Post quarantine is the best time to kill butterflies!

Post apocalyptic day ride on the super abandoned East Coast Road in Chennai was pretty new to me. Not an avid rider, my speed always is subject to ridicule within my circle. So it was unusual, that i kept hitting several butterflies, through out my ride. Like in the cartoons, they would land right in the centre of my helmet glass and then whisk away in the wind. I was wondering, is the universe trying to tell me something? Or looked over the sea on the east, to find if any birds were rushing with the same message. As though, 2020 was not productive enough already.

The New Normal

The entire world is in “in-prisonment” at their homes, with their “loved” ones. We are made to believe, things are getting normal. How comfortable are we to get back to our routine life? We would have to abandon the comfort we are used to. We have to pick up that bag to work or deal with that crowded bus, train and road. I bet your mind got thinking and questioned, why can’t the quarantine be the new normal?

Productive Work from home, Check. Master household chores, Check. You spend quality time with your family and more importantly, you spend time with yourself, Check. Perhaps you missed travelling and hanging out with friends. The virtual world, to an extent, resolved those cravings too. Why normal then? What am I going to do then, back at the world?

I will tell you. Kill butterflies!

How cruel are you to suggest something like that? Kill Butterflies? They are the most beautiful, harmless, and extremely sweet as the nectar they consume from the flowers. They even help pollination and be part to create a great ecosystem.

Wow! You really do know about them a lot.

I appreciate your facts, and here are some for you. The lockdown, during the global pandemic shut down the entire world. Surprisingly it made way to a significant surge in the butterfly and even bird population. Courtesy – Less toxic and further less polluted environment.

So you suggest we kill them now? Of course Not!

We are to focus the fact that I’m emphasising here. A little break from humans let an entire species of butterflies to populate, survive and happily flap around. Even the birds got their golden grain throughout the day and had happy family feasts during the lockdown. Shockingly, as per scientists and conservationist, these are indications of a healthy environment. Pat on your shoulders. For doing nothing. Literally Nothing.

Why Am I Killing Butterflies Again?

How comfortable are you to get back to normal life? From a great nothing to a useless everything. You would vote a NO for missing your lazy days in your pyjamas around your house. There is a whole gang of caterpillars and butterflies, whose survival depend on it. You are obviously going to kill them. Again.

If only we let the birds talk to each other, can they mate to create life. That’s how their process work. The male has to either send out a call open on the air. Some make a funny dance with his plumage to attract the female. Thanks to us, the noise pollution drowns their voice. Don’t even get me started on the foggy, star-hiding, sulphur-di-oxide filled air pollution.

Do you ever think about, how every invention and innovation we did was only favouring us, Humans? So blinded by the comfort, we turned deaf ears to the fact that the world is not just for us. We are to share the world with other living creatures. But we feel challenged and all we did was, mess up. With a little window, mother nature began to to heal, effortlessly.

We don’t have to get back to being a cave man. But willing to compromise habitually that harm the environment, we might be doing the world and our co-existent a favour.

Cycling to work, if within few miles, Car-pooling if possible, with less honking is a great start. Make planting a habit and cleaning a hobby is fun. Every individual effort, when believed world-wide, would make a tremendous earth hour to the ecosystem.

Lets make phew changes, shall we?!