Supermarket Culture

Chennai, the place where I am living at present, has seen the rise of supermarket culture and is home to Spencers, one of the oldest supermarket chains in India. For working professionals like me supermarket is a suitable option to grab necessary things under one roof and finish our marketing as early as possible. The only problem that we tend to face is that some times we fall prey to impulsive shopping which makes us pay through our nose. But then also we return home happily for a purchase of a hefty sum of money we get a gift, which we were better off without having. In the blind aping of the west we tend to overlook the major problems that come along with the supermarket culture.

Personally, I feel the foremost drawback of supermarket culture is the piles of polythene bags that you bring home with your stuffs. Whether it is food grains, milk, fruits, vegetables or meat, everything is packed in polythene bags. I am myself struggling to get rid of the piles of polythene bags lying in my house. I don’t know where and how to dispose them as I know whatever I do it will be harmful for the environment. Also, we are not able to eat fresh fruits and vegetables, thanks to these supermarkets. I fail to understand why these supermarkets do not start using green bags? Also, they can use recyclable paper bags for packaging purposes. Milk pouches can surely and effectively be replaced by bricks or bottles. This way a lot of pollution causing materials can be pulled out of the system.

A few days ago I just went to a supermarket to buy some groceries and vegetables. A foreigner was also getting her things billed at the same time. When the staffs started putting her things in a polythene bag, she asked them to stop and pulled out a cotton bag and asked them to use that. I feel people need to start inculcating these practices into their daily lives. Hats off to that girl and millions others who are following this trend!!!!!!

- Kumar

Irula tribe

Yesterday, I happened to visit the Madras Crocodile Bank, located on the ECR highway, the beautiful highway, with sea on its eastern side, connecting Chennai and Pondicherry. The look from outside did not give me the slightest hint of what was on offer inside. When I went in I was very susceptible whether or not it is worth coming here? Then we started and let me tell you right from the starting point when I went in I was like yes, this is mind kind of place. There were scores of crocodiles in there kept in the eco system close to the natural eco system. Care has been taken to provide these creatures with a surrounding as close to nature as possible. I felt that I almost lost the count of time as I was so much into the surroundings. Really it was an overwhelming experience.

To add to the protection of the eco system, this park also had a co operative for the Irula tribe. The Irula tribes people are believed to be of the same origins as the tribes from the Andaman islands but the basic difference between the two is that the Irula tribe has taken up the local language. The Irula tribe is one of the most backward group of people in our country. They earn their living by catching rats and snakes. They are the friends of the farmers as they catch the rodents that destroy the crops and also they help us save many lives as they extract venom from snakes which are used to prepare anti dotes for snake bites. According to one of the survey the average monthly income of those people is any way between $15-$30 which is much below the accepted norm (I fail to understand what sort of norm is this) of $35. These people are facing acute financial crunches as well as they are falling prey to countless diseases and their population is merely around 25000. it was good to find such co-operatives being set up for them. But ironically when I asked one of the members of the cooperatives that can I get some books on the Irula tribe, he replied me ,”Sir, here you can get books on snakes but not about Irula people”. The tone of his wordings made their position very clear to me. Hope that we can do some thing in this regards and also the government comes up with such eco systems at a larger scale.

The visit to this system once again brought a feeling into me that people seem to understand the importance and beauty of nature when they can relate themselves to it. And to relate themselves they need to come out of their air conditioned offices and apartments and take a feel of this sort of places. Not only this, schools should come up with frequent tours to places of this sort so that children can relate themselves to nature and in future help in making the earth a better place to live.

-kumar