Reduce, reuse, rewind

It's time to go back to a simpler age, when waste was frowned upon, and everything was eco-friendly

One of my favourite things to do when I am travelling abroad is to go grocery shopping in the local markets and supermarkets. Nothing tells you as much about a place as finding out what the locals like to eat, drink and buy (and as a bonus, you get to sample the wares once you get back home). 

 

Of late, however, I noticed that I got disapproving looks when I asked for a plastic bag to pack my purchases in. Nearly everyone else was carrying a cloth or jute tote bag to take their stuff away and here I was, asking for more plastic to pollute the planet. I longed to explain that I have my eco-friendly totes tucked away safely at home (where I use them all the time) but I am on holiday, for God’s sake, so cut me a break. But instead of doing that I have now taken to packing a little thela in my suitcase for all such exigencies.

 

And every time I do so, I am reminded of my childhood, when going out shopping for fruits and vegetables meant taking your own jhola along. In our household, we used a big circular wicket basket which I would hang jauntily from my left arm as I left the house (once it was full, it was up to my mom to carry it back home). I guess in those days we had no option but to be environmentally conscious when we did our weekly shop. Plastic was a long way away from taking over the world, and all receptacles for shopping were ecofriendly and reusable (and boy, did we get some use out of that wicker basket!).

 

Thinking back to those halcyon days, I can’t help but marvel at how little waste we generated. Cold drinks and milk were delivered in glass bottles which would be sent back to the vendor after use. The fruit and vegetable peelings were kept aside to be fed to the friendly neighbourhood cow, who would wander by every afternoon to try her luck at our doorstep. If an iron stopped working you fixed it rather than go out and buy a new one. And there was no online shopping which meant there were no thick cardboard boxes to dispose of every week. 

 

Even our carbon emissions were minimal in those days. Air travel was a special treat unless you were super rich; everyone else used trains to get around both for work and play. Most families considered themselves lucky if they had one car, and even that was rarely in daily use. Air-conditioning was far from being the norm; most of us managed with fans, though if you lived in Delhi or Rajasthan you indulged yourself with a desert cooler during the summer. Our fruit and vegetables were grown locally; there was no tradition of bingeing on kiwis flown in from New Zealand or asparagus sourced from Peru. And you certainly did not eat anything that was not in season.

 

The more I think about it, the more I long to return to those simpler times, when we were kinder to ourselves and less of a burden on the planet. It will probably never happen – but a girl can dream, right?