Breaking the mountain with a chisel
Are we fighting a losing battle? A friend asked me a few months back and the only answer I could come up with was “Yes”. Do we like to fight for the losing side? question followed. That got me thinking, every effort I was a part of was too small in front of the cosmic scale of the problem, I was trying to break the mountain with a chisel.
The possibility of winning is distant, the mere scale of every problem we have tried to address around me made me feel smaller and smaller. The thought did not go out of the head and I accepted that I was going to fight for the losing side! I have been a part of numerous interventions: to issues starting from stopping firecrackers and paper cups on my campus; installing water stations for stray animals to rallying against sexual harassment in the area! From making people aware about stem cell donation to teaching kids in a government school.
These stories are not of success, this tale is of efforts when the discomfort I felt with issues around me did not die as a thought in my head. This tale is of taking people along, it’s about making people a part of the journey! I want to acknowledge the people who came together and made things happen, people who supported, people who did not oppose and the ones who did! It’s not a story to blame anyone, not to get the credit. It’s a story to tell others with chisel, that they are not alone! Together, with those thousands of chisels, we will keep making the mountain weak. And one day, one morning, one afternoon, one evening, one night we will break the mountain, one at a time! We will win!!
I am going to share some stories I have gathered during 5 years of being in Bangalore.
1. The cracked Diwali
As a campus culture, the campus used to celebrate a grand Diwali where the new batch of students would put together an evening of food, dance, and firecrackers. It used to be a grand event, folks on campus, away from their homes, stuck in experiments would look forward to this evening of joy and celebration at a home, away from their home.
Every year the air pollution claims 2.5 million lives in India. The air pollution level during Diwali in cities like Delhi goes more than 40 times the upper limit suggested by WHO, the animals go to panic due to tremendous noise pollution. And all this happens for the momentary joy of bursting a firecracker, what does one gain? Is it worth it? What remains is the lingering Sulphur dioxide and carbon monoxide.
In 2014, It was my batch’s turn to make Diwali happen, to continue the tradition, with firecrackers! We could not feel at rest thinking whether we would like to be responsible for this cruelty on the environment? We wanted our campus to come along, create an example for others to avoid firecrackers! We had a discussion, and we decided to call onto people’s conscience and ask if they support brutality towards the environment that firecrackers are? When the responses started coming in, the joy was priceless, majority students said NO to firecrackers.
That Diwali, there were no firecrackers on campus, there was no noise, and there was no pollution. Our batch organized Diwali with Rangoli, Diyas, Food, Cards, and Dance! There were lesser people attending the campus Diwali that year, maybe the highlight was gone. Till date, no batch got back the firecrackers, and may the new tradition last for decades to come.
2. The unsafe neighborhood
When we first heard of girls getting harassed outside the campus by strangers, it felt like family being at risk. The harassment on streets was on peak those days, there was an identified repeat offender! The harassers were getting brave day by day and started troubling women in broad daylight!
Bengaluru police received 2,160 harassment cases between the year 2014–2016. This was the reported number, most of the cases don’t get reported due to the stigma associated with it. These many women felt unsafe in just the city of Bangalore, what about the country. Are we creating a safe society?
A friend, called for a rally in the area, urging the police to take strict actions against harassment! When we called people, only 5 people showed up. Disappointment and anger was the instant emotion. Would 5 people make a rally? What was wrong, why didn’t people take such a huge issue seriously? Was it lack of knowledge or just apathy? Whatever it was, it had to be addressed.
We decided to make people aware of the stories of harassment anonymously, make them aware of the exact details of what’s happening around us. People knew harassment was happening but knew nothing about the severity of it. We created a Facebook group, shared 5 stories, anonymously, talking about pinching and flashing; chasing and name calling! From 300+ students that we invited on Facebook, 250+ showed up, people wore black clothes, carried placards, spoke to shopkeepers and people on the road, told them of what’s happening.
News and police took notice of 250+ students walking the road, together, for a better society, for a better neighborhood. We got numerous street lights, increased police patrols, the repeat offender was caught, and the stories of harassment reduced drastically and are still rare.
3. Paper cups
The very important commodity of modern India, paper cups, close to peoples heart, pocket, and lifestyle. One fine day, our community service club wanted to know the consumption of paper cups on campus, we emailed the concerned authority asking for statistics. When the numbers appeared on the computer screen, we could not believe them for a while. 2,50,000 paper cups every year!! 1100 single-use paper cups every working day! The extremely hard to recycle plastic and wax coated paper cups, the cups that would outlive our 10th generation. Was the lack of effort to carry a ceramic/glass mug and wash-it worth causing this much damage to the environment?
The Indian Railways adds 150 million paper cups to the environment every year. The United Kingdom uses 7 million paper cups every day, that adds up to 2.5 billion paper cups every year and less than 1% are recycled! The paper cup you used today will linger our planet for centuries to come!
What was lacking? Did people know paper cups are not really the solution to the infamous plastic or were the victim of the imposed dream of “modern lifestyle”? We wanted to know. We conducted a survey, gave people on campus an idea about what damage a paper cup does to the environment and health. More than 98.5% of people voted for getting rid of paper cups from campus. The authority used this survey as a basis to cut down on the consumption of paper cups by 60%. The initial distress lasted for a couple of weeks, offering replacement of glass cups helped. Now the campus is used to carrying their own mugs, it has become part of the lifestyle.
The future generation might not even know that we did offer paper cups in canteens, that our neighborhood was unsafe or we used to burst crackers during Diwali. The change shall stay, for decades to come. With every passing day, the impact of intervention gets bigger, my campus will add 60% lesser paper cups to the environment.
