Limaonen Imchen, Mokokchung
A 7 years old boy was sitting on a chair at the side of the road. Than a fancy car driving by a Youngman with three of his friends stop at the side of the road and ask the little boy, ‘hey dirty fellow why are you staring at my fancy car? Little boy replied hey you uncivilized people “I was just realizing what my dad used to told me was true ‘driving a fancy car or having lots of money doesn’t mean the person is civilized’. Then the Youngman got furious and said to the boy, how dare you call me and my rich friends uncivilized? Than the boy replied “because in spite of the big signboard saying ‘don’t litter around,’ look what you uncivilized rich people driving a fancy car have done by littering the places with all kinds of cover that you throw out from your fancy car window by the time I saw you guys coming from the distance that dirtying the entire place.
In our state (Nagaland) many a times we hear peoples of every category talks about development. We often compare our place with developed cities and we are quick to give the entire blamed to bureaucrats or the top political leaders for not developing our place. Yes of course we as individual may not contribute much by our own strength when it comes to road construction, bringing the latest train, aircraft or any other major development that requires huge amount of money.
But it doesn’t mean that we cannot do anything when it comes to development. Every person either rich or poor can play a big role in developing our own State.
Some may ask how is it possible to contribute to development when you got nothing (money, resources etc). But I would say every individual can contribute towards the better Nagaland if we really want to. But for that every person need to be civilized in our mind. Civilization is not about having lots of money, driving fancy car, having big house but it’s all about having the sense of stewardship and understanding the sense of responsibilities and to have self conscious of knowing what is the right thing to do.
During my last visit to Brazil I happened to visit the tribal’s in Amazon as well some of the best cities in Brazil. One thing I observed was that though the living condition of the people in Amazon forests was much poorer in compare with those that are in rich cities, probably most of the peoples in Amazon were way much civilized than some of the people in the cities. People in the forests know were to dump the garbage and keep their surroundings clean and they know how to respect one another unlike some of the rich cities out there. Civilization starts in our mind and not with how rich we are.
Look at the places in Nagaland. Many a times I’m fascinated by the natural beauty of our state and yes indeed many tourists have the same compliment about the natural beauty of Nagaland. But the sad thing is most of them had the same opinion that our Naga people need to learn not to litter the things around and to avoid spitting (specially after chewing tobacco) anywhere we want. (this was some of the common opinion given by different peoples from the west countries when they were ask to give some constructive feedback to improve Nagaland during their visit to Nagaland).
Look around the places as we travel, one of the common things that many of our people do is throwing the empty cane, bottle, chips cover etc anywhere on the road (sometimes even in the middle of the road ‘that doesn’t escape any category of people either its top bureaucrats, politicians, common people or so on).
Let’s not play the game of blaming one another but let’s try to join our hand, encourage one another, and also educate one another to keep our state clean by avoiding unnecessary littering, respecting one another and try to do every possible ways to developed our state instead of simply watch and criticize.
Civilization starts in our mind not with how rich we are
KUKNALIM
