemous to you. How can we even dare to pop those thoughts in our mind? That is not how civilization has ever worked. However, like rules of wars, rules to live also changes. These are the time, which requires backward movement. Our survival war started with a primitive Neanderthal who first learnt to make fire and then different tools. We started our journey from there and moved to achieve bigger things. There was always a next, hunting to agriculture, agriculture to industrialization, industrialization to a cyber-age. We kept moving, we kept getting better at everything but we never learnt to stop. We do not even know what lies beyond and when to stop. This is the time. This is the time to move backward instead of forward. We do not need entire humanity to understand that. Even if half of the world grasp the gravity of this problem and be ready to make sacrifices, we might have small chance to save this wonderful world. Or else we are doomed to our own destruction. In Gandhiji’s own word, we have ample for everyone’s need not greed. Our greed had run amok for so long that we have reached to a point where there will not be any left for the “need”. It is the time that we take the reverse gear and start on a new radical path that will not only ensure our survival but also will give us chance to live a worthy life.