Short Story about Environment – THE ECO DAY
Photo credit: simonfilm from morguefile.com
This was the very first day for me in the village. This village was really going through a bad period. Unusual heavy rainfall, some times heavy drought period for a long time. I as an environment lover, have only one dream in life and that is to explore as many eco friendly and green places as I can. And this village was my last stop.
I had heard a lot about this place from my father. Fresh water lakes, lots of trees , clean atmosphere but at my visit this all was missing. The lakes were fully polluted, lots of trees were smashed down by the engineers for their work, and also the air seems to be a bit polluted, the children were suffering from deadly diseases. In short the village was suffering from a really bad period.
On my first day to the place I met a person there in the middle of a street. I asked him about the situation of the place and he just asked me a question back,
“ Are you a visitor?”
“No, not really. My dad wanted me to live here after my retirement, so I am here.”I replied.
“So , you are not a visitor, hmmm.”
“yes. So tell me, what happened here.”
“something bad, really bad. We are experiencing a lot of unusual rainfall and heavy winds for about a month. These winds have done wrong to our crops and also to our pockets.”
“oh , that’s so sad”
“Yes, it is. Can you give me 100 bucks, I will give you back someday.”
“Ok, then, can you give me shelter in return?”
“Hmmm, ok come on you can stay with me. Follow me. ”
While following him to his house I asked him lots of questions about the place. This place was different than the place my dad had seen. People are giving away their lands for construction, their trees to the city businessmen. I was shocked and he also told me that the people living there are only good to visitors not to the people who are coming to live there for the rest of their lives. And I was one of them.
This place was really a great experience, cool breeze at night for the whole year. But at night due to cold, I have seen that the people were cutting the trees at a high quantity, burning it and throwing it away the remaining material. Burning wood to high extent also results in pollution and also throwing of this waste wood in the lake pollutes the environment.
An idea of making people aware about these activities came in my mind. I just wanted them to plant more and more trees. Then I told my friend all about these things and he was really impressed by my idea but the people were not happy with my saying. When I told them not to consume so much of wood every day, a person shouted
“Are you mad. How can we people make our food without burning wood? This person is mad.”
This means of me was total waste. Then to accomplish my mission I made a great plan. As the city people were cutting trees and doing construction by fooling the village people. I will do the same but for the good will of the people. I told the people to write letters about your lost to the biggest tree in the village by assuring them that god will help them by doing this. The people did that and were waiting for the miracle to happen.
The next day all letters were missing from the place and everyone got some money from some unknown person. It was me, I had enough money in my account to help them. Then I requested the people to come near that tree. As I said’
“ These trees are the real gods and this is why, you should plant more and more trees in the village.”
I became the prime idol and people started planting more and trees in the village and made the place clean as it was before.
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by sachin bhat
