Mini garbage dumps inside the campus being
partly burnt at convenient intervals of time. An everyday scene at one of the
top engineering institutes in India. No, this is not a post that’s going to
slam the way our institute runs or deal with such issues. There can be various
complaints, from, “There aren’t enough street lights” to “Why are these lights
always on?”
But, amidst all this, what are we doing?
Bathroom lights are always switched on throughout the day, and when someone
takes out 15 seconds to switch them off, there’s bound to be some other student
who “utilizes” his time to switch them on within 5 minutes, claiming “There’s
not enough light da/yaar!” Almost as if
there’s some activity of great precision that needs to be executed inside the
washroom.
The other common reason to keep all the
lights on is “College is paying for the electricity, why do you care?” (And
it’s more informal translated forms with more slangs than sense in various
languages) It’s ridiculous how students can
claim to be "educated" at a premiere institute like ours and yet be so ignorant.
In an era where Global Warming is taught
about way back from primary school, can we really blame the country and all its
authorities for not being too serious about the issue? Alright, maybe we can,
but can we all stand up and say, “I’m doing my bit”? Are we making a conscious
effort to not litter and throw the smallest of candy wrappers in the dust bin?
Are we making an effort to not keep our mobile on charge overnight? Are we
making an effort to switch off the main switch outside our rooms, and rooms of
others in case they’ve forgotten (yeah right!) to?
We at LEAP hope to change and make the
campus greener. Ah well, we claim to. Truth is, we aren’t as serious as we
should be ourselves. Taking my own case as an example, I’d volunteered to write
for our blog about 2 months back and needed a reminder to write something. Most
of us LEAP members are busy attending Pragyan and Festember meetings instead of
taking LEAP forward. Which is a more pressing issue, the environment or the
reputation of our tech/cultural fest? A 2 minute thought would lead us to the
obvious conclusion. What do the students from other not-as-good-as-NITT
institutes come and have a good hard think about whether they were better off
to have not got into a “better” institute?
We, my friends, need to bring about a
change. And by “we” I mean each and every student at the institute and not just
members of LEAP. We LEAP members are merely those who’ve come forward for
various reasons but the real results can only be obtained if we all work
together and cooperate. We students need to understand our responsibility and
act in unison.
And if not, we’ll probably soon be paying
for the electricity we waste, in the form of ever increasing taxes that our
government imposes on us. The AAP has already made amends to reduce the
electricity charges in Delhi and if the others try to follow their lead, such a
situation cannot be far away!
I’ll end with a quote from Albert Al Gore,
“Future generations may well have occasion to ask
themselves, "What were our parents thinking? Why didn't they wake up when
they had a chance?What we take for granted might not be here for our children."
