How do we change?

The other day when I was cleaning my room, I couldn't believe I was dumping so much of plastic into the dustbin. At that moment I had decided that I should reduce the usage of plastic frm then. But nothing changed the next time I cleaned my room. What Chris Jordan said was
absolutey right. The gigantic numbers that we hear of the wastage is not really making an impact on us. So he attempts to picturise the resources that are just thrown away after using, those which harm our body and those which are used just because of the hype that is created about them. Tragedies like 9/11 are remembered throughout history,but things like deaths caused due to smoking, consuming alcohol, over-eating etc are simply ignored because we think we can't do anything abt it.
He also talks about the BIG question,today being 'HOW DO WE CHANGE? as a culture as well as individually '. Yes, there is an urgent need for 'change' not only in the U.S.A, in every part of the world, to hold responsibility towards the society and the nature, to understand that there is
a thin line between what is essential and what is desired.The change can just begin with a serious thought given to it. And when we change as a culture, it automatically makes an impact on the size of the pictures in Jordan's works.

Theory of choice

Suman sir came up with this question which initially sounded very trivial and insignificant ("where would you prefer buying vegetables ,in Reliance fresh where you could purchase them at a lower price or the vegetable vendor who passes by your house everyday. "),but then it is goin to be a part of our daily life .Never really analysed this kind of a situation.
Among all the answers 'purchasing them from an organic farmer'( as told by Ravali ),I felt ,was the best idea. One point worth noting is that one does not need to buy vegetables in places which
are air-conditioned and so well electrified and moreover when we are purchasing something from the same person regularly there will be a sense of responsibility towards each other.Even if we are purchasing goods from marts like Reliance Fresh, we have to try not to carry them in plastic bags.
And then we started analysing another situation,'which is the best place to have snacks inside the campus' and at the end of the discussion I came to know that we could buy fresh fruits in yuktahaar and that it was the healthiest among all the messes in IIIT.But I think eating simple and non-spicy food regularly in Yukta would really take a lot of time for me.

Globalization of inequalities

All the excitement that I had, when I had learnt that a movie was going to be screened for the Human-values session that day, vanished at once, when I came to know that the movie was actually a speech on "the globalization of inequality" . But believe me, as I started paying attention I realised that this one by P.Sainath , who calls himself a 'rural journalist' was turning out to be pretty interesting.What drew attention towards his speech were the numerous examples that he gave. Though they were alarming, "these things never make headlines in the newspapers" he says.
The most striking aspect of his talk was that things like GDP which are supposed to indicate the development of a country, are not actually doing so.The reasonably high Gross Domestic Product of a country like India is only because of the fact that some of the richest citizens of the world are Indians. Stock markets have become an index of how a naton is doing, to which the bottom 20% of the population contribute nothing, which is why India is said to be "developing" at a fast pace.
He talks about theme weddings being "the in thing" in one part of the country, while in the other part, distressed farmers were committing suicides. He sarcastically says that while the stock market ("while operates in inverse proportion with the happiness of the people") reached an all-time high during the time of Tsunami ( the greatest disaster that took place in the history of mankind) , it collapsed to its worst position during what he calls "the most triumphant moment of Indians in recent times", the Congress returning to power in the May 2004 elections. Well, yes it was a victory considering the fact that most of the Indian population turned up to elect the Congress against the predictions of the intellect and the exit-polls conducted by the media. But then, even the Congress had failed to address the major problems of the country, which it had promised to.
Finally he narrates the story of Nero, a King who belonged to some hundred BC, who burnt the prisoners and the beggars of his kingdom alive, to properly illuminate his garden in which a party was thrown to anyone and everyone in his kingdom."It was not the fault of Nero but of his guests who were watching those people burn alive in amusement. Let's not be Nero's guests",he says and I had goosebumps after listening to it .
Recently I got to watch a video in orkut in which a question was posed to different people ,"What would you do if 500Rs were given to you?". People came up with a wide range of answers like "freaking out" , "school ke samaan khareedungaan" , "probably a more stylish haircut", "tuition fee bharungaan", "aajlkal paanch sau rupaiyon mein kuch nahin miltaa". It ends on a note which says, "SOMEONE'S STYLISH HAIRCUT = SOMEONE ELSE'S TUITION FEE ... THINK BEFORE YOU SPEND..". This short video speaks volumes about what we can do in our attempt not to be Nero's guests.
Inequality is definitely one of the major concerns in the world today, due to which it is in peril.