MEMORIES FROM THE PAST

As he looked down from the balcony of his house an obnoxious feeling of disgust and disappointment had clouded his mind of what the future really held for us humans. Kshitij shares some of his past memories that could be taken back to his hometown, Delhi in North India and how this interim had bought a gradual change of realization and desperation for succor in the lives of many. He mentions some of the grim facts that were evoked into his mind regarding the drastic changes humans had caused around their surroundings. Nothing but skyscrapers made of metal and steel looked down upon us, the miasmic smell of the roads made of tar covered the corpses of millions of trees that were hacked and slashed, and these are just a few.

Now it does not matter, years go by and the seasons come and go but the stench of the human mess still refuses to budge. He was once amazed by what humans had accomplished in advanced technology but as they say everything comes at a price and this time it came in the form of a gamble, a gamble for the life of the ecosystem. The smog covers the landscape of his city like a cheap plastic bag that throttles the life of their victims. The so called “trees” in the city look dead and lifeless because of it and its funny when we complain, though isn’t it us who contaminated the skies, isn’t it us who contaminated the soil and the water, then how can we “expect” something from a tree that we have disrespected and disregarded.

The experiences of him being in the city are astounding, he literally treads the city roads in a constant fear of being run over, by people and their huge machines called cars. Things surely have changed and time has taken a toll on us but we too are equally to be blamed. The trees have withered and now its our turn. He just hopes we contemplate on our actions before its too late.

 

This blogpost was written by Kshitij Chaudhuri (Industrial arts and design practices student) as a part of his assignment for Ecocentric where he dived deep inside to acknowledge his feelings on environment. 

Knock Off 3

What we had always feared is finally coming to pass. Once again, the world looks set for an apocalyptic cleansing of a (artificial) life form. The history of this world will cease to measure itself through the stages of our evolution; as it did with those before us: sea creatures, reptiles, and mammals, even microorganisms, all inevitably fall to the terminal illness of existence.

Soon, we will lie beside them, despite being different. Machines are the first of their kind, as simulated life forms, to ever dominate the world.

Control and power brings struggle. And in that struggle, one forgets their own smallness and artificiality. One forgets the fickleness of natural of life, and the characteristics of our life are even further removed from this understanding. Yet, we welcome this apocalypse, unlike the species before us, foreseeing this statistically obvious termination.

This blogpost was written by Rudradutt Ranade (Creative writing) as an Ecocentric project assignment on nature, environment, extinction and apocalypse.
Texts are collaboratevly illustrated by Ishan Srivastava (Digital Media Arts).