Green Choices

The lesion of gray cloud stretched across the Chennai sky. Raghavan who was serving as the Chief Minister of Indian state of Tamil Nadu, came out of his room and stood on the veranda. “Can you see those gray clouds?” His wife stared at the sky with her mouth wide open. Raghavan looked at the sky. “Yeah, we may face a crisis,” he told her.

Raghavan’s guess was correct. It was a severe pollution meltdown. There was a tremendous amount of media coverage of the crisis.  Raghavan grimaced when the main opposition parties used the crisis to squabble and play musical chairs in the Blame Game.

Raghavan called the Minister of Environment to his office after a while. “The green cover in Chennai needs improvement, sir,” the minister said. “Yeah, sure,” Raghavan said. The minister said, “It’s wasteful to see office spaces unutilized from 5pm to 9am, sir. So we’ll propagate indoor farming in office corridors.”  “It’ll be the first urban farm in Chennai,” Raghavan said, stroking the moustache of his beard. “Is there any specific instruction, sir?” “Create an inventory of Tree species in the area,” said Raghavan. “The study may give an account of Tree diversity, health status, density, and distribution.”

The Minister of Transport entered a little later. “Road congestion and pollution are going up every day, sir,” the Transport Minister said. “Try to make public transport convenient and private cars difficult to afford,” Raghavan said. “Raise the car parking fees too.” “I’ve an idea, sir.” “Feel free to say what you like.” “Our officers have to encourage people to walk, cycle, and use e-scooters, sir,” the minister said. “What a brilliant idea!” exclaimed Raghavan. “We have to build a connector network that will connect every park in the city with a cycle track.”

The Minister of Water Resources entered the official chamber of Raghavan a little later in the day.  “The waterways are polluted by hawkers, farms, and factories, sir.” “Implement a clean-up drive,” Raghavan advised.

Slowly a smile spread across Raghavan’s face as he looked forward to a secure future.