By IANS
Mumbai : It was 7.29 p.m. on Saturday and Mumbai ought to be readying for an NGO’s Batti Bandh or the ‘swith off’ campaign meant to spread awareness on global warming. But the lights did not go off and the metropolis continued to shine in all its electrical splendour.
The Earth Hour 60-led initiative urged Mumbai’s residents to switch off and unplug all appliances for an hour from 7.30 p.m. to spread awareness on global warming. From households to nightclubs, hoardings and popular hotels, everybody was expected to come together and switch off.
But, a 90-day awareness drive did not suffice ad the city did not switch off. Small crowds gathered at Churchgate and Bandra’s ‘Carter Road’ promenade to shout slogans and lend their support. They were kept busy with acoustic music performances put up by the Batti Bandh organisers.
Colaba resident Shoaib Syed, toured areas around his house but was largely disappointed with the show of electricity while areas from Mahim leading onto Bandra and beyond into Andheri and Borivali had only a few enthusiasts un-plugging to defend the cause.
Organiser Keith Menon said: “The event was a huge success, despite a few minor hiccups.”
While Nigel Quraishy pointed at Carter Road’s mostly lit strip and said, “All of Carter Road has switched off. Today, we hope to save 540 MW of electricity – that’s enough to light up two villages.”
Founded by young guns Menon, Quraishy, Rustom Warden and Shiladitya Chakraborty, Batti Bandh came into play one September evening. They were a group of environment enthusiasts who believed their surroundings were fast deteriorating and the time to act was now.
While initially support trickled in one person at a time, Batti Bandh soon became attracted media attention, as was evident by the phenomenal press presence at the event centres Saturday.
A week ago, a confident Menon said, “Today everyone who can influence someone in society is involved with Batti Bandh. From Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan, to companies like Star, MTV, Philips and organisations like the WWF and Greenpeace, everybody’s backing up the event.”
The event had a huge presence on social networking sites such as Orkut and Facebook and also collaborated with residents to organise promotional events such as candle vigils and human chains. T-Shirts and caps were widely distributed, while the event also had support from the city’s public transport service and police.
An entirely non-funded project, Batti Bandh “wanted money, not support”.
“Save it for your children. Save it for yourself,” urged Menon, adding, “There is no way to solve the problem, no point of working so hard than to be idealistic. The only way we can save the planet is by being idealistic.”
In future, Batti Bandh organisers hope to take the cause to other Indian cities.