During a week end cruise Anna and I had on the Cochin harbour, we noticed ships unloading sand at the port. Both ships had come from Calcutta. Recently sand was even imported from Thailand and Indonesia for construction industry. There is severe scarcity of river bed sand and the cost is prohibitively high. In fact the construction of buildings is sometimes delayed due to the unavailability of sand.
This change in the scarcity of the sand has happened in my life time. A truck load of sand was available for 200 rupees fifty years back and now the same is costing around 50000 rupees.
This is the consequence of the consumption culture! The M-sand which is a substitute for river bed sand is made from granite which is now mined from every source in different parts of this state. Soon that source too would get exhausted.
I wonder whether humans pause to think of the prospects of exhaustion of natural resources! When a family can live comfortably in two or three bed room house or flat, the tendency is to buy a larger house. This craze for ‘big’ is at the cost of consuming more and exhausting the resources!
We might be good at evolving technology to harvest the resources of nature! But nature would get even more depleted!
I remember, what Jesus of Nazareth referred said in anguish, 'Beware and be on guard against every form of greed; for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions’ (Luk.12:15).
If I can reduce consuming, I preserve the resources for others and tomorrow!
M.C.Mathew (text and photo)
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