POLLUTION IN KOLKATA

        Pollution has of late become an international problem in the industrial cities all over the world. As new townships are growing up, population explosion is also increasing in a threatening ratio, as a result of which, new pollution-problems are becoming rampant. There are various types of pollution like air pollution, water pollution, environmental pollution, etc. Pollution is gradually becoming a challenge to the very existence of human life. Kolkata is not an exception. Smoke out of chimneys of big factories in the city makes the air heavy and suffocating, particularly, in winter days. Kolkattans are constantly inhaling that and consequently they become prey to many fell diseases. Buses and trucks are always emitting petrol and diesel gas which is very harmful. Moreover, there are many factories on both the sides of the river Hooghly. They throw their refuge into the river polluting its water. The river Hooghly is regarded holy by the Hindus. But they do not know how much polluted its water I People living in Kolkata do not have the least sense of hygiene. They attend to their nature’s call on public thoroughfares. It also causes pollution in the city in many ways. In developed countries Scientists have devised various means to check pollution and their governments have already enacted laws against pollution. Persons violating them are severely punished. In our country, too, the government has recently become aware of this bane of pollution and has taken legislative measures against pollution. But the government only cannot eradicate the roots of this curse by making laws. It is the people’s awareness of this danger and mass-education that can help the governments to successfully fight out the threat of pollution. If Kolkata Luis to be saves from pollution, similar laws should be enacted and strictly adhered to.

PROBLEMS OF STUDENT LIFE

        The natural inclination of a student is to look forward to the day when he will start earning money as a grown up man. But soon after he enters the hard, competitive market of earning money, he tends to lapse into reminiscences and think that the best years of his life is the student-life that he has left behind. The years one spends in schools or colleges are the formative years of one’s life and, as such, it is exceedingly vital. In olden days a student was asked to devote nearly all his time to studies. But this theory does not work today. Too runic of studying neglecting other working habits makes him a book-worm and soon he proves himself a lackluster in life.
        Today’s students are required to participate in the various activities of the school: sports debates, social functions and politics, etc. As a result inspire of very heavy pressure of studies, he is hard-pressed due to his lack of time. There are competitions which tend to put a student in tension. Slowly he loses discipline and obedience, his sense of propriety. Somehow, instead of blossoming out be withers away. Moreover, to add to his problems, there are manifold lures of the sophisticated civilization. There are pecuniary hazards in a student’s life. Internal and external impediments there are many that tend to spoil a student’s life.
        A modem student is required to put in more efforts. He must acquire extra tenacity to fulfill his duties and ambition. At any cost, he must gain education because education ultimately helps a student to develop his concepts of values and integrity.

STICK NO BILLS

        ‘Stick no bills’ is a notice which is often displayed on roadside walls. In any city, even in villages, posters are now a common sight. The walls and lamp-posts are simply buried under them.
We have no quarrel with posters as such. But why should clean walls be chosen as display boards? Slogans may be good, bad or indifferent; but why plant them on my boundary wall without permission? Just imagine, one fine morning I discover that a host of slogans have suddenly bloomed right over my front gate. How nasty!
        The purpose of the notice ‘Stick no bills’ is, of course, to check such vandalism. But it most cases, the notice goes unheeded. Bills are often stuck rampantly over the very notice — ‘Stick no bills’. During an election the candidates and their parties start a battle of posters against one another, and the innocent walls become the worst sufferers. The notice forbidding the placarding of walls — ‘Stick no bills’ — is grossly violated, and nobody is sorry for that.
        Some public places may surely be kept reserved for displaying posters and bills. But in other places, the notice forbidding their display should be strictly enforced. What is more important is that all citizens should be taught to love their own city. It is not the fear of law but the love of one’s own town or village which alone can solve the problem.

POLITICS IS THE ART OF COMPROMISE

        Now-a-days politics rules the society. By ‘politics’ we mean ‘real- politics’ not just political theories, in a democracy, we have the party system. Each party has its own political outlook. Parties aim at controlling the state power. They can hope to succeed if the voters accept their programme and vote for them.
        The common man does not understand theories. He is pragmatic. So the politicians have to be practical. If the voters have some bias they try to exploit that. Even religion, caste and such other things are exploited. They compromise their political ideals with the local situations. Political parties holding different views and ideas often enter into an alliance. They jointly fight against other parties in an election. Politics, therefore, is the art of compromise.

