Tag: Prakriti

Green Cup and Me: A Love Story

Creations of a weird girl, Quarantined

“It’s been going on for so long now. Every time I try and escape, it just pulls me right back in while making me feel guilty for ever thinking about leaving. It has affected my behaviour and personality towards others. I have bruises on both my knees along with a nearly broken back. It’s made me cry, it’s made me laugh. It has left me waiting for hours, sometimes even days. I have skipped meals for entire days. I have possibly developed a caffeine addiction.”
I wrote this a couple of days before we finally managed to get that Green Cup and successfully survived the Flower Show. Now I look back and just wonder how did I ever manage to get through all of it. And let me assure you I didn’t without many breakdowns.


Green Cup was my aim right from the Handing Over ceremony wherein the previous union of Prakriti metaphorically ‘handed over’ all the responsibilities to the new one. We then filled every single sliver of free time with a workshop on sustainability, or a trip to a biodiversity park or a seminar on dragonfly conservation or a meeting to discuss the latest issue of Ankur (blog of Prakriti) or a talk on this or a presentation on that. Every single seedball made, candle wax melted, stone painted, flower stem cut, meal missed, sleepless night and visit to the Principal’s office was for the Green Cup.


From getting screamed at for no reason at all, to screaming at others for no reason at all. From questioning why the lawns are forbidden territory to aggressively defending the locks on the gates. From teasing others for helping out in the hostel lawns to becoming nearly a Head Gardener of the same. From hiding in my room during last year’s hostel lawns inspection to nearly crying tears of joy on winning the Hostel Cup. From labelling even the most trifle of things to losing the glass base of my flower arrangement. From being ignorant of even the names of marigold to learning about Ikebana and Moribana. From being a micromanager to getting my earphones marinated in glue. From voicing disapproval on usage of paper for decoration to actually leading several departments to do the same. From being a skeptic of the Flower Show to being a resilient one waiting in pouring rains at its prize distribution, huddled under umbrellas. From 100% attendance in even tutorials to begging teachers for leniency for the same. Green Cup has truly shown me all the colours of the wind.


I have prioritised it over my reviewed research paper, art exhibitions, internship opportunities, flirting with a guy, paper presentation functions and my academics. No one from my school would believe that I actually put anything above my studies but I did. I’m not saying I abandoned all these opportunities, but I could have performed so much better in all. Okay okay, I wouldn’t have flirted anyways! Nonetheless, I have no regrets. I am glad of every choice I’ve made.


Early in the month, while chalking out my calendar, I knew that it will be nothing short of a Fuck-It-February. And now with the onset of Marvelous March, I am engulfed with emotions of gratitude and a deep sense of accomplishment. But I am sorry for all the scissors, knifes, markers lost. I am sorry for all the eyerolls. I am sorry for all the snaps. But in the end I am tired. More tired than I have ever been.

Disney’s Environmental Parable

Creations of a weird girl

Everyone fell in love with Wall E at first sight in 2008. Who wouldn’t? A compact square shaped robot with a curious personality. Big googly eyes, his mechanical way of speaking and his quirks left an indelible impression on us. But another lesson to take home from the movie was on environmentalism.

Even though no political statements were made in the film it was still hailed as a parable for environmentalists everywhere. Without the use of any familiar slogans, Wall E shows us that the vision of the future is a cautionary dystopia wrapped up in a children’s tale.

The movie starts with an Earth, with silhouttes of garbage piles in the appearance of well known skyscrapers.
Wall E being the only one responsible to clean the mess up. The humans are on board a space ship named Axiom, waiting the environmental catastrophe out.

This space age version of Noah’s Ark is what we have in store for us. With power giants like America pulling out of the Paris agreement, a future similar to this is very likely. In the film, a glimpse of rising sea levels indicate that the humans were unsuccessful in adopting corrective measures when the time came, because the time for preventive measures is long gone.

The plot develops and Eva, a pristine white robot enters the scene, with the directive of searching for signs of life in the dumpyard. Wall E falls in love with the she-robot and they embark on an adventure to Axiom, the spaceship.

It is at this moment that the movie highlights another major contributor to the annihilation of our planet: unchecked consumerism. We find obese humans floating on hover boards, with their eyes glued to tiny screens, slurping their lunch from cups, who are unable to get back up without assistance if they fall. The stark disinterest of the humans in anything save themselves is shocking to perceive. Further, every single consumable item on the ship is manufactured by a company, ironically named Buy N Large.

Cutting some slack to the movie for missing out basic details is necessary because of its child friendly content. We only get to know about humans after the apocalypse. No animals are shown. In addition to this, did the entire human population shirk down to a size which could board the Axiom due to ecological disasters? Or were some people allowed on board, and the others left to die?

The film does end on an optimistic note, wherein they find evidence of biological survival and are successful in defeating the evil robot, Axiom. The end soundtrack of the film morphs from mechanical and electronic beats to more of orchestral music, signifying that the humans were eventually able to de-attach themselves from technology long enough to get back to the roots of nature.

Subtle referencens like these make this film a masterpiece in the environmental genre. With scanty dialogues, Wall E was able to leave an impression on the audience.
Mankind got a second chance in the movie. But will we? We need to understand that planets are not consumable products. There is only one planet. We cannot go through them the same way we do with a pen. The humans on board Axiom do come back to their home planet in the end.

” I don’t want to survive, I want to live.”