By Azad Hussain
HUMAN BEINGS WITH CONVENIENT WAYS OF LIVING :
Human being, has been the most successful creature on this planet. He has made use of maximum available natural resources on earth and has converted them to useful resources. Craving for convenient ways of living, human has brought into use, his every nerve cell of brain to accomplish for best and comfort ways of living in future. From his vigorous toiling to make two ends meet, going through series of discoveries and inventions, at present the man has attained the stage where he has every smart means to live life needing least possible efforts. As they say, “ hardwork pays in a long run”, This journey from hard toiling to easily ways of earning has not been all of sudden or an easy job but this journey has consumed unlimited sleepless nights with midnight oil of those think tanks who by their contribution have earned recognition among the best researchers and best scientists. This all is because Allah SWT has bestowed human with a best quality brain to utilise the natural resources in a due manner.
The revolution, from old traditional shifting cultivation to scientific ways of agriculture, from carts as means of transport to aeroplanes, from boats as sea transport to huge ships, from communicating through written letters to high speed video calling, from newspapers to electronic media, from cooking on mud chulhas (clay stoves) to LPG gas stoves, from producing light by earthen oil lamps to electricity, from bow and arrow to fighter gets, from medicinal herbs to allopathic medicines and all, is the result of using the resources for specific purposes.
DEMERITS OF CONVENIENT WAYS OF LIVING
However this beautiful journey for convenience of living has, by means of exhaustive use of resources, brought with it few of its unintending side-effects rather the demerits. The environmental degradation due to depletion of natural resources like air, water, soil etc. is a visible aspects of demerit. But the invisible aspect of its demerits caused by convenient ways
DEPENDENT WAYS OF LIVING :
Benjamin Franklin who was first to discover electricity would have never thought to what extent his discovery would impact the world, and one day the whole world would be wholly and solely dependent on electricity. Without electricity, which is at present used for almost every purpose, life seems misery,
Early dependence for cooking on fire wood, which people would make available themselves has now been substituted by Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) for which people from all the countries are completely dependent on oil producing countries.
The cereals, spices, vegetables and fruits are not evenly produced throughout the globe. Type of soil, its fertility, topography, climatic conditions and application of latest scientific ways of cultivation are all responsible factors for uneven production of vegetation quantitatively as well as qualitatively. Apart from regional difference in production of specific agricultural products, the difference in quantitative and qualitative produce has also become a reason that made people to switch over to interregional dependence on agricultural products. Even the people of those regions where one could manage to produce low quantity bio products have given up planting them due to expensive means of farming. This has pushed the people to interregional dependence on agricultural products further more.
Regarding garments, the produce of raw material, manufacturing industries also vary from state to state. Thus the interdependence is inevitable, for garments too.
The production of raw materials for building construction, the location of automobile industries, Information technology serving companies etc. has also put people to depend on others.
DELICACY OF DEPENDENCE:
Though in a society people can’t lead a life without depending on one another for their basic needs but the complete dependent life would gradually pose a threat to the lives to face shortage of basic needs some day.
This chain of dependence is so delicate, that if it breaks, the whole world would collapse within the matter of weeks. So to keep the chain of interregional dependence intact interregional peace and interregional connectivity are very necessary tools and a driving force to make the people of this planet sustain their life peacefully.
SELF SUFFICIENCY A TOOL TO SURVIVE THROUGH LOCKDOWN
In the back drop of lengthy covid-19 lockdown, the low transportation of goods, the shortfall of supply of commodities, the economic losses of people, the least production of resources and all would leave a negative impact on social lives. So people need to minimise the dependence by utilising the available domestic resources and conserving resources well.
In near past, people of Jammu and Kashmir lived a simple life but were self-sufficient in sustaining life. They almost gathered needs from just their own surroundings. They would rear live stocks for milk and meat, they would grow many vegetables in kitchen gardens, they would make use of alternative sources of energy like firewood (particularly in rural areas) . And would live life without much depending on others.
But now people have given up old practices to remain self-sufficient, Some people who could at least grow the crops, though not for commercial purposes, but to fulfill their own needs of food, have given up using land for the purpose and have used up land for other purposes to generate more income.
Better it would be to conserve the resources and use them judiciously. One should make best use of domestic and alternative resources. People holding the land should use every square foot of their available land for growing vegetables and cereals. These measures could at least let us not live life with complete dependence on others.
The author can be reached at azadhussainganie9@gmail.com
