Arshid Malik
What is great about Kashmir is the natural greens that meet the eye in every nook and corner, every mountain and dale, every mountain and creek, every home and hearth. Ahem! I guess I got the last one wrong for nowadays there are hardly any homes that boast of the greens and are rather covered in concrete with not even the slightest patches of the “green green grass” visible to the naked eye – yes if you would perch upon the urban porch with a magnifying glass to your eye you might be able to isolate a few strands of grass here and there but other than that the whole system is clueless about greenery. Well, that is a bad thing indeed for it is the trees, the plants and shrubs that make life liveable on this planet and when we go narrow on that we are narrowing down the very prospect of life itself. But I wonder about one straight thing and that is we are an agrarian society and we traditionally have relied on our agrarian produce, which inversely means that pay as much heed to the greenery around us as much as we do to the drastically hyped soap being telecast over the air, or do we. I mean we should be really responsive to the greenery around us since we rely on it but I presume that nowadays the soaps have gained precedence over all other issues, be these environmental, social or economical.
Speaking of the greens I am reminded of the “green thumb”. Well, if you happen to recall a person is known to have a “green thumb” if he or she is good at planting greens and getting them going. Generally people sow not to reap and yes please don’t get me wrong for what I mean is that most people are not able to cultivate plants and trees – once they sow the seed or plant a sapling it is very rare to happen that the seed will morph into a sapling or a sapling into a plant or tree. It is something to do with your stars, I guess, or maybe the moon phases. Now the idea at hand is that most – in fact all – the people in Kashmir have severed off their “green thumbs” if they happened to possess any at all at any point of time. I am one who would like to sincerely confess that I have severed off my “green thumb” a long time back. What happened is that once I installed a television set in my room and got into the habit of watching reruns of soaps my natural and creative ability to cultivate greens started falling apart. I was a very good “planter” and a rather good “cultivator” and my success rate at reaping the “profits” was maximized with every passing day till the invasion of the soaps. It dawned on me that I was losing my “green thumb” slowly and gradually. It was a sad thing but there was nothing I could do to make it right again for I was addicted to soaps and could not shake them off anyhow.
I realized within some time that whatever I planted was dying out on me sooner than I would have ever predicted. I was losing my “great” ability to deadly venom. I was losing myself to obscurity. I was losing my “green thumb” and now when I plant a sapling or sow a flower bed it never goes beyond the very hour it has been planted in. I am practically damaged as a human being and for all reasons I have lost all touch with nature and this is pathetic. I am of little use to the environment around me when I can’t even cultivate a shrub – or do shrubs grow naturally. I hate my altered nature. I am a disgrace when I am of no utility. And all of you who have lost their ability of the “green thumb” should find it a disgrace unto yourselves as we stand as a population of “useless” people by intrinsic natural standards and we should feel sorry and guilty about and crave for repentance if we can.
The “green planet” which we inhabit is losing its greenery and who can better understand this than us Kashmiri people who have thrived in the bliss that is greenery. But we must also realize that since the “green planet” is in itself, in all its wholeness losing out to concrete and smog we are no longer safe and the greens that cuddled us like children back in Kashmir may not last forever as we love to presume. The planet is dying and so is the bliss that is Kashmir. We are very much near the absolute devastation of our natural habitats and we need to focus on this fact. There is still some time left for us to reconsider our options. We may chose nature over soaps still. We may switch off the idiot box and turn less idiotic while there is time and scope left for us.
