Pen What You Feel

Karma has been something that has been influencing lives of people for as long as we know. For some, good karma is a way to have a peace of heart and mind whereas to some it’s a path to a better after life. And “Donation or Daan” has always been something with the power to cleanse your soul. We donate whatever we can, whenever we can to whoever we can to make their lives better, spread a little joy. But there’s so much more we can do. We don’t know if there’s something as afterlife or not; but what we do know is that we have the power to change someone’s life even after death. In a speaking engagement on Organ Donation by India’s Union Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan, he pointed out that India alone has close to 5 Lakh deaths each year due to lack of organs for transplant. We have a ratio of 0.65 per 10 Lakh for organ donation, meaning just 1 in every 15.4 Lakhs ; seems unbelievable but true.   As per a rough figure provided by the Organ Retrieval Banking Organisation (ORBO) o...

25 Lakh Units , this was the shortage of blood supply in India; out of a total need of 135 lakh units i.e. an 18% gap between supply and demand . The outcome – an otherwise avoidable loss of human life. For years we have been struggling with a need for blood donation but still there are gaps which need to be filled. People often question about why do we actually need this much blood. So here’s a fact check for you: Blood can’t be manufactured or produced , we are the only available source of blood. Any pregnancy related complication requires 2 units of blood at an average, considering India’s birth rate and past data that’s close to 36.6 Lakh units of blood . A medical condition may have a blood transfusion requirement as close as low as 2 units for nutritional anaemic patient and as high as 15 units for a bone marrow transplant; compiling close to 105.69 Lakh units of fresh blood . Another 56.3 lakh units of blood is required to treat paediatric conditions alone. With an average of 12...

In case you are wondering, the above picture is the Bhalswa Landfill of Delhi. Looks gigantic right? It is, spread across 70 acres (big enough to accommodate Wankhade Stadium, your Fav football teams ground, a basketball court, a hockey stadium and would still have enough area to open a college building) & touching a height of 65 metres  (just 8 meter short of Qutab Minar) in 2019. That’s the outcome of the ongoing throwaway culture. This is a result of society’s move towards short lived or disposable items available at a lower cost rather than looking for durable items. Indian middle class households had been infamous for their approach towards buying long lived products & repair or what we call “jugaad” culture. But the last decade has witnessed a change in this with younger generations shifting to a more disposable life style, seeking cheaper alternatives rather than looking for quality and life longing products. And it’s not just about price; it’s about the social sta...

  Until a few years ago, we saw plastics at every shop right from street vendors to supermarkets but now in many parts across the nation we have witnessed a shift from low grade plastics to cloth, paper and recyclable plastic bags (minimum thickness 50 micron) and look for a recylable symbol  ♲   on them. This is one of the best examples of sustainable consumerism in the recent times. The government banned non recyclable plastics altogether and hence we made a shift to the better alternatives available around us. But this isn’t the end of the road, India still generates close to 26,000 tonnes of plastic on a daily basis . The rule of market is simple; a commodity is made available as long as there are consumers, the day we say NO to plastics around us, the manufacturers would not make it. And reducing our plastic consumption isn’t actually as tough as it may seem, here are a few steps to facilitate it: COVID & Single use plastics.   With fighting perhaps one of t...

As per the Britannica Encyclopaedia Ethical consumerism , form of political activism based on the  premise  that purchasers in markets consume not only goods but also, implicitly, the process used to produce them. From the point of view of  ethical   consumerism ,  consumption  is a political act that sanctions the values embodied in a product’s manufacture. Simply put, when you buy a product, you are also supporting the complete value chain of the product – its manufacturing process, the company’s conprinciples and all the benefactors and their practices. Ethical consumerism means being aware of this power you hold as a customer over the way a product is produced or sold. The most common motto used by sales professionals is “Customer is the King” ; and the king decides how a kingdom shall function Every time we buy a product manufactured using hazardous or inhumane labour conditions we are supporting the practice; when we are calling the underage kid at a ...

As a human we are all entitled to a defined set of human rights accorded to us by the virtue of being humans, among which perhaps the most important include the right to life & liberty and the freedom from discrimination. Most of us can’t even comprehend what it’s like to be discriminated but to a huge section of our society, this is still a luxury. Discrimination on the basis of caste has been a part of our society from centuries, people exempted even from basic human rights & dignity and yes we have come a long way since that but even today it’s prevalent in our society along with a different form of discrimination – one on the basis of choice. Sounds strange, right? But sadly, true; even in the world’s largest democracy people are discriminated and judged by the choice of their romantic partner or rather the choice to not have a partner, choice of profession and even belief (not just religious). We are alright with a public figure being openly gay or choosing to remain unma...

One of the biggest questions we need to be asked today is “ Do I have the sole right on the usage of a resource just because I can afford it? ” Subconsciously most of us feel – Yes, why not. Now allow me to rephrase “ Does my ability to afford something give me the right to waste it? ” In most cases we don’t even realise how unknowingly we sometimes forget the importance yet scarcity of many things just because we have an easy access to them. Say single side used paper, you can use it for rough work, self-notes, a compost or to an artistic mind as an art project. But a problem bigger than this is food. Ironically, despite being a self-sufficient country with enough production to fulfil the demands of 1.3 billion, nearly 1 in  every 8 person sleeps hungry each night . I am not saying here that you are the cause for it, but the fact that you have the power to be a part of the solution (not the homogeneous mixture of two or more substances). Nearly 25% of food goes to waste even befor...

As a child I had an idea, that education had the power to change everything, you make people aware of a problem in our system and they would work towards solving it. It wasn’t until later that my bubble broke and I was forced to ask the question “ Does knowledge make you wise? ” Contrary to my belief: No. Yes knowledge is one of the greatest tools mankind has been blessed with, the knowledge to read, use tools, develop technologies and what not have brought humanity a long way from where we stood years ago and that’s changing exponentially even today. But we forgot something else we read on our books: the right to equality for all, the right to choose, sustainable development, non-renewable resources to name a few. That’s where wisdom kicks in. Knowledge can make aware; its information whereas wisdom is using that knowledge to make a decision that would serve a goal. It’s same as the difference between a technology being there and the invention which ultimately used the technology. ...