HELLO JI!
A WORD (OR TWO HUNDRED) FROM THE EDITOR
Not so long ago, a refreshing drink came out of a matka, a simple clay pot. Image credit: MINERAGUA SPARKLING WATER on Unsplash.
Desis of a certain age might recall the clay pots or matkas from which one drank cold water. One can still find them in much of rural India today.
People cooled their homes with something called khus ki tatti. These were screens woven out of vetiver roots that were hung in front of windows. Periodically splashed with water and with a fan running behind them, they rewarded the efforts with a cool, fragrant breeze.
In other parts of the world, people devised ways to keep extreme cold at bay. Early settlers in Canada stuffed the cracks in the walls of their dwellings with moss and seaweeds. Ladies in the Victorian era kept their hands warm by holding miniature hot water bottles or even hot potatoes (think Little Women) in fur muffs.
In modern times, creative solutions such as The Path in downtown Toronto and several other northern cities help keep pedestrians out of the cold for some part of their journey.
Just where am I going with this, wandering from matkas to hot potatoes?
To the fact that people have always found different ways to deal with extreme weather conditions. That today, comfortable in our air-conditioned or centrally-heated cocoons, we are blithely fossil-fuelling ourselves to the very edge of the cliff where climate change-related disasters await.
In a previous column in Desi News David Suzuki wrote “we’re ‘adding fuel to the fire’ of the climate crisis when we should be doing everything possible to extinguish it. According to the International Monetary Fund, world governments are subsidizing coal, oil and gas to the tune of US$11 million every minute! That amounted to almost $6 trillion in 2020. Canada was especially generous, giving the industry close to $64 billion. We understand the problem, and we have solutions. But we can’t shake the myths of constant growth and fossil-fuelled economic engines.”
My husband uses the analogy of a dying tree that is clinging to life, shooting out a new branch here, a few new leaves there. The earth is doing its part to stay alive, but if we don’t stop polluting our air and water, the tree will die and we will have only ourselves to blame.
As Suzuki says, “We’ll continue accelerating on a terrible trajectory if we don’t rein in greenhouse gas emissions and protect natural areas that absorb and store carbon.”
This is no doomsday prediction. Nor a science fiction movie set in the distant future like The Road where Viggo Mortenson stumbles around trying to find a safe haven for his little son.
This is real and if we don’t all come together to find or support solutions, hot potatoes and matkas will not be enough.
Planting a tree – or a shrub – might be a good way to mark Earth Day.
Ramzan mubarak!
Baisakhi ki badhai!
Happy Easter!
Shagorika Easwar