Me and my sibling were getting ready as we were going to our grandparents’ house. It was a large family gathering. We were very excited as we would be able to play with our cousins while the elderly will have a chitchat.

“Hurry up! We are getting late,” mother called out and we quickly made our way to the car.

On the way to our grandparents’ house, we bought some fruits, flowers and some sweets. When we reached there, I got so excited to see all my cousins playing together in the garden. I immediately got out of the car and started playing with them.

We played tennis, badminton, cricket as well as ludo. We played for about two hours and then went inside to have the mouth-watering food made by my loving daadi (grandmother). My daadi made biryani and chicken karahi for dinner, while there was kheer for dessert. After having a delicious dinner, everyone was waiting for tea as it was a tradition in our family to have tea after dinner in family gatherings.

Meanwhile, I sat with my daadi on her comfy couch and had a fun talking with her. I saw family photo album lying just beside the couch. I opened and saw the photographs; I saw a picture of a boy carrying out beach cleaning activity. I asked her who the boy was.

She replied, “Dear Ayesha! This is your grandfather. He always wanted to have his surroundings clean. This is the picture from his teen years.”

I asked, “But what is he doing at the beach? Do beaches need to be cleaned?”

Daadi replied, “Yes dear, beach cleaning is an activity where you remove all the solid garbage from the beach by collecting it in large bags or bins, and then throwing it away. The cleaner the beach and the sea, the safer our marine life will be.”

I was fascinated by the idea and then I asked, “Daadi, I also want to participate in beach cleaning activity.”

“Sure, why don’t we all go together?” Daadi exclaimed and this gave all of us a fabulous idea.

Then she addressed all the children and said, “Kids, do you know that by increasing level of pollution, we are actually destroying the health of our dear earth?”

The kids were puzzled, but Tabish spoke out, “Daadi! I know you are talking about global warming. I have read it in my science book. It is a condition that develops when the atmosphere of a planet stops the sunlight from going back to the sun and, as a result, the temperature of earth increases. This is due to the greenhouse effect.”

“Yes, absolutely correct! You know kids, we can prevent global warming by the simple act of planting more trees to cut down on the production of carbon dioxide gas. We should also throw our litter in the dustbins. In this way, we can prevent our earth from being damaged further,” Daadi added.

“Yes daadi! From now onwards we will all do everything to help keep our Earth clean and will also carry out a plantation drive,” almost all the kids present in the living room echoed together.

Daadi felt very proud of the children and gave them lots of blessings. Soon mum asked us to get up as it was time to go back to home. So, we hugged and said goodbye to each other, while all of us pledged in our hearts that from now onwards, we will work for the betterment of the planet and make it as clean as we can.

Published in Dawn, Young World, December 11th, 2021