A Woman Walked all the Way from Gujarat to Delhi to Beat Plastic Pollution

Walking is a great habit. They say, if you walk a mile or two every day, it will keep a check on the heart-health and also add more miles to your life. It’s a must. And it should be undertaken by one and all. But how much do we really walk? How often do we really care to walk?

We are consumed by the plastic habit of seeing fitness to be restricted in the insides of air-conditioned fitness centres. And that said, here’s what should be asked regarding a telling truth of our times?

In the mechanical constructs of the modern life, where trappings of a gym or other forms of physical activities keep us happily occupied, does walking really have a say in our lives? Knowing that only rarely do people walk for their own good, it’s even rare to presume that people would ever walk to support a cause, even as certain exceptions arise every now and then. Would you ever walk a 100 kilometres to support a social cause? Would you care to turn up for supporting a great social cause of our times by willingly undergoing a period of prolonged physical endurance?

But beating all logic and hearsay, a girl from Gujarat walked all the way down to Delhi, Prime Minister’s current abode, in a bid to raise awareness about the plastic pollution, an insufferable plight that is easily consuming our eco-system.

Willingly undertaking such an emphatic challenge, as to be walking around 1,100 km over a period of 45 days, the girl from Gujarat has rightly become the centre of all attention for a truly sensitive environmental concern of our times. To say that what young Rajeshwari Singh has accomplished is merely heroic, would be to submit a lame understatement.

Reaching Delhi on the eve of the globally-celebrated World Environment Day, Rajeshwari Singh has completed an onerous mission successfully. Truth be told, nowadays, not a single day goes through when the news of some ocean or some river body being maligned and jolted by excessive plastic dumping doesn’t make the news. It’s, for the lack of a better expression, become a leading everyday crisis.

But in the fray of Ms Rajeshwari Singh, the entire idea behind her environmentally-conscious journey was to raise awareness about the growing epidemic of plastic pollution. How can we successfully beat plastic pollution, how can we curb the growing menace of plastic pollution- the avid youngster is busy to find out sufficient answers on this query.

The Hindus newspaper who ran a detailed story about the brave girl’s effort contained some impressive details that are worth talking about. It is known that, Rajeshwari Singh, on her journey that began from the city of Vadodara in Gujarat to New Delhi covered 22 cities in four States. During this time, the earnest youngster visited several schools, met members of gram panchayats and also interacted with locals to spread a message of saying no to single-use plastics. That’s all it takes on certain occasions. No. Simply say no to unbecoming acts such as plastic pollution.

Globally, oceans have already begun to be sunk in despair from the sheer magnitude of plastic dumping. It’s an ever-growing phenomenon. It is a gravely rotten act that is perpetrated deliberately by a growing class of individuals who just don’t seem to care about the planet or any of its major life forms or sources of survival. Just the other day back, there was new all over the world media regarding a male pilot whale that had succumbed to a fatal death, despite repeated attempts of being revived, on account of having consumed as many as 80 plastic bags.

The time to change the burgeoning crisis is now. And few other things can matter as much as young individuals joining their hands together to beat the living daylights out of this evil incarnate. In her personal life, Rajeshwari Singh happens to run a not for profit by the name of Caravan Classroom, which is a non profit mobile classroom.