Fuck -- progress is a four letter word

I am not primitivist, no recluse from civilization and certainly no social claustrophobe. Okay, I do feel a bit self-conscious (in numerous ways) when I am amidst a group of strangers intent on chitchat and small talk and am given to believe that the best conversations are serious (as opposed to the banalities of online chatting comprising mostly of "brb" and "phone") but that still doesn't make me very radical, does it?

And speaking of nature and conservation, ecological sensitivity, etc. I do love the outdoors, am an avid bicyclist and get a kick by using public transport (in carbon footprint terms) but that still doesn't mean I have a dislike for civilization, development, progress or whatever else my species is currently engaged in -- on this planet, earth.

But I do know one thing, have known it all the while -- that trees are sacred living creatures and certainly not things. And that is why -- whenever I see a bleeding stump of what was once a verdant tree -- I am increasingly of the opinion that all that we as a species label as "progress", "development", "advancement" and so on are nothing but manifestations of our absolutely unfettered greed; a greed that borders on the pillage and destruction visited on by civilization by the relatively wild hordes -- like the Mongols, the Tartars and so on...all through the annals of history.

And yes, though I won't call myself a pessimist (you wouldn't either if you know me) I am again increasingly of the opinion -- whenever people brush off the cutting of trees as a necessary evil -- that our species is like a bunch of cattle stampeding with no sense of direction or purpose, mooing all the while; stampeding ahead in the march for the next level of so called advancement -- its collective ass wired to the twin obsessions of money and (what money feeds) consumerism.

I do lust for lenses and other technological advancements and I will once again repeat -- I am no primitivist and I love boulevards and bright city lights as much as I love verdant expanses and the great outdoors, but if someone says it is "progress" which makes it mandatory for trees to be cut, I will say progress is a four letter word.

In this day and this age, we need to introspect as a species and ask ourselves how advanced and evolved we really are if we cut down living, breathing, singing creatures in thousands; without even blinking an eye, as if they were deadwood.

Especially in this day and age when almost every corporate and busybody with a communication budget (or intent on getting noticed for making all the right noises) seems to be focusing on "going green", "ecological awareness", "3R's", "forestation" and what not under their CSR and other initiatives.

Anyway, read this and maybe thereafter all you can also say would be -- Oh, Fuck!

For the sake of Vizag's beaches -- Chief Seattle's speech

After witnessing first-hand (yet again) how Vizag's beaches are getting filthier, shittier, and scarier (from an environment / ecology perspective), after witnessing countless empty Beer, Whiskey and other liquor bottles, polythenes and plastic glasses (a large number of them unused and un-crushed), after spotting fleas and bloated, rotting, very-dead fish on the stretches that are the nesting sites for Olive Ridleys (and ironically enough, barely 100 kms from Srikurmam where Lord Vishnu's tortoise / turtle avatara is worshipped in an amazingly splendourous, ages-old temple), after witnessing the sea turn (and stay) red where a stream / rivulet flowing down from one of "Wounded in red cuts..." Vizag's Hills meets it, I give you Chief Seattle's speech. Though I am not too hopeful that humanity will learn to be less greedy, less consumerist, less wasteful...I hope some of the nature loving people who walk Vizag's beaches more occasionally than visiting me, will see a blotted, rotting very dead fish and realise "...whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected."

"I do not know. Our ways are different than your ways. The sight of your cities pains the eyes of the red man. There is no quiet place in the white man's cities. No place to hear the unfurling of leaves in spring or the rustle of the insect's wings. The clatter only seems to insult the ears. And what is there to life if a man cannot hear the lonely cry of the whippoorwill or the arguments of the frogs around the pond at night? I am a red man and do not understand. The Indian prefers the soft sound of the wind darting over the face of a pond and the smell of the wind itself, cleaned by a midday rain, or scented with pinon pine.

The air is precious to the red man for all things share the same breath, the beast, the tree, the man, they all share the same breath. The white man does not seem to notice the air he breathes. Like a man dying for many days he is numb to the stench. But if we sell you our land, you must remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.

The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also receives his last sigh. And if we sell you our land, you must keep it apart and sacred as a place where even the white man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow's flowers.

So we will consider your offer to buy our land. If we decide to accept, I will make one condition - the white man must treat the beasts of this land as his brothers.

I am a savage and do not understand any other way. I have seen a thousand rotting buffaloes on the prairie, left by the white man who shot them from a passing train. I am a savage and do not understand how the smoking iron horse can be made more important than the buffalo that we kill only to stay alive.

What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of the spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected."

Read the whole speech here, there is another version here and by the way the speeches (or rather these translations) are not exactly "verified to be true" or backed by any "epigraphical evidence" and in fact supposed to be "fiction". But sadly there is nothing fictional about how the beaches (and hills) of Vizag are getting raped. And looks like no one is really bothered since all this is "development" or whatever the fuck it is called.