        The followers of religion are averse to making any compromise. They are committed to their creed or Guru. In science, there is no question of compromise. The scientists easily replace former theories by more recent ones. The followers of politics, too, are often committed to some political creed and have their guru or leader. But they are more flexible, because their ultimate masters are the common people who always want to make compromises and accept the golden mean.

A VISIT TO A PLACE OF INTEREST

        I have been too many wonderful travel-spots of our land, but the memory of my visit to Ajanta and Ellora is still fresh in my mind. The marvelous rock temples of Ajanta and Ellora are the brightest examples of the art of ancient India. Ajanta, with its magnificent beauty of twenty-nine caves in total, carved out of solid rocks and nearly all the walls covered with splendid paintings, is actually, situated in a pass in the Vindhyas. The sight-seers from all over the world come to visit these caves. We stood lost in speechless wonder before those wonderful pictures on the wall.

The paintings looked so fresh and vivid that they seemed to be a few days old only not that they were done centuries ago. Standing there we visualized a lost age of our civilization. We saw the picture of a young king sitting on his throne in his royal majesty. In another, some maidens were adorning a lonely young princess. Still another was a magnificent depiction of processions of horses and elephants passing along a highway.
Next day saw us at a new site. A steep mountain side rose in front of us with water-falls dancing down into the green valley we stood in. Huge pillars and halls had been cut out of the rock. Broad flights of stairs stretched before us. Carved figures of gods and goddesses, lions, bulls and dwarfs and other creatures stared at us. In many places there were lofty upper chambers with balcony, roofed by millions of tons of mountains. That was Ellora. A series of caves cut into the sides of the mountains, the Buddhist to the south, the Hindu group of the Kailasa, and the ages of epics of India in the middle and the Jam caves to the north, bearing the harmony of separate religions in the olden days still stand there is peaceful co-existence. These temples are so huge in structure, so minutely detailed and so gloriously beautiful that they do not seem to be man-made.

We wandered, as if is a trance, through these wonderful caves. A rich pageant of the great history of India unrolled before our vision and we felt really morose to take leave of this-grand sight when the bus came to take us away.

'AS YOU SOW, SO YOU REAP'

        Every cause has its effect, just as every action has its reaction. The effect may not be immediate, but there is no escape from it. The peasant who sows seeds has to wait for the crops. He works in his field for months and his labour is rewarded only afterwards. If the peasant is idle and does not sow good seeds, he cannot expect a good harvest.
        Similarly, if a boy neglects his studies and whiles away his time, he cannot shine in life. Only a hardworking man becomes prosperous. And when most of the people of a nation are hardworking the nation prospers. h is said that a good beginning is half the work done. This is very true Planning is important because it determines the future. A haphazard beginning leads to loss of time and money and only unsatisfactory results.
        The western people are energetic. They have cultivated science and set up modern cities and laboratories, introduced machines and computers in industry and are getting the benefit out of them. We, on the other hand, slept for centuries in ignorance and superstition, believed only in fate, and so today we are so backward. It is foolish to expect the result overnight.
        If we want to eradicate poverty, we have to work hard. If we neglect our duty in this respect, the nation will grow ever poorer in future. For wealth, education, everything we have to work hard and work in right earnest, and as we sow, so we reap.

Man in the Machine Age

          The modern age is called the machine age. For most of the important works of men are done now by machines. Man no longer writes letters but types them straight from a typewriter. He books a long-distance personal call over the telephone and talks directly. He does not walk to reach his friend or relative’s house. He simply drives a car. He travels by train or aero plane. Various operations are done by machines as if by magic. The TV screen brings the football or cricket ground right into our bedroom. Electronics and Telecommunications are helping most of the fields of industry. Computers are now being used very widely. Every shopkeeper is getting used to calculators.

So long as the machine is under man’s control it is good. But if man himself becomes mechanical and loses his finer qualities, it will be a tragedy. The question is whether man is still the master of the machine, or just a slave. Man is producing robots’ in factories. The robots are doing works of drudgery for him. But man himself is not a robot.

There is no doubt that the machines we make also influence our life-style. The car is now a typical mode of transport. The aero plane is still another. Two hundred years ago the train was unknown to man; today we are going to have space journeys. Formerly, students would write with pens and inkpots. Today ball point pens have replaced them. The TV has now become a daily habit, just as tea once became in our life. The machine has rendered life faster. But man should preserve his essential humanity — love, peace of mind, joy and sociable nature.