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Christmas is a festival of love and miracles. Old traditions say that Santa Claus comes once a year on this day to fulfil your wishes. This year, the world needs his miracles more than ever.

 

Dear Santa,

‘Tis finally the season.

Every year as a child I used to anxiously wait for Christmas to come, for it was the day you came to make my wishes come true; to finally gift me the toys I had wanted all summer. But then I grew up and was told you weren’t real. Somewhere along the way I, too, stopped believing in miracles.

 

However, this Christmas, I’m counting on your arrival once again. I write this letter to you, in hope that there really is an old man on reindeers who comes once a year to make our wishes come true. And while I’m too big to play with toys now, I still have a couple of wishes I need to be fulfilled. The world as we know has way too many troubles.

 

It’s every day that I wake up with the realization that this world- my world- is dying. Climate change is here and it’s one of the scariest things in this world right now. The only thing scarier is our nonchalance regarding it: The ones in power have never cared less. There’s one part of the world burning, and the other part drowning in hurricanes. The remaining is being destroyed by humans ourselves.

 

It is us who have been at the forefront of this destruction. In our privilege and comfort, we often forget our responsibilities- our responsibility to care. There are far too many old men in power and barely any young voices out there. There are far too many women still fighting for their basic right to live in dignity and barely any changes. There are far too many people with too much money and barely any with a conscience.

 

Santa, I’d say I hope you being Christian doesn’t affect your chances of coming to India: a country whose leaders are trying their best to change it to a Hindu Rashtra. But then I know, you’re not one to discriminate. India needs its miracles, and it needs them soon. This past year we have had avoidable border conflicts, a state arbitrarily ripped of its power and authoritarian bills passed in the parliament. That’s not counting how low we’ve fallen in all indices. That’s not counting how terribly its people- its women- were treated. We faced leaders attempting to divide the country on religion, on caste, on gender. Regardless, I’d like to believe we stood strong.

 

It’s not just India I suppose, which has had its struggles intensified. The world is swamped with Trumps and Modis: men with a solitary goal of exploiting the earth and its people. But I suppose the world is also swamped with Greta Thunbergs, doing their own little bit.

 

Yet, every day I read the news to find new horrors. It really is at times like these when I can’t help but feel helpless. When I can’t help but wonder whether the little steps that we take are enough. When I can’t help but hope for a genie, or perhaps an old man with reindeers.

 

Every day, I look back at the world I was living in as a little kid. I’m sure the world right now needs more miracles than it needed back then. And who’s better than you?

 

With love,

Satviki

P.S. if you perhaps have some extra space in your sack, I’d like a life-sized teddy bear too!

 

 Featured Image Credits- Me.me

Satviki Sanjay

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Much like a dystopian plot, a young and passionate 16-year-old girl full of fire has taken the world by surprise. Greta Thunberg, a teenager from Sweden has been in the limelight for voicing herself out on the issue of climate change. Dig in deep to know how she’s come into the centre all of a sudden.

Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old girl from Sweden, has emerged as a leading global climate change activist. She came into limelight after she started protesting outside the Swedish Parliament in attempts to call for stronger action on addressing the issue of climate change. Her actions led to a wave of movement which was later coined as ‘Fridays for Future’ wherein students organise a school strike in order to raise concern over climate change.

Due to her sharp words, she has gathered all the more attention with people coming out both in favour of her and against.

Amongst the people critical of her actions, there are various arguments proposed.

“She is highly divisive, while living her stolen dream pretty incoherently. She gives some people something to applaud, but nothing to learn from and emulate.” Quotes a writer on a web platform.

People talk about the rationality and practicality of actually following the path Thunberg is treading for instance-travelling by a zero-emission boat which has a multimillion-dollar expense and tens of crew just to transport one person. The idea revolving around her nomination  for the Nobel Prize is also under scrutiny by the people whose views do not resonate with the Greta-Thunberg-type-of-climate-change activism.

These people have brought ahead two key examples, one from China and the other from India.

The first example is of the “Stubborn Couple”, Mr. Fu Zhiqiang and Mrs.  Chen Ailan from Xinjiang, China who have been working on ground as environmentalists since 1983 and have planted an entire forest on their own. Working tirelessly towards their goal, the couple has left no stone unturned in giving back to the earth even when there are on a hard crunch for resources and money.

Image Credits:  Image Caption:
Image Credits: China Xinjiang
Image Caption: The “Stubborn Couple” in action

The second example is of Mr. Jadav Payeng from Majuli, Assam, who pledged at the young age of fourteen to plant a tree every day in order to treat the problem of soil erosion in his area. His consistent efforts over a period of 40-years have led to the creation of a 550-hectare jungle. Due to his efforts Majauli is free from the problem of soil erosion and ecosystems have been restored in the place with rhinos, Bengal tigers and elephants returning to their territories.

Image Caption: India TV
Image Credits: India Today

But here’s the catch.

He had been working ‘silently’ far away from the media glare and right onto field, taking action. No one brought his actions, and of many more people who are working away silently, to the forefront.

At the end of the day, it’s a conflicting state of emotions. On one side there is a Greta, single handedly bringing sudden global attention to climate change. While, on the other hand, there are others who devote their entire lives for the protection and conservation of the environment. It is not about a war between who is a true environmentalist. Everyone in their own actions is one equally.

The real question stands that what remains the purpose of this movement. Will the climate change activism boil down to addressing the following questions?

‘Is it about PR and power?’

‘Is it about name and fame?’

‘Is it about action or just rhetoric?’

It’s a strange turn of events, a unique, one of its kind crossroads ahead of many people who are wary, sceptical or all too clueless of what is happening.

In the end it’s wise to leave you on an unbiased note. What is your take, your view and your vision?Is there truly a middle path?

Feature Image Credits: Harpers bazaar

Amrashree Mishra

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