Question Mark?? 2.0

After huge success of Question Mark and Happiness Index I was compelled to wrote similar genre blog post so here it is…………………..

Mostly 14th January and sometimes 15th January of every year is celebrated as Makar Sankranti. Different region’s have different names for this day like Magh Bihu , Maghi, Pongal , Uttarayan and many more.

Significance of celebrating this day:
1) This day marks the end of winter.
2) Rabi crops can be harvested now.
3) God’s awake from there sleep after period of six month’s.

There is one culture prevailing mostly in North and West India i.e. flying kite on this day.

After drilling deep down in World Wide Web I was able to find two reasons which are associated with why we fly kites on this day specifically.

1) Way of thanking god’s for getting awaked
2) So that people are exposed to the sun rays. Sunning is believed to get rid of the skin infections and illnesses associated with winter.

But how this ritual/culture/practice started is a mystery.

Origin of most of the rituals is not clear (for eg. bursting of crackers on Diwali). Most of the practices were firstly followed by the elite members of the society then over the time it became common things for all the people and then such practices turned into rituals.

Same happened with kites. The very first use was to send messages. Over the time more uses were identified like to measure distances etc.

Then after few decades it became pastime for elite members of society and may be they associated this with Makar Sankranti and later on this spread across universe. Cause elite people saying and works influence the society people.

Same point was mentioned in Holy book The Bhagavad Gita . (Chapter 3 Verse 21)

यद्यदाचरति श्रेष्ठस्तत्तदेवेतरो जन: |
स यत्प्रमाणं कुरुते लोकस्तदनुवर्तते || 21||

Translation: Whatever actions great persons perform, common people follow. Whatever standards they set, all the world pursues.

Although Great persons referred in verse is not Elite person but it is relatable.

I want to share one interesting story related to how ritual/practice which I made up instantaneously followed by my friends without any thoughts.

Back In 2012 me and my friends decided to visit DEVI TALAB MANDIR, JALANDHAR,PUNJAB. This temple is the best place to visit if you are in Jalandhar. Inside this temple you will find replica of The Vaishno Devi Temple. At the end of the cave there is one small space filled with water which is considered as Holy water. On reaching there we saw coins in this water.

With curiosity someone among us asked why there are coins and instantaneously I replied, After making a wish when we throw or drop a coin in this water, if it bounces off then wish will not come true. Instantaneously my friends decided to give it a try. As we were all developing Engineers, so in order to decrease probability of coin bouncing back we started to search 5 Rs coin as it’s weight is more compared to other coins. After finding proper coin we all tried this. But in end I cleared them that I made that ritual on spot and I don’t know the actual reason. They were all like you wasted our money. If I hadn’t told them truth at that time, they might have spread the lie and may be that lie could have been turned into ritual/practice.

What I want to convey from this story is that something started in past as pastime or fun may have turned into rituals in present.

Till now we get to know why we celebrate Makar Sankranti and probable reason of why ritual i.e. Kite Flying associated with it.

As time passes by many changes took place in Kite and strings used for flying:

1. Shape of Kite
2. Size of Kite
3. String (Manjha) material

Effects of changes in Manjha:

In starting cotton yarn were used to fly kites which were not harmful for both Humans and Birds. But as they say change is the only constant, Manjha changed over time and turned into lethal for both. Now the manjha manufacturers use Nylon or single plastic fiber string made of monofilament fishing line coated with powdered glass. This has turned the once harmless activity of kite flying into a bloody societal menace. This Manjha is popularly known as Chinese manjha.

Every Year many birds get injured and some even die due to use of such Chinese manjha. Few humans also die every year due to use of such Chinese manjha. The shocking fact is that we don’t even started recording data of how many birds or Humans died/injured. Currently this situation can be consider equivalent to first stage cancer, if not controlled today will produce drastic effects in future.

How Chinese manjha affecting Birds:

1. Birds unable to see manjha in sky so while flying they got injuries after colliding with manjha which even leads to death sometimes.
2. Once the string of a rival kite is severed (the length of the string could vary from a couple of centimeters to several meters), it gets wind-blown and drifts along with the kite and settles or gets caught on tall trees or tall artificial structures like electricity or telegraph poles. Being practically invisible, these suspended strings prove quite harmful to birds that get entangled in them while in flight.

How Chinese manjha affecting Humans:

1. While flying kite fingers get cuts due to these manjha
2. Like mentioned above in point 2 that once the string of a rival kite is severed, it gets wind-blown and drifts along with the kite and settles or gets caught on tall trees or tall artificial structures like electricity or telegraph poles and on tall buildings. Sometimes sagging is too high that two wheeler drivers throat got slit while driving.

From the above four major problems we so called highly intellectual animals solved only one problem i.e. we started use gloves, cello tape to cover fingers in order to prevent cuts on finger while flying kite.

It’s not like we are not taking other issues seriously. NGT banned the use and production of Chinese manjha but as you know declaring something and implementing that is quite different. Every article in newspaper regarding some new ban starts like: Government decided to impose ban on xyz, let’s see whether authorities responsible for implementing this will be able to enforce ban down the line.

And you may have experienced in case of ban on Chinese manjha they failed to enforce ban down the line.

How can I pass this statement?

After about 8-9 yrs, This year I got a chance to fly kites. So I went to one shop and asked for cotton yarn and in reply owner said wo kya hota?

We tried to disappear nylon strings from market by imposing ban but we ended up disappearing cotton yarn used for kite string. Sad but True.

Why we failed?

1. For the joy of few seconds which we get after winning kite fight, we keep searching for these Chinese manjha and as we all know if there is demand supply will be there.
2. Responsible authorities is not working hard to impose ban.
3. We not educating users about harmful effect of using such manjha like we do in case of bursting crackers on Diwali.

Probable solutions to end the Humans and Birds injuries/death due to use of Chinese Manjha:

1. First solution to every problem is talk/speak out. In this case we have to educate children’s and their parents about harmful effects of Chinese Manjha.
2. Second step will be imposing ban down the line. It’s a challenge for every government. As I previously mentioned imposing ban down the line is the toughest part. One solution to this which I suggest is that government should have one big team which should have only one responsibility i.e. imposing any ban down the line.

These solutions is not only for this problem. Same is the case with Ban on single use plastic. As per government single use plastic is ban in many states but ground reality is different.

Questions Raised

Does every minute action of Humans which we take for granted is affecting Nature in BAD/GOOD ways ?

Does every Human action affect Nature in known or unknown ways?