A Few Reflections

A Few Reflections

Just a few decades ago, heart attacks, hypertension, diabetes and cancer were words we mentioned under our breaths. These malaises were rare and it was not uncommon to see a person who had never even met, seen or heard of someone with one of these ailments. Truly a far cry from the world today

From 1% of the urban population just a decade ago to 13% today, is a quantum leap for the numbers of those suffering from cardiovascular diseases (CVD). Compare this with a world where there were city dwellers who had never even seen a heart patient in his entire life. So why are we so clearly unhealthy and fragile?

I remember the days I watched my grandfathers, paternal and maternal, one with a teacher’s job, the other a farmer, who would nonetheless be out in the back yard or the field before sunrise, helping labourers as they sowed, watered, tended and reaped. They walked miles with no ceremony, and clearly with hardly any sign of tiredness. They did not all look like the body building specimens we see today on the billboards as the symbol of great health, but were infinitely healthier than any of these showmen.

As we grew sophisticated, we grew away from the soil. Fresh air and clean drinking water meant rusticity and lack of sophistication, maybe even poverty. We destroyed water bodies and wetlands, deserted our paddy field and built swimming pools where there stood jackfruit and mango trees. We started eating junk instead of fresh fruits and to add to that we purchased genetically modified vegetable, which even the measly worm wouldn’t touch. We keep forgetting that this is the soil we came from and will eventually return to. We know nothing of soil and what it means to us.

We made great “advancements,” devising cures for diseases that were non-existent fifty years ago. We spent millions in hard currency from the public coffers, grabbed from the hard working citizen’s tax money on research and development of these drugs and preventives. And yet public health went on a rapid tailspin and there is not a single citizen who can claim even semblance of good health. Our youth are victims to emotional trauma in one form or other. And we live today wholly dependent on electronic and online devices for every one of our daily requirements, lazy even to go shopping

It is my belief, nay assertion that the day we left the soil for the urbanity and sophistication we ran away from natural health and resistance to diseases that we were blessed with by divinity or by evolution. We lost the taste of freshness and chose modified and unnatural tastes that tested and corrupted our palates. We drank coloured beverages with weird chemistry in its composition. We even took pride in describing our illnesses and ill health. We found an easy way to blame our work and attendant stress, for all our ailments, tactfully forgetting the fact that we hardly move a limb, breathed in toxic air which we pollute everyday driving our cars for all reasons unnecessary and spend hours peering into a six by two inch LCD screen, destroying our God given eyesight. We plugged hearing devices to our healthy ears destroying our natural hearing ability. We forgot to plant even the Christmas tree and purchased plastic versions at Christmas time, to pretend celebration we do not feel in our own hearts.

With the world tottering on the brink of mass annihilation of humankind, through ingeniously engineered pathogens, with no cure whatsoever, some wise men realized that the solution starts just a few steps away, in the soils in our backyard. They stepped out and planted a few seeds for starters. A few months later with aid of no chemical fertilizer they plucked the fresh red tomatoes, chillies and Aubergines (Brinjal if you are Indian) from their backyards. Watching them a few of their neighbours followed the example. And thus we see some wise men going back to the soil and benefitting from it, health wise, wealth wise and happiness-wise.

And as is the norm nowadays, there were the “Nay Sayers”, grumpies and the ever present all-knowing sceptic. And as usual they were legion. But hope remains. Mankind has found its way back to reason in the past. And invariably saved itself. Hope that happens now, once more. It is high time though.

For me, I am back in the backyard, though a bit behind schedule, but wholly committed. If not me, at least those who borrow the idea from me may benefit. Guess it is better late than never.