Save water on Holi - Illogical Environmentalism - Let the Rang Barse

Just came from a jog and saw the notice board of my society. There were at least two messages asking me to play a dry holi as there would be wastage of water otherwise. The morning newspaper also had a couple of advertisements to the same tune.  Though I get the concern of the individuals is simply to save water but its unfortunate that most of the people don’t question this illogical environmentalism.

So, let me make it simple. Holi is a festival of colours and its traditional to play with water. Until you are dipped in a water pool on Holi…its not really a holi. And its not wastage of water by the way…its judicious use of water for entertainment purposes.

If the citizens of this country do not use water on Holi, its not that we are going to save a huge amount of water to solve the water crisis of this nation. I don’t have the statistics but I can certainly state that if all citizens played a dry holi the water saved would not even cater to .5% of the water gap that we have. By the way I couldn’t  find a single piece of authentic research to show the amount of water wasted on Holi.

Then why this tamaasha. Let the people enjoy. Instead of putting a ban on wet holi…lets concentrate on more sustainable practices of water resource optimization like rain-water harvesting , water reuse and measures to minimize distribution losses of water.  While I support a wet holi I also support using organic and natural colours. That for sure is healthy and good for the environment.

And mind it, its not just Holi, this illogical environmentalism has taken the toll on many a festivals. I have been part of some of the largest environment education movements of this country and one of the things where the same mentality is at play is during Diwali.

It’s a trend for everybody to join the anti-cracker campaign. I say let the kids have fun for a day at least. Climate change is not going to happen if we light crackers on Diwali or may be a week before it. The amount of air pollution that we do by our crackers is nothing as compared to what we do by taking out our cars whenever we have to buy a pack of milk.

This reminds me of a popular Centre for Science and Environment’s report on pollution in Yamuna. The report was name the  Sewage Canal. It clearly asked the authorities to point the finger at the right place. If you were to give the topic of river pollution in a painting competiton of kids. 99% of the paintings would show a factory spewing its affluents in the river and people throwing stuff in the river. That’s the world we live in whereas the reality is that it’s the sewage from our civilized population, which causes that pollution…it’s the sewage not the affluent or what we throw, which is the real culprit. It is at max 5% responsible.

So, its good to save water but lets look at the right place rather than play spoilsport on Holi.

Let environment not come in between our festivals…let environment be our religion instead…so that we live it every  moment rather than getting sceptic on festive days.

Wish you all a happy and wet Holi. Let the Rang Barse.