(Human)Nature

By Esha Jaiswal

We live in an era, called the Anthropocene. Other lives are un-important. Be it trees. Be it plants. Be it birds. Be it the animal kind, of any kind.

The beauty of nature to takeover and revive the land, the air, the ambience of a place is destroyed.

We, humans, are selfish. The 'per square-footage' is prime. The years it takes for a coconut tree to grow, or the flora it takes to attract fauna of varied kinds – is immaterial before the monetary gain.

We are narrow-minded. We are self-absorbed.

We do things for ourselves.

Only.

Ourselves.

Other humans are excluded, too.

We live in the Anthropocene, where a COVID crisis let nature bloom, let peacocks run wild, let pumas walk free, let birds fly high, let the green cover all in peace – a time of stark contrast,

when the human-kind was scared and lost.

Ironic.

For, we do the same. Except, it was this once, when the tables had turned.

A time of stark contrast. Of what we had done. Of what we do. We, humans, are selfish. We are happy with our monetary gain. We happy with our short lives. And, with alleviating our 'pain'.

We meddle, we invent, we discover, we build, in ways that destroys everything else, anew.

Sadly,

we forget we are a part of nature, too.

By Esha Jaiswal