Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.
This stanza appears in Part II of the poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, illustrating the irony and desperation of the sailors who are stranded in the ocean without fresh water. It serves as a powerful metaphor. And I begin with this powerful quote to awaken ourselves from a collective amnesia wherein a misguided belief in earth’s plenitude is wreaking mayhem all round. Coleridge’s poem reminds us that the brutality and arrogance with which we continue to embrace modern day progress is foolhardy. We can interpret the poem as a call to spark an inner innovation, an
internal inner vision which can guide true progress. Is it not apt that this reflection on inner sight and insight appears in The Social Sight?
Let me go back in time. In 2008, as I stood atop an overhead footbridge straddling the road just across AIIMS Delhi, watching the drama of the traffic scene unfurling below me, in the capital city of Delhi, tumultuous thoughts swirled in my head. Where were we headed? What if the way forward was to go back in time. It was an intuitive flash. The way forward was to go backwards – back to the future! My reverie may have been smashed to smithereens but it shone a bright light.
Let us flash forward to the present scenario. Air, water, soil are no longer sacrosanct. Today Delhi, and Patna too, enjoy the dubious distinction of being cities with the highest AQI readings. It is becoming difficult to breathe the polluted air in these cities. A few days ago Indore was in the news for all the wrong reasons. Water contamination had claimed the lives of hapless chawl dwellers in one of the squeakiest of squeaky clean poster boy cities of the Clean City Campaign. Arsenic contamination of the river Ganga is a current scourge. The very soil that grows our food is contaminated, with chemicals having penetrated the food chain irreversibly. Coastal erosion is not only taking a toll on India’s shoreline, but also on communities living by the sea in Puri, Kendrapara and Ganjam. Resettlement may provide safety from the waves, but replacing livelihoods becomes an uphill task as some climate refugees in Odisha are finding out. Most refugees who were self-sufficient earlier, are daily wage earners now or migrant labourers. This is the India story that few talk about. The Incredible India narrative has hijacked the ground reality of millions who continue to live lives of quiet desperation.
At the ongoing 2026 Davos forum, Gita Gopinath spoke compellingly about the India story and dropped a few stunning figures. She stated that reforms in India are slow and it offers a challenging business environment that is severely impacted by pollution. She reiterated that pollution is the prime deterrent to ease of doing business in India. She also quoted a World Bank Study published in 2022 which has documented the impact of pollution on the Indian economy. According to this study, 1.7 million lives are lost in India due to pollution, which accounts for 18% of the total deaths in the country. Addressing this challenge on a war footing is imperative. Both Japan and China have dealt decisively with pollution in their capital cities. Maybe we should take a leaf from their books and collaborate on scripting a new story, a cleaner, greener story.
Lest my introspection be interpreted as a pointless diatribe, let me quote the words of a powerful writer, Rachel Carson. In her book, Silent Spring, she writes:
“We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert
Frost’s familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long
been travelling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we
progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of
the road — the one less travelled by — offers our last, our only chance to
reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth.” ― Rachel
Carson, Silent Spring
The ground-breaking work Silent Spring, published in 1962, written by American marine biologist and conservationist Rachel Carson, alerted the public to the dangers of pesticides, sparking the modern environmental movement, leading to bans on harmful chemicals like DDT. Her book also documented the harmful effects of pesticides, especially DDT, on ecosystems and human health. The book sparked widespread public awareness, fierce industry opposition, and significant policy changes, including the formation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970.
Another story-teller, E.B. White who espoused deep environmental concern, viewed nature with reverence rather than as a resource to dominate. He criticized humanity’s destructive, “too ingenious” approach to nature, advocating appreciation and accommodation to ensure survival. His writing highlights a biophilic connection to the natural world, urging stewardship over exploitation.
“I am pessimistic about the human race because it is too ingenious for its
own good. Our approach to nature is to beat it into submission. We
would stand a better chance of survival if we accommodated ourselves to
this planet and viewed it appreciatively instead of sceptically and
dictatorially.” – E. B. White
We live in troubled times. Our institutions seem paralyzed in the face of climate change, pandemics, and social breakdown. New technologies like Artificial Intelligence are set to disrupt society further. But what if there’s hidden potential for positive change in this upheaval? History shows that transformative cultural inventions — from the first cities to scientific peer review — have repeatedly accelerated human progress during critical moments.
We must renovate institutions, creating technologies that genuinely serve humanity’s needs. What if humanity’s greatest invention was not the wheel, but the campfire conversation? The stories we share with each other serve a far bigger purpose than casual socializing. Think about it: we make most decisions by drawing on stories. Whether it is choosing a restaurant, starting a new habit, or solving a problem at work, we rarely consult scientific papers. We have always transmitted hard-won knowledge across time and space through stories. When our ancestors sat around campfires sharing tales of where they found food or which paths proved dangerous, they were building community intelligence. Shared collaborative wisdom survived as oral literature, songs, theatre that connected to nature and involved the audience in a cohesive fabric mimicking nature’s eco-systems.
To go back to nature and honour its code is Rachel Carson’s counterintuitive wisdom too. She writes:
“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength
that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing
in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after
night, and spring after winter.” ― Rachel Carson, Silent Spring
On that note I end my note. In the face of a natural calamity, birds of a feather flock together. Amid the clamourous din, let us listen to the warbling and crooning of bird brains, if we so like to call them, for it is in tune with our inner voice too. Let us clean up our act. Give the Earth a chance. She deserves better
from her progeny.
By: Archna Jha
