The Haldi-Kumkum Disaster

How “convenience” is killing the “Nature”

Haldi Kumkum or inviting women and girls for tamboolam happens during several occasions each year.  These are times of celebrating womenhood, give good wishes to each other for a good and happy life and show that life can be party while remembering the goddess.  These are fun times where you dress up, meet other ladies and get the tamboolam bags.  But when I come back home and see what I have brought home, I realize that most of it just goes to recycle bin or dry waste.  Then why did I bring them at all?!!    The age of convenience has become an age of unnecessary consumption and killing earth.  I wonder, when this change occurred!!  I suppose most of us have been taken by surprise or probably have not even realized the change.

  

Thamboolam before the era of packaging

Thamboolam in the era of packaging

Even for those of us who are religious in recycling, some of the packaging are so small that it is not even practical to separate the materials to recycle them.

 Haldi-kumkum and beetle nut come in these tiny packets.  Sometimes haldi and kumkum are not really haldi and kumkum but coloured powder that can cause severe reactions.  Moreover most people don't use these.  Why give them at all?   Haldi kumkum can be offered from a bowl, why give to go.  For those few who are particular about this, take a little the effort to pack kumkum in used papers and use dried whole haldi instead.  Beetle nuts are available without packing, where half or whole nuts can be purchased with zero environmental impact. Those who don’t use can just compost.

The return gifts are not needed as most people don't use them.  Especially the blouse pieces which come in their individual plastic wrapping that no one uses in the age of designer blouses.  If you do want to give, a reusable box, a bag or a plant that will be better appreciated.

The glass bangles, who wears them anyway.  After all they don't match any of the dresses that we have and most times they are either too big or too small.  I remember, my mom used to keep multiple sizes and colours in a pile and let the women choose themselves.  Now a days, for convenience, they are prepacked into little carry bags.  Now that means when it’s brought home, highly likely, they are of no use.  

And finally carry bags.  Why can't we just ask the women to bring reusable carry bags like the shops?  Why give those single use plastic or polyurethane bags?  If you do want to give the convenience, then give a bag that can be reused for veggie shopping or pack in old newspapers.  Just a bit of effort from our sides will make a big difference.       

Reused packaging

We have one earth.  So, while keeping the spirit of festivities alive and kicking, let us not kick ourselves out of it!

Kids: The experts

Every morning I walk with my daughter to her bus stop.  Its just outside the complex and she is old enough to go by herself.  But this is the time where we catch up with each other as friends and she gives me interesting tit-bits.

Today's news: My daughter's school removed mirrors from the girls' restrooms in the 12th grade wing. Reason: Girls are spending too much time looking at themselves and applying make up. I told, may be they should just add more mirrors, that way the girls will get bored of seeing themselves.

My daughter responded, "Amma, you don't understand. Looking at yourself in the mirror is like touching your own hair.  You never get bored.  It just becomes a habit.  Even if you shave off the hair, you will continue to scratch your scalp".

I was just dumbfounded.  Never thought of it that way and the feeling, "oh! my goodness, my little one has grown up"

Break the boundary

Yesterday someone forwarded a video on Whatsapp, with a message "we need to be aware and conscious of our actions...".  A very well intentioned message indeed.

The video depicted a kannadiga reading a Kannada newspaper sitting on a bench.  Slowly several people join him, a Telugu person, a Tamil, a Hindi speaking person. He shares the space and the paper with these people. Finally a Malayalam speaking person tries to adjust, resulting in the Kannadiga person loosing his seat and the rest of them not caring and moving on with their activities. The kannadiga guy wonder what will they do to Karnataka.

Now this could have been any scenario.  This kannadiga could have been replaced with anybody:
A Marathi in Mumbai facing a deluge of Gujaratis, Tamil, Biharis and what not
A Bengali facing deluge of refugees from Bangladesh
Europeans facing their refugee crisis
A person in USA facing the immigrant workers
A mother in law sharing the home with a new daughter in law
The list is endless...

What this video has done is, nothing but,feeding the inherent fears in people. If one is really interested in the welfare of the society, then they could have given a positive feedback where one of the newcomers gives back the seat to the Kannadiga or the Kannadiga being more graceful and accept people by being part of the group.  Instead this video makes everyone look like intruders to a Kannadiga who would watch this video. The Kannadiga here represent everyone who is facing this deluge scenario. But unfortunately this video does exactly the opposite and just increases the divide.  How is it different from the one sided views presented by the news channels for TRP? May be park is made with the tax money from the migrant workers, who knows.

We belong to a country where the moguls, foreigners at that time, ruled the entire country at some point, the Maratha Bhonsles ruled Tanjore in today's Tamil Nadu,the Maratha Gaekwads ruled Gujarathi Vadodara.  The state boundaries are drawn for sake of better management, not for dividing people by language.

Several years back when I decided to move back to India, my company decided to move the project I was on to India too. So 3 more people were hired locally. So our four member team included one Kannadiga , one Telugu , one Tamil and one odiya. One day the Kannadiga guy commented on outsiders taking their job. I quickly asked him "which job?". After all, the job he was working on , was supposed to go to France, but moved to Bangalore because of my wish to move to Bangalore.

It is important to realize that it is not you vs. me, but you and me (we). It doesn't matter whether the boundary is city, state, language, country, caste, religion or race.  Our minds are too naive to understand the complex relationships in nature and how we depend on each other.


"Panchhi nadiya pawan ke jhonke, koi sarhad na inhe roke... 
Sarhad insano ke liye hain, socho tumne aur maine kya paya insan hoke"

Birds, rivers, gusts of wind

No border inhibits them

Borders are for people

Think about it, what have you and I