Sunday, May 28, 2006

Cancer on Earth

When you are in the company of people you have grown up with, you tend to speak without thinking. It is a level of comfort that makes you let your guard down and you make conversation with ease. It is a comfort level born of years being together. At my meeting with S, the heroine of my last post, S asked me casually, why every organism on Earth is important. She has put up with my impassioned talks on environment, wildlife protection for years. And she was also a willing volunteer when I had launched the “No plastics" month in college.

The conversation went something like this.

S: Why is every animal important for the environment?
Me: Every animal and living thing is placed by Nature for a purpose.
S: Even rats? ( she hates rats)
Me: Yes, even rats.
S: How can rats be useful to the environment?
Me: Well they are food for snakes, owls, vultures etc. A vulture is nature’s scavenger and because of vultures we don’t have pandemics. But alas their numbers are shrinking.
S: Even insects are important? (she is terrified of insects)
Me: Yes. Look the Earth is a healthy body. The environment and wild life and other life forms are its metabolism. It needs all these to function as a healthy body. Every thing on Earth is important except human beings. Humans are like a Cancer on the healthy body of Earth. I think, natural calamities are the Earth’s immune system keeping our numbers in check to protect it from being overwhelmed and destroyed. But I think Earth is losing the battle.

The conversation stopped and a comfortable silence fell between us. And then in tandem after a minute or two both of us looked at each other startled. And I suddenly realized what I had said, while S reeled from the import of what I had said. A broody silence again fell between us after that as we mulled over things. S finally giggled and said "Thank God, the Ransom Girls are not around. This would have been the drop of blood for the sharks."

Ransom Girls was a group in college diametrically opposite to our group. When I organized “No Plastics Month” they organized the “Plastic Awareness Month”. They put up posters describing the revolution bought about by plastics by making us less dependent on natural resources like wood, metal etc. The theme for their campaign “ Plastic satisfies your every need”. In retaliation we put up a poster on the Notice Board. I will leave you to guess the content of the poster. It was pulled down before the faculty arrived in the morning and put back during lunch break on the cafeteria walls. It left the Ransom Girls very red faced for a very long time to come.

Now why were they called Ransom Girls? That is something I shall not reveal. One of them blogs you see. I do not want a war developing here :p

Finally...I am now wondering uneasily if my remark that human beings are like cancerous organisms on Earth might be true. Forget what religion says about all of us being God’s children and being on earth for a purpose and all that jazz. On a baser level as animals we serve no purpose. We do not give to the Environment. We only take. I don’t see where we fit in the scheme of things. I have tried and tried to think of one use of humans on Earth and I find none.

17 comments:

Paresh Palicha said...

Me first!! Cancer on Earth... Very true... Plastic War in the college... feels like a nuclear war in the real world. LOL.

Thnx for not keeping word verification here. It is easier to comment.

Dr. Pissed said...

I couldnt agree with you more. We serve absolutely no purpose. Sure we document and photograph among other things, but I doubt that would overpower what we take.

Damm! I asked the Corner House guy yesterday why they had to use so much plastic and could use ceramics instead and the replied telling me that they've been doing it for years now and didnt think change was an option.

Sure I said and didnt buy myself an ice cream

± said...

Nature is a bundle of resources and energies.
Man only consumes them.
We build multi story buildings after an approval from the municipal council without thinking what effect it will have on the plates in the earth’s core.
Global warming is a reality.
Nature is freaking out, catching a cold and retaliating.
Dubai gets a snowfall.
The extremes of summer and winter are being seen almost all over the world year after year.
Maldives islands are vanishing.
Animals are going extinct.

Just hope Mother Nature shows us the same patience as our biological mothers show us.

Else, we're all dead.

Nice post... and welcome back. You brought the rains :-)

Sarah said...

A native Indian elder once told me, the earth is always
(for)giving..provided you take only what you need, clean up after you go and replace what you took..
we got it all wrong eh??

silverine said...

@Paresh:This blog does not attract spam so I havent turned on the word verification option :) Plastic is part of the toxins we create.
@Dr pissed: I try and avoid plastics too.Carry my own shopping bag etc. How I wish they would create something that would make plastic bio degradable.
@Aashik: I heard that it has expanded.
@Harjee:I am beginning to realise that we are indeed a cancerous growth on this Earth. Even New Zealand will cease to exist I heard and the rising salt water will make our coastline saline. The future is indeed grim. Why dont people realise that we have nowhere else to go? The rains are indeed welcome aren't they? :)
@Sarah: That is a wise saying indeed. In fact some of the Red Indian sayings on environmental issues are the wisest.

mathew said...

uh..it never dawned on me that we are absoulte misfits...should really find something useful.. am desperate!!!!!

Jagan said...

"humans are cancer " is very similar to the statement in matrix ..Agent smith compares human to virus ..

the reply to plastic awareness was super cool ..

Mind Curry said...

argghh!! i lost another comment! when will i learn!

anyway i was saying, we ruined ourselves the day we began inventing things and thought of becoming smarter. else we woulda been just like animals..on earth..living, eating, and doing our "daily activities" on those green grasses. and we woulda also died and become manure and all. and who knows we might be eating eachother up..

ouch!

but you are right in some ways..i feel so useless some days!

:)

silverine said...

@Mind Curry: =))
and we woulda also died and become manure and all. and who knows we might be eating eachother up..

ouch!

but you are right in some ways..i feel so useless some days!


I have split my sides laughing at both your comments.

silverine said...

@Mathew: LOL
@Jagan: Isn't it true? We are like virus, destroying our host :(

Jagan said...

i dont agree with the part "destroying our host" .there were dinosaurs before us , and now us ..we may cease to exist but the earth will survive and may be some more smarter lifes/lives may come up ...remember dinosaurs needed more oxygen /food than us ..and we can assume tht some other life may need less oxygen/food to survive ..the only question is "will we survive "

venus said...

humans are the most selfish species on the earth. they are uncontrollably growing, and are destroying earth, which makes them carcinogen!

silverine said...

Jagan: Dinosaurs died due to the a climatic change I heard.

Venus:You are right girl. We are carcinogenic. And the only speices that has no use.

pophabhi said...

Exactly same as what Basheer told 'Avarum Bhoomiyude Avakaashikal'.
I think a day will soon come when people will collect air in cycle tubes and sell it for 1000 Rs/cycle tube. I hope its at least 50 years later! ;-)

Anonymous said...

kind of very late on commenting to this post. anyway, without humans (supposed to be the intelligent/thinking species) who wud be left to appreciate the beauty/wonder that earth/nature is???

G

silverine said...

Pophabhi: I hope I am not alive that day :(

G: How many of us look at a tree and appreciate its beauty when there is money to be made out of its timber? I think Earth would maintain it's beauty without humans :)

skar said...

NOTHING has any purpose. Its is your desire for a purpose that makes you assign one.