He says…

“Is it just me, or is it getting crazier out there?” Arthur Fleck’s powerful dialogues echoed through my brain well after the movie got over. I walked out of Saar Cinema with my friends, thinking of his tempestuous transformation into ‘Joker’, my popcorn tub in one hand and my drink in the other. Absent-mindedly, I walked towards the bin to throw them out, my preoccupied mind unable to process the trash segregation at that moment.

As I was about to throw my plastic cup in the non-recycle bin, my hands paused. I heard it again – “Is it just me, or is it getting crazier out there?”

The heart wrenching cry of a 16-year-old girl jolted us out of our deep slumber when she said: “How dare you? You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words.”

Climate control is of the essence today. The expeditious deterioration of the global environment poses a challenge for the greatest of us! It is not just Greta Thunberg’s emotional outcry at the United Nations climate action summit but our small, yet significant, voices should also echo the same thought. After all, unrestricted industrialisation and materialism has led to us falling into the trap of “eternal economic growth.”

For people like you and me, it all comes down to choice – yours, mine and ours as a community, as well as individuals. Today, we have the power to choose – green carbon instead of fossil carbon, biodegradable plastic bags instead of horrific petroleum based plastic bags, paper or metal straws instead of plastic ones, washable utensils in place of disposables and so on.

There are so many tiny yet consequential steps that should promptly be imbibed as our default.

A whole new way of thinking will help us obtain a greener earth for our future generations.

A car honked beside me, I looked up; my friends were already almost a block away. I shook myself out of my thoughts, sorted my trash in the right bins and walked solemnly towards my friends. They asked: “What’s up?”  I said: “Hope!”

Zaidaan Zia Siddiqui, 15, studies at St. Christopher’s School. Although he is fascinated about science, he is more inclined towards physics. He would like to explore the depths of space and is especially captivated by the mysterious ‘dark matter ‘. In his free time, he likes to fight zombies, ancient pharaohs and Greek gods on the PlayStation. He also enjoys travelling, reading, swimming, chess and writing.