For God's sake

For God’s sake!

TOI 17 July 2016

It’s coming! It’s coming! The festive season is coming! It is the time when a wave of religious fervour sweeps over the population of our fair city. Devotees gather at temples, parks, beaches, community halls, in front of their apartments and at street corners to celebrate festivals such as Guru Powrnima, Mangala Gowri Vratam, Varalakshmi Vratam, Jandyala Powrnami, Sri Krishna Jayanthi, Vinayaka chaturdhi, Durga Puja, Diwali, Kartika masam, Nagula chavithi and so on. These festivals are a time for rejoicing, socialising, shopping (what would the retailer do if there were no festivals?) and communing with God. Over the years these festivals have grown from small family and community activities to huge public spectacles involving lakhs and lakhs of devotees. And due to our constant need to communicate with the divine and solicit His blessings, the numbers joining the festivities is growing exponentially every year. How is this explosion of faith affecting our city and the lives of the majority of our population?

Three lakh devotees – 15 lakh plastic sachets

Two days from now, on 18th July, in an extraordinary demonstration of faith, more than 3,00,000 men, women and children will undertake a devotional walk around the Simhachalam hill before worshipping the presiding deity Sri Varaha Lakshmi Narusimha Swamy on Guru Poornima. Originally the practice would have involved a handful of devotees walking a quiet forest trails to focus their mind on nature and on God. They would have drunk water from the streams and carried some butter milk in a mud pot. But now things have changed. Well-meaning organisations supply water sachets and buttermilk all along the way without appreciating the after-effects. Consequently this event contributes the highest volume of plastic in a single day to Vizag's environment. Within hours of the event's start the entire 32 km stretch is covered with plastic sachets. With 3L people doing the Pradikshana and each person consuming 4-6 packets of water, and many washing their heads and faces with this water, 15 Lakh or more sachets are tossed around the walking route. So, what is wrong with that? We may well ask.

The five century menace

These casually tossed away plastic sachets make a godforsaken mess until they are swept up by GVMC staff and moved to landfills where they lie for ever unless someone collects them up for recycling. The pity is that the collection side of our re-cycling industry is so small scale that only a fraction of the plastic sachets is actually collected and goes to the plastic manufacturer. In view of this most of the water sachets are left outdoors to disintegrate. Over 500 years or so the bags will eventually disintegrate, become plastic dust and get mixed with the soil. Our future generations will probably be munching on LLDPE plastic flavoured mangoes! In the meantime they will lie around for goats, cows and buffalos to munch on and play havoc with their digestive system. Some of the bags will be blown by the wind into our geddas and drains and choke our storm-water system. It will travel to our beaches and sea and float around our oceans for centuries killing off marine life. The requirement to clean up after the festival puts a strain on GVMC which needs an army of sweepers and fleets of trucks to clear the route. So, who pays for the cleaning operations? You and I and other tax payers like ourselves. So it is not difficult to appreciate the link between a mega religious event around Simhachalam and the impact it has on our lives and the lives of God’s other creatures on land and in the sea.

Our neighbourhood pandal

As the festival season continues over the next 3 or 4 months the frenzy of activities will result in even more plastic pollution, rubbish on roads and a cacophony of loudspeaker delivered sound. But if we start early and have clarity in a set of rules we can have a safe non-polluting festival season. As we have seen in past festivals the threats are disposable Styrofoam plastic prasadam plates, plastic water sachets, cups and dishes. A major pollutant is the use of POP idols that are immersed in the sea and the increasing number of processions with loud speakers late into the night.

Let’s be smart about this

We are on the way to becoming a Smart City and certainly we must be able to smartly solve these problems. If some decisions are taken in advance we can mitigate the problem and set a benchmark for handling festivals. For example we could license and curtail number of pandals by charging a hefty “cleaning up afterwards” fee, GVMC Sanitary Inspectors can fan out and have a tough talk with all puja organisers on avoiding plastics and using "adda aku" dishes only. We can get big supply of adda aku from the agency areas through the Girijan Corporation. We must ban use of large POP idols with dangerous lead based synthetic paints. The authorities can restrict use of sound systems of beyond 10W amplification during the festive period especially when going for immersions. To change public opinion we could start early by releasing a few press statements and ask Vizagites to support. Remember that after Hudhud in 2014 no one burst crackers during Diwali respecting public sentiment. Now that most areas have Residents Welfare Associations they can play a part in in dissuading too many pandals in their colonies. The commissioner of police should also issue a few statements about pandals not causing traffic bottle necks and most importantly the media can help greatly in this initiative by shaping public opinion. The message could be: “If God is in our hearts we don't have to make a public spectacle to prove it.” Change will come slowly but at least we would have made a start.

God given opportunity

As far as handling the Giri Pradikshana event is concerned two days from now; prevention is better than a cure. Some measures that can be taken to mitigate the problem are for example - supply potable water only from hygienic tanks along the route, carry out a flash ad campaign asking devotees to carry their own water bottle and fill up along the way from taps. Ask all rubbish to be put inside bins provided by sponsors and GVMC. All this can be a part of an awareness campaign on FM Radio and use of auto rickshaw announcements. This is an opportunity to bring about behavioural change in a large section of the population in one shot. The expense on the campaign will save Vizag much more money on the long run. If the message of “Swachh Bharat” has to be propagated here is a real God given opportunity. For God’s sake let us do it right this year.