Combating inflation

Rising food prices and cost of other basic items increasing everyday living has become an everyday problem. Especially for the expatriates who are finding it hard to cope up with the rising costs and virtually stagnant salaries. Although the government is doing everything they can for the Bahrainis they are neglecting expatriates – who are also toiling for this same country.

Anyways, I am not looking for sympathy from anyone out there because I feel that it’s not the sympathy or even empathy that any one of us needs right now. Instead what we need is to think and think with a clear logical mind about the rising cost of loving all over the world. We need to realise that all the climatic changes we are experiencing these days is not by chance – it is the nature’s answer to all the abuse we have been hurling at her over all these years. ‘Global Warming’ is her answer to all the concrete jungle and industrialisation that the mankind has been carrying on since decades now without any concern about the effect it will have on our environment.

People wonder how to combat this inflation – how to control the rising food prices how to provide enough food to the poor – I guess there is only one thing we can do right now and that is seriously consider our options. Make our bit to slow down the global warming process. It’s a daunting task but it is not impossible if we all put our heads together in it.

Inflation is not by chance and neither is the rising cost of living. It is the direct result of changing climatic conditions – severe drought in one country to severe floods in another, destructive earthquakes and tsunamis are not by chance, – and this is how nature is retaliating to all the abuse she has faced all these years.

We all can do something to save our environment. These are few of my suggestions. If anyone has something else to add to this please feel free to add on this and pass it on to all your friends and colleagues. Let’s make a pledge to save our environment.

1. Recycle: I am sure we all have been reading about recycling so let’s start doing it. Recycle anything and everything that we can. Paper, food waste, plastic bottles, soft drink cans. I mean anything.
2. Say no to plastic bags: Please refuse to take them even if shops offer them for free. They are the worst enemy of our environment.

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PLASTIC OR NO PLASTIC: IS WHAT THE QUESTION IS….

Recently in the Kingdom of Bahrain started a debate on how environmental friendly are the jute/cloth bags over the plastic bags which are injurious not only to our nature but even our little ones. Well! It was not actually a debate rather an effort by some of the popular malls and joints in the country to introduce environmental friendly bags to the customers.

And so with much enthusiasm in their hearts to do their bid for their country, the malls started a major campaign of promoting the reusable jute/cloth bags. Management used every advertising media available to them for the purpose. They even conducted a small survey asking them about their preferences and whether they also wanted to protect their environment. They also set a deadline after which these malls will start charging every plastic bag they gave to the customers.

However, suddenly the idea was shelved. Why? Because the high handed customers were not ready to pay for what they have been getting free. They were ready for low quality plastic bags for which they didn’t have to pay but they were not at all ready for jute/cloth reusable bags which are environmental friendly. And that’s why the malls had to shelve the idea for better or worse. Their argument they didn’t want to lose their customers.

But it was customers like me who were baffled by the response of our fellow citizens and their refusal to change their habits all because they had to part with some of their money.

I was actually surprised to hear the comments of one such person (lets call him Mr A) who said instead of government asking us not to use plastic bags why don’t they plan a recycling unit (I will write about this in a separate piece) and tell us to use as many plastic bags as we can. This was from an educated and senior person and in a senior position too in one of the leading dailies of the country. I wondered if this was the thought process of this educated person what could I expect from people who are business minded and are only concern about their needs however selfish they may be.

There was one customer who suggested the malls to have biodegradable big brown bags with the mall logo on them. Unfortunately this sensible customer forgot that in order to make these ‘biodegradable brown paper bags’ trees need to be cut and in a desert country where there are hardly any trees what is this person suggesting.

So there went the idea of going green and using the reusable bags. Till the time the malls come up with some intelligent idea to beat the high handed customers I think there will be no successful green drive in this country.

 

Green Drive gone wrong

The Kingdom of Bahrain is a small country constituting of various small islands with erratic climate and temperatures. Although there is a sea there are no proper ‘exotic’ beaches like in Mauritius or Maldives it is still a proud little country about its culture and heritage – which I must add is more cosmopolitan than any other countries in Gulf.

Hence it was no surprise when the government decided that it was time to do something to take care of this beautiful country which was turning into an environmental mess and hence started campaigns Green Drive and Green Bahrain. Everyone showed eagerness in these campaigns, except the people in the country without whom this would be a failure.

Supermarkets in the country also decided to their own bit by introducing the reusable jute/clothe bags and gave enough time to the customers to get use to the idea of using these reusable bags. However, much to the surprise of these supermarkets management people not only out rightly rejected the idea of using reusable bags – good for the environment – but not well enough for customers. Supermarkets had decided that they will still give the plastic bags to those who want it but will charge a nominal fee of 20 fils (Rs2) but customers were not ready to pay for what they have been getting for free for a long time. So now the supermarkets are back to square one of issuing low quality plastic bags which the management claims is not as harsh on the environment as the normal plastic bag.

However, this is where I would like to raise the question can plastic – whether of low quality or not can be fair to the environment especially when we all know that it takes ages for one plastic bag to decompose and even when it does decompose it releases toxic chemicals polluting our environment? Have we become so selfish in our own needs that we are not even thinking about our children? What kind of environment are we leaving for them?

Some of these questions are never asked directly although there are at the back of every sensible man – and I guess that’s where the problem is? It’s not just Bahrain where people don’t want to change their habits it’s everywhere. If we want to protect our Earth then we need to contribute at an individual level.

Any suggestions and comments are welcome.

Eleven Minutes and eternity or eleven minutes or more….

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Add new tag, Books

I read this book Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho few days back and I was so touched by the subject that I was compelled to pen down my feelings and emotions I experienced while reading the book. Maybe because of my pregnancy or maybe the book has something in it that makes you stop and take a good look at your life … Yes, you read it right. Take a good look at our lives – where are we heading, are we happy in our jobs?

People who have read the book might be wondering what I am talking about… because the novel talks or rather narrates the story of an ambitious girl who became a prostitute by her own choice – why because that’s was the only profession with loads of money or should I say easy money as some people think. She had a choice to go for some other profession – after all she is educated – but she chose what she chose so that she can earn enough money to buy a farm for her parents and live happily ever after.

But then fate intervenes and a naughty cupid strikes his bow and viola the prostitute falls in love with a painter – one of the special clients at the bar where she works. But falling in love is not in her plans – well not exactly. She had fallen in love twice before – once she was just a young school going kid and then again when she was in high school. However, both the times she gained nothing except pain so our little protagonist realises that she is not cut out for love and so what she do when she realised that she has again repeated the folly of falling in love. She denies the feeling, fights it with all her mind and she succeeds until the fate decides that enough was really enough gives a fairy tale ending to her story.

Beautifully written, well researched subject and a moving story – Eleven Minutes is a novel which everyone should read.