'Done with It'

Kabhi kabhi mere Dil me,
Khayal aaata hai...
Ke tuuj ko....banaya gaya hai mere liyeee.......

That was a status update I read some time ago on facebook. As we all know it’s a song from the film Kabhie Kabhie. The film is about a young poet Amit (Amitabh Bachchan) and a young girl named Pooja who are very much in love and believe that they are made for each other. But destiny had other plans and Pooja is married off to Vijay (Shashi Kapoor). Out of sheer hopelessness and despair Amit gives up on his poetry and gets married to someone else (Waheeda Rahman).

Well why I’m I talking about Kabhie Kabhie out here? Do we really get to see such strong emotion in relationships these days? I would say No!!! Everything is just a matter of convenience. Now you would say that I’m sounding pessimistic but fortunately or unfortunately with time priorities and options change. We are heading towards something called the use and throw culture.

Let it be a ball point pen, or a big Mac, a chewing gum or a rubber band, plastic bags, cellphones, clothes,slippers or oshsos as they call it and even people may be. It’s like you use an IPAD APP for some days, love it get addicted to it and then move on to something different when you’re done with it, as simple as that.

Everything has its own expiry date who would bother to reuse a broken spectacle or a ‘not so smoothly working’ electronic gadget when we can get something new with little effort which would eventually fit our bill of convenience? It’s surprising to see how this trend is getting engraved in our lives. Throw away whatever is ‘useless’ or ‘not needed’ in the near future who cares it’s the age of ‘throw away’.

Developed countries like the US who are right now dicey about them being no.1 economy in the world are also facing a lot of trouble because of this culture. As per a website called the cleanaircouncil.org the average American office worker uses about 500 disposable cups every year. They every year throw away enough paper, plastic cups, forks and spoons to circle the equator 300 times. Over 7 billion pounds of PVC are thrown away in the US every year out of which only 18 million that is one percent is recycled. As per an article from The Huffington Post the US has 71,862 tons of nuclear waste and the nation has no place to permanently store the material which remains dangerous for thousands of years. This is indeed an issue of great concern to avoid an Irene or a Jose in the future. (Irene is the name of a hurricane and Jose, a storm)

Yes in the millennium era dumping is in. Dumping which was once used for garbage is now used for anything and everything. From your old parents, to your old shoes, lipsticks, camera and the list goes on. And why do we do that because life offers numerous options. There is a replacement for almost everything available. Stubborn individualism and arrogance have wiped off concepts like slowing down, persevering, preserving. It is indeed questionable as to where are we headed with this kind of attitude.

What influences this culture? Its probably the lifestyle we lead. Urbanization has given rise to the 'temporariness' in our lives. Living in nuclear families or even alone in small flats, leading hectic lives gets us so used to thinking about ourselves that we forget to value other people's presence. Unlike small towns and villages the concept of community life is non existent in big cities. In our personalized lives individuality takes precedence over everything else and we become used to calling the shots in any situation. The perception of right and wrong change and the line between the two blurs. And as I said everything becomes a matter of convenience.

With a conscious attempt to not sound very preachy, all I have to say is lets not get so self absorbed or Insensitive that we forget to value what we have and the basis of our entire existence. Lets not equate people to inanimate objects, as someone said we are humans after all. .Why waste or get wasted when there is just one life to live, one life to love...

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