Grumblers galore!

There is a song about grumbling which goes like this:

In country town or city

Some people can be found

Who spend their time in grumbling

At everything around.

Oh yes, they always grumble

No matter what we say

For these are chronic grumblers

And they grumble day and night.

This can very well apply to us for we are chronic grumblers! We grumble about everything under the sun. We even grumble that there is nothing to grumble about! Grumbling is a national hobby.

We grumble about the high rate of unemployment, the agricultural crisis leading to deaths of farmers, slow industrial growth (to name a few of the problems) yet vote a corrupt party to power. And the corrupt party, in turn, mouths pious platitudes and spends the next five years saying how corrupt the previous government was. But nary a word about how it is going to right those wrongs or the steps it will take to alleviate life for the common man.

We grumble about the garbage and litter all round — under trees, in drains effectively blocking them and causing overflow, choking rivers and filling mountain sides. But who does anything about it? No one. We grumble about the water shortage which has reached a critical stage and has assumed frightening proportions. Yet, when people are going thirsty and have to walk miles to queue for hours for a miserable amount of water that is not even potable, roads are washed and helipads sprinkled with precious water for the idle rich!

People living in cities grumble about the heat despite having every comfort money can buy but have scant regard for climate change. The carbon footprints we release is a serious threat to marine life and has caused rare flora and fauna to become near extinct. Do we care? We just grumble.

Air pollution is affecting millions. Our roads are chock full of vehicles and the numbers are increasing daily. The emission from these at traffic lights alone is enough to choke life. The green cover is mercilessly destroyed (one estimate puts the vanishing trees at the size of Bengaluru in 18 years!) to make way for ugly concrete structures. How do we react? We grumble and let the offenders do as they please.

We grumble about chemical fertilisers being added to the soil to facilitate growth of vegetables and fruit. But indirectly we fill the earth with harmful chemicals. Unless we gird up our loins and start to think, “This earth is mine. It was bequeathed to me by previous generations. Let me do my bit and leave it a better place for next generation,” we are doomed. So let us shun this “Why can’t someone do something?” attitude and get down to helping ourselves. Every little bit will help.