Every day, we hear and talk about environmental degradation, climate change, pollution and depletion of water resources, Greenhouse gases, menace of mounting waste and many other related aspects. I have worked with different international organizations working to reduce such impacts so that we can leave a reasonable world for our grandchildren. Are we getting anywhere? Depends on who you talk to.
On a philosophical plane, many religions and mythology talk about the great flooding of the earth at some point. Earth will then sleep for millions of years and life in some form may start again. If we believe any of them, this cycle would have repeated many times in the past and will happen again. Religions and mythology also talk about gods who create, maintain and destroy.
A big question hits me.
Are we at that stage now to help the process of destruction and facilitate the grand flooding and re birth? Is that an inevitable direction for which we have been programmed? Hindu religion talks about Kalki, the tenth Avatar of Vishnu who will end the current Kali Yuga, the last of the four periods in the endless cycle of existence. Kalki is supposed to end the darkest and destructive period and rejuvenate existence. This mythology is not far from the concepts of Messiah, Apocalypse, Frashokereti or Maitreya in other religions.
Are we Kalkis? If so, should we not hasten that process rather than resist it? And frankly, is there a choice? Or are we helplessly playing along a script that has already been written.
While I don’t like that line of fatalistic or negative thinking, many things around me seem to support it. On a very long flight from Singapore to New York that pollutes the earth with hundreds of tons of Greenhouse gases, I felt like a Kalki and that provoked me to write the following lines.
She’ll be happy without us
She made us; paid us, fed us, kept us.
Took too much crap.
She’s useless, tired n old
It’s too late. Let’s kill her.
Choke her, Poison her, drown her in waste.
Melt her, boil her, smoke her, dry her.
Let’s fight to take all.
Screw everyone else.
We can kill her; but birth she decides.
She’ll start again; always did.
Happy without us.
She’ll be happy without us.
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