Few facts on crackers, written by ratna khemani : Crackers or Quakers?

CRACKERS  OR  QUAKERS ?

Ratna Khemani

With Divali, round the corner, the menace of maddening noise & air pollution threatens to be a part of the scenario. How many of us even put a thought on the destructive nature of this so called fun filled activity? How many of us even think of how many cases of asthma, breathlessness, pneumonia, lung disorders, we are aggravating? How many children, senior citizens, animals, we are scaring out of their wits & most important how much pollution to the atmosphere, which all of us breathe & work in & how much noise pollution we are creating & a nuisance value to ordinary citizens. We do not because by & large we act mechanically & go about life, with a sheep mentality & do things because everybody else is doing it.

I remember a few years ago Ananya, a friend of mine was having an argument with her 8 year old daughter, about going to the Divali party to the club. Rina, did not want to go, because she said, “ I hate the noise & the smoke & Sunanda, insisted it was fun & she had paid up for it & that she must get dressed & come.

This went on for some time, till I decided to intervene & took Ananya aside & told her to see the sense in what Rina was saying. Children are afraid of noise & anything loud & cruel like screaming, shouting, fighting, beating. They come from a quiet protected atmosphere, remember? (The mother’s womb). subjecting them to noise, at an early age, makes them lose their sensitivity. Their hearing is affected & a walkman plugged to their ears & loud music compounds these problems. Many times these activities are done just to keep up with their peers & have a sense of belonging to the gang, mentality.

Awareness to this facet of the fun and explaining it to them in a loving way, helps matters, before it becomes too late & beyond redemption. Doing this & creating the consciousness, could be done when they are in a group, so they receive it better, accept it is & taken in the correct perspective. Our children are intelligent & a fact that will appeal to them is that the cracker industry employs poor children, who are underpaid & overworked, with shocking living conditions. Once they see reason & the sense & nonsense of this practice, they will act as spokespersons of this futile fun activity & create awareness amongst their group of friends.

Some of  the problems experienced by people, because of the noise pollution are headaches, migraine, temper tantrums, irritability, nervousness. Lack of productivity & concentration, insomnia, mental  & emotional stress are some of the others, sounds familiar? We don’t even think about the cause of these problems do we? Just endless amounts of medication & visits to doctors, who prescribe more medication & this goes on perpetuating the pill popping, with no stopping. Any surprise that people as young as 25 & 30 years old, are having nervous breakdowns & heart attacks. Of course stress levels at work & a bad lifestyle, sans fresh air & exercise are the major causes of this phenomenon but noise pollution compounds to the problems.

During my workshops for children, I make them experience silence because they don’t know what it is to be silent. They’re jumping around all the time occupied in some activity or the other, for which we’re responsible. Think about how we start the day with them, shouting, screaming, rushing, pushing & transferring our own frustrations & exasperations. The child should see calm & love around , right from the moment he or she wakes up. These are things we can control & are within our capacity & capability. What the child sees in the world around him is not, calm & composure. What he has an overdose of on the big screen & the small screen is violence & cruelty, not beauty & goodness . Let’s do what we can to create an oasis in the desert , where we all can have our fill of comfort & calm , goodness, love & beauty to share with everyone else. For one we shall be fighting less wars, because this is where it all begins, in our roots, in our childhood.

Think about it & email me at ratna_khemani@vsnl.com or tele: 020-25886836