The other day while travelling back home my mobile tinkled. It was my wife calling to remind me bring home fruits. I was just near Dr Sir Muhammad Iqbal Park. I asked the driver to take a left and stop near the fruit sellers in the Hazuri Bagh area. But before I would step out of the vehicle, my armed PSO was courteous enough to do the shopping.
 In five minutes he was back. But hey! He brought a shock along. The cop was carrying something banned: The fruits in polythene bags. Polythene bags! This menace reminded me of the ban, which was imposed just last year.
 I couldn’t hold myself. I got down the car and took back the bags. My Phiran helped me plead my stand better.
 “Jinab. You please put the fruits in my Phiran. But don’t give me the polythene bags for they are killer to our environment,” I told the street vendor who started laughing at me.
 “Hey everybody wants polythene bags, particularly those who come shopping here with PSOs… You seem to be an exception,” the vendor responded.
 I tried to remind him of the polythene ban but in vain. But then I didn’t deviate from my stand. I emptied the fruit bags on my Pheran and returned the bags to the street vendor. Same way, I carried the fruits home till I unloaded the Halm in my kitchen basket.
 A few days later, my wife came home shopping some items from a provision shop at Sanat Nagar. She had brought the lot in polythene bags. Making no debate, I requested her to go and return the bags to the shopkeeper.
 She at once realized the mistake making me the proud head of the family succeeding in their efforts to keep the polythene away from our home.
 But then just yesterday, the menace was back to square one, my way. The polythene bags haunted me at Sanat Nagar when I procured some household from the market.
 “Don’t you know there’s a ban on polythene bags?” I again inquired from a shopkeeper. “The ban went with Renzu,” the  trader quipped.
 On this, I called a senior official in the SMC, who said: “Wait for a day as we plan a massive anti-polythene drive.”
 Do we need to prick the official machinery to get them out of slumber? Do we need to remind them of their duties? Well questions could be many but there’s one simple solution. And we shouldn’t ignore trying keeping in mind that polythene has been spoiling our land, our environment. It’s suffocating this Paradise on Earth for years.
 The solution is too very much within our reach. It lies close to us because it lies within us much the way we say Charity begins at home. If every home understands the essence of this maxim, it won’t take more than a minute to nib this evil in the bud, once for all. Moreover that way we won’t need to wake the authorities out of their slumber. We only have to refuse accepting polythene.
 Allah the Almighty has kept the remedy of every disease close to it. All we need to do is to look around and make some efforts.

Advocate Shahid Ul Islam
Pro-freedom  leader from Hurriyat (M)
(The ideas expressed are author’s own)

Lastupdate on : Wed, 31 Mar 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Wed, 31 Mar 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Thu, 1 Apr 2010 00:00:00 IST