Hello Readers!

Greetings for a year full of joys, good health, success, contentment and gratefulness!

At the outset, let’s be grateful for keeping alive to enter into this new calendar year. May the ubiquitous agony and anguish of losing so many of our near and dear ones in the pandemic wave that shook humanity last year, never be seen again and may all the grief be tranquilized. Amen!

The year had been a rather tougher year than anyone could have imagined on 31.12.2020. Most of us were on holiday or “WFH” trips to some breathtaking destinations after almost a year long lockdown. The hospitality and tourism industry welcomed all with arms wide open and embraced the flyers into their COVID APPROPRIATE PACKAGES AND DEALS (Sanitisation, Mask and Social Distancing).

Too late it was for us to realize that something even worse lied ahead. It was when the whatsapp groups, facebook feeds, linkedin communities all started flooding with requests, posts and statuses of requirement of REMDESIVIR, OXYGEN CYLINDERS, BLOOD, BED, FOOD, in short LIFE,  that we got clue of dreadful things happening around. Though everyone strived to stand by each other in any possible manner, the same pages, posts, shares and feeds started getting converted into death news, funerals and condolences that shook our hearts and souls and left them irreparable.

Amidst the above crises in this 21st century world full of technologies never imagined, one thing that deeply impressed upon our ways of living was that “NOTHING” is in as much abundance as “REQUIRED” or let me say “DESIRED”.

We might have trillion tones of medical oxygen reserves, imports or exports, but to a dying life in far away hospital who does not get it in time, it’s of no utility. For him “ it is not available”! 

The point of why I am taking you through this agony all over again is to give a conscious start to the day’s and the year’s first “Food for thought”.

The affluent population that comprises just over a 50% of the global population has enough spend-worthiness to be called “upper middle class” or “rich” people, despite the pandemic effects.

This more than half the world’s population tends to buy everything they think may be of utility to them at a given price which they always assume will rise in future. Around me, I have seen atleast 50 people spending mindlessly or I’d better call it “less-mindfully” upon electronic gadgets, clothes, luxurious food, exuberant home designing and interiors and all sort of Veblen goods that they feel is a superiority and status symbol.

50 is a number I can count upon my fingers, you all will have such 50 in your connects, or you yourself might be one of these shopping freaks. Shopping might be a hobby, a way of rejuvenating or more of a spending extravaganza (on the plea that “rakh k kya karna hai” or “shopping enlivens me”). Friends do what rejuvenates you, shop each day but “mindful shopping” is the need of the hour.

By mindful shopping, I do not really mean one shouldn’t buy new “Levi’s” , new “Swooshes”, new “Benz’, new “Enfield”, new “Titans”, new “Mansions”, new I-Phones, I-macs or BoAts’ etc., or one should compromise on the quality and perceived value of anything that one buys, I just want to emphasize on “How Much” and the frequency of that consumption. I see people buying 5-10 dresses together for themselves at one visit of a store. And guess when’s the next planned visit? Just a week after!

I see people ordering lavish dishes for dinner and lunch on weekends out of which “almost half” is found thrown in the segregated bin of the society. There’s a room full of toys, an extra wardrobe full of clothes, drawers full of watches, cabinets full of crockery, a rack full of shoes that have been bought but seldom utilized.

In this “Environment Conscious” world worrying about “Climate Change” and “Environment Degradation”, the first simple step to reinforce the “Sustainable Growth” idea is “REDUCE” and “REPAIR”. Reuse and Recycle can come later.

Just because there’s a 50% off or a BOGO (Buy One Get One) sale in a store, I need not purchase half of the store products and reach the store right in the morning so that no one else buys better, behaving as if it is a war-food crisis. “REDUCE”. There might be some families you might not know, are actually going through a clothes crisis. They might not have even a second pair to change up while you make fuss of what to wear today from your over packed wardrobe!

Many of you would say that we donate old clothes, donate old blankets, old toys to so and so society, NGO, foundation etc. Why “OLD” or “WORN OUT” things then? If you have the purchasing power of buying half the products of the store on sale buy “NEW” for donation too! Many of you might be doing this too but the % is definitely lesser than the “Old Stuff Donors”. The point remains the same. You donate “Old Stuff” as you think it is not bad enough to go into a bin and not good enough for me to be used anymore, or more thoughtfully to prevent wastage, you give away old stuff to whom you think “might” be able to use them. Not raising a propaganda against the “OLD STUFF DONATION” I am just trying to augment your thought process towards your buying and consumption process. Be frugal while you consume thinking of the ones who might not have even feet to walk on while you own 2 Benz, one of which is in the garage just for a servant to wash it up daily!

Just because the colour of the strap of the Fastrack that I bought last week doesn’t seem appealing to my friends, I need not buy another one this weekend because I can afford to. I can still get the strap changed from a vendor who’d rather earn some penny for his family for that one changed strap (REPAIR). 

I don’t think one needs to have the entire range of Apple Gadgets at home, out of which 2 are lying in the boxes, as their batteries are dead, one might be with a broken screen, another might just be for display to guests and just one or max 2 for your home-work utility! I hope you know many of the kids had to drop out form schools as they did not have smart phones and internet facility to attend online classes. Let’s try and keep some silicon reserves to get a cheaper smart-phone for them too! Getting repaired old gadgets won’t demean your status; it would rather be an additional feather in your cap of life to have contributed to the society and environment.

I am definitely not asserting or defying any of the brand names used above; rather I think these brands are getting evangelized through my post as I feel everyone of us connects with these brands some way or the other. I just want to advocate the thought of “MINDFUL CONSUMPTION” instead of “MINDLESS CONSUMPTION”. “When I have only 10 fingers, I don’t need 20 rings”. “I need not put the AC on even in winters, just because I own 4 of them and the electricity is free”

The wardrobes, the shoe racks, the watch drawers, the luxury full cupboards can still give you a kink of dissatisfaction of owning less! But realisation of having the wealth of having more than 2 meals, a strong shelter, sufficient clothes for everywhere wear and the mental peace of having it all will leave you more contented for a good night sleep or else you might wake up to the nightmare of your neighbour owning a second Audi while you still have one! It’s just the attitude that needs a shift.

One mindful consumption of ours might save a tree from being cut, prevent a child from starving to death, protect a person from succumbing to cold, prevent an animal from getting sick from the food thrown in the dustbin, prevent an accident from happening, get extra bricks for a poor man’s house and a light bulb for an aspiring underprivileged student! 

So friends, let’s be MINDFUL CONSUMERS. Atleast the pandemic’s lesson to be penetrated through the generations  that “NOTHING is in as much abundance as DESIRED but just enough for how much is REQUIRED”. As the thoughtful say “Excess is Bad”

We human beings are rich in intellects, let’s consume more of virtues than materials, less consume more of wisdom than gadgets, let’s consume the joy of giving rather than possessing, as these consumptions would last forever and will have no expiry date…

Let’s be responsible global citizens and subordinate our DESIRES to the NEEDS of the mankind while we buy a thing next time!

Let this year be the year of Shopping Freaks who turned the boards to “SOLD OUT” in a BOGO sale and this year they turn their own boards “CLOSED FOR NOW” or “BUY JUST ONE”. 

Experience the “Joy of Giving” with “Mindful Consumption”

On my way to Shopping for Giving!

आओ मिलकर तय करें ये सफर चाहत से जरूरत तक…(Let’s together walk the journey from “Desired” to “Required”)

Shruti Bajaj