Krisha

Miss Rizzi
Focused Inquiry I

When you hear a song, that you listened to constantly at a certain period of time, in a long time it
song will trigger your memories of the senses and emotions you felt back in the day. This can
range from the smell that you were used to smelling or the joy that you were used to feeling.
Similarly, when someone calls out the word ‘home,’ the flood gates of my nerve endings open
and I’m evocated with the clean crisp Himalayan Mountain air, the sound of song birds singing
to a dancing colorful twilight in Nepal and the feel of the cold yet soothing water of the beaches
in Australia.

I had the privilege of attending a residential school in Nepal. My school was located in the
middle of the woods on a hilltop. You would only have to look outside your window to be
mesmerized by the snowcapped mountains abut. The heart of the atmosphere for me however
was at night. The dark twinkling night sky with the moon giving just enough light, the crickets
chirping, the fireflies glowing and the occasional cool breeze that gave you just enough chills for
you to appreciate the warmth was where I felt I was most in my element. Sometimes, I would be
fortunate enough to watch the horizon turn from yellow to orange and to a calm red as the
sunlight spilt itself to a warm glaze far in the mountains. This eminent ambience also inspired me
to write songs and paint. I would sometimes spend hours on end singing lullabies to the birds,
bees and the trees. When it rained, the whole place would fall silent and all you could hear was
the soft tapings of raindrops on leaves which for me was a cherry on top. I would feel as if nature
was playing a song back to me. In the land down under, I lived in the city primarily. All the
serene of nature were far from my reach. However, there was a beach that I would regularly visit.
Just thinking about the place, I can feel the warmth of the sand slipping from my hands the
tighter I close it.

It was in 2018 when Greta Thunberg came to light that I really started seeing climate change as
existential crises. I felt like I was living with my eyes open but my head underwater. I was
constantly going back and forth between Nepal and Australia. I would notice subtle instances of
too much haze covering the mountains or the oceans being warmer than usual but I would side
track them as thinking of them as a bad day. I count myself to be a news junkie and when she
came into the limelight, I devoured myself on learning about the cause that she is so passionate
about. I later came to realize that the haze was dust which arises due to air pollution. I noticed
the quantity of the snow of what it used to be 10 years ago and what it is now. The August
Breeze that I usually enjoyed was being renamed to being called the September breeze. The skies
were mostly cloudy but it barely ever rained. The winters were warmer and shorter. The time
was synchronous to when the Australian media finally talked about bush fires with the priority it
needed. I lived in the heart of Sydney hence, the wraths or bush fires were far from my sight.
However, there was this one time when I went to visit my cousin in a suburb called derby in the
Western part of the country. I arrived late at night and straight up went to bend and hence, didn’t
notice anything. The next morning, I woke up to an orange sky and not the warm kind. It looked
like a climax movie scene of the end of the world. The air reeked of smoke. It was difficult to
smile.

For whatever the cause however, I try not to dwell on this. I may never experience the mystical
tranquil of nature that I experienced when I get back and I know that every time I go back there,
it is only going to get worse but I will be forever grateful for the enchanted experiences that I had
a chance to experience. To quote the book, Rising, “It is not that you can have gratitude for
everything all the time but that there is always the possibility of gratitude; there is always
something that you can tap into to feel your gratitude, no matter what.”

I believe that for the world to really start opening their eyes, the first thing that should be done is
to stop the misinformation around it. The stereotypical people working to maintain a status to
promote their own interests in the expense of calling the cries as a hoax should not be in office.
Secondly, we need to realize that we do not have enough time. Whatever can be done today must
not be put off for tomorrow. The material should also be taught in schools as a separate subject.
In today’s world, it is very prevalent for people to take anything off of face value. When you
really look into it, the capitalist billionaires that are one of the biggest polluters are also the ones
making money off the cries. Everything goes full circle and everything is connected. The land
waste in Ghana is fueling sea level rise in Indonesia. If we fail to understand it to the degree of
which it should be understood, we may never be able to recognize the roots of these issues.
Everything that we do has an impact on the climate. Finally, Most of the choices that we make
for extended comfort can have major impacts on out environment. We need to recognize these
choices and start making ourselves comfortable with decisions that would preserve our home.