A GREEN CONVERT

Bikash Choudhury


After marriage, took a flat on rent at Chennai and tried to raise a family afresh.While doing up the living room put a Rubber Plant near the window adjacent to the Divan(mattress on the floor).The rubber plant with regular care and affection, as the third member of the brand new family turned out to be a healthy and strong and beautiful sapling with deep green thick leaves;the sight of which I enjoy while retiring after work at home in the evenings with hot cup of tea with Gazals of Pankaj Udas in a moderately lit setting.Aha..aha those were moments of pure pleasure.Then, I always found that rubber plant more seductive than many beautiful women seen in the day.This was my first attempt to go green.Now, about fifty plants of different species give me company in my living room and two balconies in my flat at Bhubaneswar.Complements from relatives who visit my self proclaimed green home bolstered my courage and I ventured out, to plant17 saplings in front of my flat along the road on the auspicious day of "Cart Festival" Ratha Jatra as called in Orissa;and coxed two of my brothers to do the same.Further, me and my wife had taken great care to restrict our power consumption to 100 units, planning to add a com-poster to convert organic kitchen waste into manure and a solar cooker to reduce LPG consumption.On top of it, started using the envelop covers & one sided papers for my writing activities.(If Gandhian way of using envelop covers were used in Govt. and private offices;we could save half a million trees a day)Deliberately use a two wheeler for mobility in the small city of Bh8ubaneswar which is comfortable to zip in and zip out, no hassles for parking and above all very low on carbon foot print.My next target is convincing my flat association to install a Rain Water Harvesting System(RWH).Recently, quit smoking voluntarily and wish to deploy the savings in plantation.A thought gripped the mind:If the young working people(software Techies & Sales and marketing guys) contain their smoking to 50% and invest 50% of the savings in plantation, then 15 lakhs of saplings can be added every month.(Assuming, every young working persons who smokes, spends a thousand rupees on cigarette, a month and six lakhs of smokers out of two million software Techies and sales personnel on the pay roll and with cost of plantation of a sapling including tree guard @ Rs.100).I wish to appeal to all the girl friends of Boys who smoke--please persuade your future life partner to increase his life by 50% and also put a green Idea in his mind that would help your children and grand children romancing around trees that you plant today.A short story of Neo-green convert who now loves to dream in green.