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Journalism of Courage
We have already taken it for granted that sometime in the future we shall be colonising other planets. Thankfully, as of now, no salubrious substitute seems to be around. But let’s assume that there is a planet which is the Earth’s twin (Earth 2.0), circling somewhere in the solar system, with intelligent life on it, and the first tranche of human immigrants touches down and applies for visas (on arrival, of course). As we in India claim to have travelled to space thousands of years before Sputnik 1, naturally, there would be Indians on board, leading the group. But first we have to get visas and face interviews just as we have to do on Earth:
Earthling: Good morning, sirji. We’d like to apply for visas and Green Cards to live and work on Earth 2.0. Visa officer: Very well, but why have you chosen to leave Earth 1?
Earthling: To avail of better opportunities available here, so our children can become billionaires. It is so lovely, green and serene here.
Visa officer: Surely, there are equally good opportunities available on Earth 1. After all, these are twin planets.
Earthling: Jee hanji, but Earth 1 is now getting houseful! It has also become very difficult to breathe; AQI is off the scale and Covid-19 has really set us back. The water is full of evil bacteria. So many people are getting cancer.
Visa officer: You have homes to return to on Earth 1?
Earthling: Yes, sirji, of whichever kind you like! Some of us have 27 storey buildings for just one family of six people. Others live in jhopadpattis which get bulldozed every now and then, because VIPs don’t like to look at them.
Visa officer (hooding his/her eyes): You know, we have kept Earth 1 under observation for thousands of years. At first, we were envious of your planet: it was beautiful, like a sapphire in space, blue, green and white. Huge oceans packed with fish and delicious seafood, rainforests with
colossal trees teeming with wildlife and which made their own weather. Life forms of every conceivable variety, all wanting to succeed and in doing so ensuring your entire planet lived. Some of you even believed that the whole planet functioned like a single living entity; I think you called it Gaia.
Earthling: Yes sir, you should have visited us then. Now carbon dioxide and other gases, plastics and sewage have invaded every nook and cranny of the Earth, making matters very difficult and heating up the planet like a tawa. Our children are eating plastic chowmien and Frisbee pizzas sirji!
Visa officer: You mean, this carbon dioxide and plastics and whatnot just materialised on their own?
Earthling: Nahin, ji, the Westerners are responsible for much of that. We in India were happy with our labour-intensive industries and then they went and invented the Industrial Revolution and began eating hamburgers for which they cut down all the rainforests to grow food for their cows. We had the bullock cart and they went and invented the motor car, (I have two Mercedes SUVs, and the latest BMW sir ji, really beautiful cars, but where to drive them?) which along with other industries made us all 10-pack-a-day smokers.
Visa officer: I find this difficult to understand — since time immemorial, all over the world you have worshipped nature. So why do you crap all over her all the time? You throw your trash everywhere, you dig huge ugly mines in her surface like big zits, scarring her beautiful face like smallpox. When you climb a tall mountain you crow that you’ve ‘conquered Nature’. Can you conquer your mother? How disrespectful is that! No wonder she is getting cranky and throwing tantrums.
Earthling 1: (pointing to Westerners):Sirji ask them that… They started it and are to blame. They call their mothers by their first names instead of mataji. No respect, sirji!
Visa officer: Okay, so what can you do for us here on Earth 2.0? What skillsets do you possess?
All Earthlings in chorus: Oh, sirji you just mention it and we can do it!
Build millions of Marutis and construct 12-lane expressways, introduce you to hamburgers and pizzas, extract oil, coal, diamonds and gold out of the ground and make you rich, construct huge dams and power stations, level every forest, produce devastating weapons of mass destruction. Yes
sirji, we’ll climb every mountain, ford every stream, build every gizmo and blow up anything…
Visa officer (shuddering): So poetic! Ah yes, but we were afraid of that. And about weapons. Do you realise you’re the only living creature that can destroy your own mother? Isn’t that shameful? She’s taken 4.5 billion years to get you to where you are and you can finish all that in the blink of an eye. The only consolation is that you will be assuring your own destruction, too: what you called MAD (mutually assured destruction).
Earthlings: That is why we have come here sirji. When that happens on Earth, we won’t be there and will be able to carry on Mother Nature’s legacy here… One small point: if you give us visas can I import my Mercedes and BMW duty-free?
Visa officer: Legacy? You mean MAD? Sorry Earthlings, visas denied. You will be put on the next flight back to Earth 1!
