Getting Unpopular-Part 3

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Elections are over and we can discuss it till the cows come home. We won’t be able to influence its results now. We can also not influence the results of the World Cup. It’s World Environment Day and this year’s theme is Air Pollution. And girl, do we influence that in every action we take.

As established in earlier parts of the ‘Get Unpopular’ Series  
https://dillimeriijaan.blogspot.com/2018/06/getting-unpopular-part-2.html , readers of this page are already very green. It’s the others we struggle with. It’s Delhi. And we LOVE big, diesel guzzling, smog creating cars. I have known CEOs, to have parked their Jags at home, and take the Mighty and Fantastic Delhi Metro. While, I could be a school-dropout, white-goods smuggler and drive a really big car. Also, we love shopping. Unmindful of the energy waste during production and pollution, when carelessly discarded.


Here are my very unpopular ways, to out-show-off the Big Car riders and Shopaholics.
1.       Show off your brains – I have derived much sadistic pleasure by talking about the book I am reading or asking their opinion on Nordhaus’s theory on climate change and macro-economic analysis, when someone mentions the new car they bought. A look of tremendous contempt and a ‘Wow that must be really guzzling a lot of fuel while releasing loads of PM 2.5 into the air’ has been the conversation starter. There isn’t much fun going around in a big car, if people aren’t begging you to take them on rides or clicking selfies in front of them. Then it’s just a big, expensive metal box.
2.       Show off your fitness – emerge all glowing with the metro station concourse walks and talk endlessly about how they help you stay in shape. Throw in your weekend 20 mile cycle tours/ runs and how walking to absolutely every place within 5 km radius, has made your calf muscles so amazing. I also go on and on about how the clothes I had 10 years back, still fit – killing the two ‘rampant consumerism’ and ‘big car’ inanities with one barb.


3.       Show off your talent/hobby – talk about the new language you learnt, or the painting that you created. Not about the new branded whatever that you bought – which you didn’t. Show off your new plants and how it keeps your house cool, pretty and with low AQI.
4.       Show off your commitment – talk about the cool volunteering things that you are doing – even if it’s teaching your maid’s daughter or helping with the park in front of your house. Boast like hell about how you’ve gone chemical/detergent free and show off your skin – which has not had toxins/microplastics inserted into it. Bring your steel straws and point out that when you eat from plastic, you eat plastic.

While the above will mostly ensure that these are the last conversations you have with those people, there have been surprises. I have seen conversations change from SUVs to Sabzi grown organically, and from Zara to Zero Waste. So as loudly as you deride the mindless habits of people, remember to cheer loudly when someone takes a baby step towards being more green. Give them some compost when they embark on organic gardening and take them out for coffee when they buy their first metro card.
Happy world environment day, to all.

Comments

Dr.Susan Sharma said…
Keep the conversation going, Jayati
June 4, 2019 at 1:25 AM
Srila said…
Great suggestions :)
June 5, 2019 at 1:51 PM
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