Skyscrapers and airports

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Recently a friend of mine shared a picture on Facebook, of a town in Kerala (I would not destroy its purity by calling it a 'city'): brilliantly lit, straight out of a night scene from Hollywood. Naturally, the friend was proud of how beautiful the city looked. A few comments from others also echoed the thought. I, on the other hand, felt a pang and hence did not comment or 'Like' it.

I remember seeing a picture of Night Bangalore a few years ago, and sharing it with every Bangalorean I knew, because it looked so like an international city. I was proud of it too.
But no longer.

Skyscrapers do not excite me anymore. Not because I have seen too many - no, I haven't seen any except in pictures. I don't find the newest - posh and polished - international airports across the world awe-inspiring. I know they are convenient and comfortable and state-of-the-art. But it also means we are shoving more daggers into ourselves.

I don't know if our dwelling places need so many lights, but I am sure it helps people who are forced to wander out at night. But where in the world has Nature been ousted to?

If we look at the pictures of the same places during the day, we would no doubt see a number of dreary buildings, old and new, roads, fly-overs and vehicles. There might also be manicured lawns and a spatter of trimmed shrubs flanking the streets, and perhaps a tree or two.

The greenery is fake. Our environment-friendly actions and concerns for nature are all phoney.

We fool ourselves that the little acts of kindness - in the form of shrubs that we plant - will throw sand in someone's eyes. If anything, it is our own eyes that we're throwing sand into.

We're unintentional hypocrites. We applaud man-made structures on one side and lament about vanishing greenery on the other.

Convenience and Environment have become mutually exclusive terms. One cannot exist where the other thrives. Not as things are now.

Think about it.
Unless there is a change...

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