What prompted me to write this piece are moments when I or my friends exclaimed Óh, this is interesting, I should do it!' I am talking about ingenious ways to reduce the amount of garbage that we tend to generate innocuously, especially during festivals! And my inspiration comes from people who have graciously adopted with the times, though the tradition dictates otherwise.
This being Navarathri season, let
me start with the golu, the doll display that is common in South India. From being a modest affair with neighbours
calling on, it has become a big social event – not that I complain about this
change! But it comes with its own
devils. You can’t give the Prasad in an
open container like leaf bowl and you can’t carry that long distance. Then there is paan and fruits and a token
gift – how is one expected to carry all these?
One generally tends to dress up and saunter into golus without the
burden of carrying a bag to pack the goodies!
It is disturbing when you come
back from a golu visit – take a peek into that goodie bag! Mostly the goodie bag is plastic and it is
already soggy or soiled and ends up in the bin.
Then there are those small pouches of haldi and kum kum which you empty
and then throw away (I don’t understand those teeny weeny pouches with micro
grams – by the time you succeed in opening them, half of it is spilled!). Then there is the Prasad (usually a savoury
or sweet pulse preparation, commonly called Sundal) packed in a plastic pouch. Also ends up in the bin after emptying. Though the quantum could be less, I have seen
that this small grammage plastic is what actually chokes our garbage disposal
system as they are not picked by resellers! And I know that many of us would
like to reduce this, given a choice. So, what do we do?
When I look around, I realise that it is not actually difficult to
do away with these, provided one has the mind and chooses again ‘Substance over
form’ (my favourite saying). This time,
I tried packing the sundal in a thick brown envelope – I experimented myself by
checking out the taste after some time.
Found that it kept well for quite some time and tended to become soggy
after an hour or so or only when squished.
They are as expensive or sometimes cheaper than the plastic pouch and
they come in all sizes and thickness, available in any stationary shop!
And, I requested my visiting
friends to transfer it to vessel as soon as they reached home; for visitors
with a long commute, I packed in a reusable plastic jar. Then the haldi, kum
kum – I consciously decided to do away with these – offer when they are
home. It is a choice and when thought through,
makes sense. Then the goodie bag – this is indeed tricky as many of us give a
banana or a coconut with betal leaves.
Any packaging has to be sturdy and comes with a cost – I managed this
time as my goodie bag literally was a bag but that was just coincidence this
time – what to do, when you are giving away something else?
Here, I would think that the
visitor should carry a bag – remember the old times ? Though we used to get only sundal those days,
we still used to carry a small cloth bag to bring back the newspaper wrapped
sundal. Then we would sort them out at
home and consume. Why not go back to
that culture – especially when there are so many designer cute bags out there
(jute is my favourite)? Make a fashion
statement with that sling bag along with your saree or traditional attire.
When I write this, I am reminded
of my child hood days and what strikes me is that our culture actually is built
around at least the 2 of the 3 Rs – Reduce and reuse. It could have been because the thin plastic
bags were unheard of those days, but I am fascinated by that culture. Nobody stepped out with that yellow cloth bag
(oh, what a transformation it has gone
through and just check the range available these days on cloth bags!). Every packaging item was consciously
reused. I have seen people saving the
unusually long plastic sheets for drying the papads and crisps (vadams) made at
home. I have myself been amused by this
when I was young, but today, it is their ‘responsive usage’ that I want to
applaud for more than the thriftiness (which is also not bad!).
Whether it is golu or any other
festival, I think it would do well for all of us to think little bit out of the
box and may be, chat with our moms to get some ideas on how to reduce the
garbage. And I am sure many of you have your own ideas and ways of reducing garbage, and do share them with others and inspire others! We owe it to mother Earth whom we celebrate
in all these functions and of course our kids! And we owe it to our own creativity and ingenuity and actually wisdom to adapt the traditional practices to today's environment, literally!
