In my brief tryst with engineering for three years after college, I was in US for one year. After that I retired and moved to my village at 25. Returning to a village is homecoming.
In the US the skies were clear, the roads were clean. There was far less pollution than India. There were beautiful trek routes and pristine national parks, at stones throw. My classmates from college were there, and all had free time in those days of youth, and they had cars, and weekends I used to join them on trips.
But where others saw blue skies, crystal streams, and verdant greenery I only saw a barren land where the original inhabitants had been destroyed or driven away and these spaces of so called beauty created for the destroyers. Barren of the people whose land it was by right.
I was very happy to return to my land within the year, with all the noise and dust and smoke. Where the poor and rich still intermingled on streets. Living, earning, communing.
Today in lockdown times, when I see posts admiring the pure rivers, the blue skies, the birds and bees and clouds. All I can see is honourable daily wagers reduced to penury and charity.
I would take the pollution, if that is how livlihoods can be reclaimed. Livlihoods come first.
And then collectively work towards reducing pollution while securing livlihoods.
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