The Graduate Baruchian

By Varatha Vengadesan, MBA 2012 – Finance & Intl Business

It was lunchtime and I was looking for a pizzeria. I found one and entered in. When I reached the counter I had to wait for the shopkeeper, who was busy in a conversation with his previous customer, a blind man. The customer wanted broccoli on a Sicilian slice but the shopkeeper gave him a broccoli slice and a Sicilian slice, which the blind man had identified by feeling with his hand over the plate. However the gentle customer was generous enough – both at heart and with his wallet – to forgive the shopkeeper and to pay for both slices while he wanted one of them to be wrapped up to go.

The person’s attitude was quite impressive but what made an impact, as I kept watching him, was what he did sometime later when he had finished eating his other slice that didn’t go wrapped. He collected all his trash, napkins and soda can and disposed them separately, taking help from the shopkeeper to identify the different bins.

Worryingly, not many of us in our campus seriously consider recycling papers and cans separately. Sometimes we don’t even take them to the trash, let alone separating and recycling! Not that we don’t care but we just don’t care enough. We are too negligent to do such simple things but too busy to do bigger things. In the end, we do “nothing”. Well, we do something – we complain!

When a person who can’t see what the world looks like, cares so much for the environment, why don’t we? He has proved that sometimes eyes don’t matter when the mind has a vision – in this context, a vision for a greener world. Though he would probably never see what green is, he has a vision. But those who see but still don’t care are just blind enough. Eyes don’t matter!