Tilak Amitava Chowdhury

Indian scriptures always promoted and prescribed four stages of human life: the age of students, the age of family, the age of simple living in the forests and lastly the age of seeking Nirvana theough austerities.  As we became more advanced scientifically, we ignored these teachings and chased prolonged material gratification and longievity through artifitial means. This made us more dependent on the man made recipes of good health that took us away from nature. I think it's time to reverse that. We must move back closer to nature and consume less. Infact in the book Ikigai, the authors mention a lifestyle that is simple, organised, social and close to nature.  We have been straining the natural resources and depleting them really fast. This is giving rise to one calamity after other. Most of these calamities are manmade and triggered by mindless consumption fuelled by our limitless greed for more. It's time we pause. It's time we look at and refer the wisdom of our ances

Let's shed a tear for all those trees we massacared to furnish our homes Let's shed a tear for all those animals we slaughtered in the name of sports Let's shed a tear for all the rivers we polluted In the name of prosperity Let's shed a tear for all the mountains we mercilessly chopped in the name of growth Let's shed a tear for all the pollutants we dumped in the seas and suffocated the life there Let's shed a tear for all the birds we made homeless to build homes for us Let's shed a tear for all the bees who lost their way, for us to check social media nonstop on our phones Let's shed a tear for all the forests that we burnt with the fire of our greed May be then, when all of humanity cries together for the sins we committed for generations, may quench the fire we ignited in the breast of mother nature.  Then may be she will cry for us too, like a mother who sees the repentence in the eyes of her devastated children. May be then, we will earn her forg