Living it twice! : October 2013

Sunday 20 October 2013

My dustbin is dirty!

Early morning when I was fast asleep, the sweeper knocked the door.. Oh the plight of getting up and opening the door. Then staying up just to watch him sweep away small black insects from the floor, which had enjoyed the brilliance of my tube light all night. The tall half-bald yet young man, who is usually seen wearing his black and green striped t-shirt paired with black pants rolled up to his calves, emptied my dustbin. He also took away the plastic bag in it which was put there to protect my bin from getting dirty.
Phew! The room was clean, but the idea of sleeping again was out of my mind.

*Rise and Shine* Oh forget shine! Only my teeth shone for then. I went to the cook for some morning tea. Opened a pack of biscuits and headed towards my dustbin to throw the packet away. And the finicky me forgot the biscuit in search for a plastic bag for my dustbin. My cupboard, neighbor's cupboard, the kitchen, the whole house!! I called out for our hostel caretaker Mohan bhaiya. And then I was faced with the real issue. "जम्मू में प्लास्टिक नहीं होता। यहाँ बैन है " (Jammu doesn't have plastic bags. it is banned here). And that very moment my brain scanned through all my shopping ventures and I realized "अरे हाँ" (oh yes)!!
So here's a state that finally does follow the ban. I experienced this even more vividly, when on my visit to Bagh-e-Bahu (a huge garden with fountains and artificial waterfalls) I found NO PLASTIC BAG. Unlike New Delhi where you might just see more of plastic than water flowing in the waterfall or I may just call it plasticfall.
Unfortunately enough the good things about a state are seldom highlighted. Media today seems to be looking for all that's wrong about a place. Banning plastic bags is a phenomenal achievement. A large state like Delhi couldn't do it because its large, but an even larger state did it because it is responsible. Hats off to the people here.
All the people of the nation, (including myself, no preaching here) must once and for all give up the use of plastic bags. It definitely has become an important part of our lives. But just a small effort of making cloth bags or reusing newspapers as bags might just bring about the change!
Meanwhile I am looking for an alternative to protect my bin!

For those who really felt they should be the face of the change... here's a link for you. Learn how to make paper bags. :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSfusvAP1vw

Do tell me if you really made it.

Saturday 12 October 2013

The Last Judgment!

'The Day of Judgment' as put in the Holy Bible is a day when through Jesus Christ, God judges every single person who has ever lived on the earth. He would determine the worth of each individual. All the sins are accounted on that day. ‘Chitragupt’, a character from Indian mythology also serves the same purpose and finally decides the destiny of a person- heaven or hell.

An event recently reminded me of this idea. A simple window that acted as a judge to the sins of one and all. And all that one had to do, was just pass through it to prove that s/he deserved the arm-chair comfort of ‘heaven’.
Sudh Mahadev is the temple which stands for 2,800 years, and is located 120 kms from Jammu. The temple is a home to a natural black marble Lingam, the Trident (Trishul) of Lord Shiva and mace believed to be that of Bheema, one of the five legendary Pandava brothers. The temple has a marble window that has attracted many to test their life.
For me, it was the test of the natural spring nearby that promised to wash away all the sins of a person. There was a Sita, who gave the ‘agni pareeksha’ and then there were some who gave the ‘khidki pareeksha’ as I would like to call it. I passed through the window, maybe that’s because I had washed myself in the ‘paap naashini baoli’ (sin destroyer spring) after the long journey. Some couldn’t, the reason could perhaps be that they should have taken some more time to wash themselves!