Let’s face it, adults don’t like it when a kid is right and they are wrong, so they simply call the child arrogant, which is exactly what happened in the case of the 16-year-old Swedish environment activist Greta Thunberg. People are calling her mannerless and picking on her language, completely missing the point that she is right. So, how does one drive change in a way it appeals to people?
Notable personalities and entertainers of India are coming together to put up a mega comedy event ‘Comics For Change’, on the occasion of Human Rights Day today (December 10), to encourage Indian youth to embrace the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, and instill a sense of shared responsibility for a better and sustainable future.
Three generations of comics are coming together on one platform for the event. They will also help start relevant social conversations amongst the youth and ignite the flame of sustainable responsibility that they will carry with them wherever they go.
Cyrus Broacha, Kunal Vijayakar, Vineet Mehra, founder, DOT (green mobility solutions provider) and UN Speaker and Member of the Global Sustainability Network (GSN) and Asmita Satyarthi, Director, Wockhardt Foundation, announced their participation in India’s best comic talents rally to reach Sustainable Development Goals through ‘Comics For Change’ which will be hosted by Cyrus and Raageshwari Loomba.
Catching up with the ever jolly Cyrus, we find out more about event and why climate change is not a laughing matter. Cyrus explains that the aim of the event is to create awareness and sensitise the future generation so that they embrace ‘sustainability’ as a core of their social, political and business decisions.
“The current climate change scenario is likely to displace between 24 million and 700 million people by 2030 due to water scarcity alone. The fact is that globally, only 9 per cent of plastic ever produced has been recycled, whilst 79 per cent can now be found in landfills, dumps or the environment and 12 per cent has been incinerated taking up acres of habitable space. The need of the hour is ‘sustainability’ and it is time to act. From individuals to global corporations, all will have to do their bit to make this planet a habitable place for future generations to come,” says Cyrus.
He also jokingly adds that now citizens cannot even blame the government for any of their problems because the government keeps changing anyway. “It is high time people accepted their mistakes and looked around to understand the damage that they have done to the nature,” says Cyrus.
He points out that it is the little things and efforts that people take that could actually make a difference. “Back in the day, whenever I would brush my teeth, I would usually, and very casually, leave the water running because maybe that was the way I liked it, but a few years later, when we started facing water shortage, I realised that I too was a part of the problem,” says Cyrus.
He always considered words like climate change and sustainability to be heavy duty, and never really thought that he would one day even talk about it. He says that it is a great initiative undertaken, and he can do what he does best to add to the cause -- joke and make people laugh. “Every serious discussion starts with a joke, so let’s face it -- humour is important in facing issues,” says Cyrus.
When asked what are his thoughts about people who think climate change is not real, Cyrus is quick to point out that if they don’t think otherwise, they are fit enough to run the United States of America.
“Coming back to ‘Comics for Change’, initially I thought it was just trying to reflect on my career where it is right now where I just get ‘chillar’ or change for the work I do but apparently it is more than that. It is bigger than us, bigger than comedy itself, so it could be more like drama and the whole idea here is sustainability and to save the world because we comics will have no one to talk to if there is no world left, so it’s simple maths,” says Cyrus.
HOW TO SAVE THE WORLD?
So how do we save the world? Cyrus says that you can do so by just following a few rules to make sure that we keep everything the way it is or improve in some cases. “So save the earth all over -- from human beings to animals to greenness of the world, and by greenness we mean nature and not the people actually painting green like in Nalasopara. That’s ugly and terrible,” jokes Cyrus.
Talking about the nature of the event, Cyrus says that they don’t want it to be a heavy duty. “It is not a conference, and we have seen what happens in one! So we want to keep it short and simple, and funny so that people like you and me actually understand what is going on and share our jokes with more and more people,” he adds.
He rightly says that jokes reach more people, be it through social media or at social gatherings. Notable personalities who will be performing at the event are Shri Gaur Gopal Das, Johnny Lever, Boman Irani, Neeti Mohan, Deepak Dobrial, Abish Mathew, Tanmay Bhat, Kaneez Surka, Sumukhi Suresh, Prashasti Singh, among many more. Supporting the initiative are the Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation, UN Women, the Global Sustainability Network, SVKM’s NMIMS B-School and Only Much Louder (OML) talent management agency.
‘Comics For Change’ is a by invite event and will be attended by VVIPs of Mumbai, Bollywood Fraternity, Global Ambassadors, and close to 600 MBA students in a language everyone understand the best — Comedy.
