Save Earth

I used to wear skirts made out of my dad's pants or a ‘kameez’ made out of dad's shirt, all the time. My school bags were never bought new; they were always stitched by my mother out of an old, thick bedsheet. And the kind of material that it was, the school bag never left me for the next three or four years! So while all my friends had good, new school bags made out of plastic or foam, I used to carry this bag made of cloth!

Doormats were never bought in my house. My mother used to roll a ‘saree’ in concentric circles and stitch it with oddly placed stitches of different colour threads. Kitchen towels and hand towels were always made out of some old tablecloth or a ‘dupatta’ or a shirt, or any other piece of cloth. I had these friends, who used to go to the ‘one and only’ air conditioned shop in town and buy new doormats, towels, etc, and I used to think that when I grew up and got married, I would never make things at home; I would buy them!

Time passed, I got married and I didn’t really have to start the practice of buying. My mom-in-law anyway was the kind of person who used to buy things from shops and never took the trouble of making things – at least things like doormats – at home. Carrying a branded plastic cover was like a fashion statement for me. I continued this kind of life and quite forgot all about ‘homemade’ stuff. But thanks to my mom's ‘thrifty’ ways all through my childhood, I inherited the art of making the best out of waste materials from her, anyway!

Today, the whole world is suddenly talking about preservation and use. Globally, the melting of the Arctic glacier seems to be a reason for worry, and thus for keeping the environment clean and green. Opinions abound on why the planet is getting covered in a plastic blanket, but it all makes me only stop, pause, and wonder. Holy cow! My mom was just being eco-friendly all this while! She was so ahead of the times; she was just trying to keep the planet safe.

If only we, as the mothers of today, are able to imbibe even a miniscule of what was done by my mother, I guess our beloved planet, Earth, can heave a sigh of relief and not get suffocated under all the careless ‘covering’ we are unwittingly giving her.

So yes, the time to join hands and save planet Earth has come!