A Healing Dialogue for the Fear of Microplastics
- Madhukar Dama
- Apr 10
- 6 min read
Setting:
A calm afternoon at Madhukar's mud house in the Western Ghats. Birds chirp. Smoke rises gently from the outdoor chulha. The doctor couple arrives with their two teens — a lean, serious-faced boy in spectacles and a girl with a braided ponytail and anxious eyes.
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Characters:
Dr. Arvind (47): A respected urban physician, clean eater, marathon runner, obsessed with toxins.
Ishita (45): A yoga teacher, believes in conscious living, but recently panicking over unavoidable pollutants.
Kavya (17): Their daughter. She reads environmental science and is in eco-depression.
Nikhil (15): Their son. Quiet, addicted to climate videos, convinced the world is doomed.
Madhukar (60s): A scientist turned hermit. Calm, earthy, enigmatic.
The family arrives mid-morning. Dust clings to the wheels of their electric car. The father, Dr. Arvind, steps out adjusting his wristwatch. Ishita, the yoga teacher, adjusts her cotton stole and pulls two stainless steel water bottles from her cloth bag. Kavya and Nikhil trail behind, both clutching their phones though there's no signal here. A rooster crows in the distance. Smoke drifts from Madhukar’s outdoor chulha. The air smells like tamarind leaves and woodfire.
Madhukar (welcoming them):
I see the four of you have brought the city’s worry with you. Heavy luggage for such light bodies.
Ishita (smiling faintly):
We didn’t come for jokes, Madhukarji. We came because we don’t know what else to do.
Dr. Arvind (serious):
We thought we were doing everything right. Organic food. Stainless steel. Filtered water. Glass jars. No fast food. No plastic toys. We even carry our own straws, for heaven’s sake. But now the news says it’s in our blood. Microplastics. Everywhere. So… where do we run?
Madhukar (calmly pouring tea into clay cups):
Why do you want to run?
Kavya (frustrated):
Because it’s everywhere, Uncle! They found it in snow in Antarctica. In rain in Uttarakhand. Even in umbilical cords. I read a paper last week that said it's affecting our brain cells.
Nikhil (deadpan):
And sperm count. Of course. Everything kills sperm these days.
Ishita:
Don’t joke, Nikhil. We’re all exposed. Even the unborn.
Madhukar:
Yes. You’ve read it all. You’ve prepared your food. Filtered your thoughts. Avoided touch. Avoided scent. Avoided joy in wrappers. And still, here you are. Contaminated?
Dr. Arvind (sighs):
Yes.
Madhukar:
Then perhaps the problem is not just in plastic. But in the idea of escape.
Ishita:
What else can we do? Surrender?
Madhukar:
No. But your desire is not to be healthy. Your desire is to be invincible. That is not nature’s promise.
Dr. Arvind:
But we are doctors, teachers. We are trying to be examples.
Madhukar:
Examples of what? Fear disguised as discipline? Obsession disguised as purity?
Kavya (hurt):
Then what’s the point of being careful?
Madhukar (softly):
There is a great difference between carefulness and control. One flows with life. The other tries to trap it.
Nikhil (looking around):
So what? We stop caring?
Madhukar:
Did I say that?
Nikhil:
Then what are you saying?
Madhukar (smiling):
That you are carrying too much plastic in your mind.
Kavya:
What does that mean?
Madhukar:
Fear that doesn't decompose. Worry that floats forever. Thoughts that stick to everything. That, too, is plastic.
Silence.
A crow caws loudly. A small child runs by the gate — one of the village boys who helps at Madhukar’s garden — barefoot, with a plastic bucket and a wide grin. Nikhil watches him in confusion.
Dr. Arvind:
Even your helpers use plastic.
Madhukar:
Yes. Because they have not mistaken tools for enemies. Nor imagined themselves to be gods.
Ishita:
But Madhukarji… we feel helpless. We know too much. We’ve given up sugar, refined oils, screen time. But the more we know, the worse it gets. We want to protect our children.
Madhukar:
But your children are already imprisoned. You think they are free because they eat millets?
Kavya (quietly):
We don’t feel free. We feel… burdened. All the time. As if we’re failing the planet, and each other.
Nikhil:
We watch videos about climate collapse. Plastic in whales. Plastic in breastmilk. And then we go eat our sprouted moong and silently wonder… is this really doing anything?
Madhukar:
Good. That is a real question. Let’s sit with it. Is it really doing anything?
Dr. Arvind:
We don’t know anymore. Maybe it’s too late.
Madhukar:
Too late for what?
Ishita:
To undo this. To live purely.
Madhukar:
Then stop trying to undo. That’s arrogance, not healing.
Ishita:
But we want to raise conscious children.
Madhukar:
No. You want to raise perfect children in a poisoned world. You want a clean flame in a room full of smoke. It will choke. That’s what your daughter is showing. And your son.
Kavya (eyes welling up):
It’s true. I feel sick sometimes. Not physically. Just… everywhere.
Nikhil:
Me too. I don’t even know what to hope for.
Madhukar:
Then don’t hope. Just do. Do what your hands can touch. What your feet can carry. What your voice can share.
Dr. Arvind:
That feels too small.
Madhukar:
That’s your disease. Modern largeness. You think only a global impact is worthy. But healing has always been local. One belly. One cup. One handful of soil.
Kavya:
But how do we live in peace knowing we’re still polluted?
Madhukar:
The same way a lotus lives in mud. It does not fantasize about sterile glass jars.
Ishita:
But we’re not lotuses. We’re fragile.
Madhukar:
Then build inner immunity. Not just body resistance. But soul flexibility. Let sorrow come. Let fear arrive. But don’t marry them. Let them pass through like rain on leaves.
Dr. Arvind:
What do we teach the kids then?
Madhukar:
Don’t teach them to avoid death. Teach them to love life, even with its dirt. Teach them to compost their fear. To clean with joy. To walk gently. To laugh in the shadow of smoke.
Nikhil (suddenly):
I want to grow something. Like… food.
Madhukar (nods):
Good. That is real. Even if plastic dust falls on it, it will still feed someone.
Kavya:
Can I write about it? Not just problems, but ways of living?
Madhukar:
Then you are already composting plastic. The plastic of thought.
Ishita (smiling through tears):
Madhukarji… we came looking for purity.
Dr. Arvind:
But you’ve given us… peace.
Madhukar:
Purity is a war. Peace is surrender. Choose what you want to live with.
Kavya:
I think I’m ready to stop being scared now.
Nikhil:
Me too. Or at least… to be less dramatic.
Madhukar (laughing):
Drama is allowed. Just don’t drown in your own stage light.
A breeze stirs. A squirrel dashes across the courtyard. A kettle whistles. In that simple sound, something unspoken settles between them. Not a solution. But a rhythm. A return.
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Epilogue: One Year Later
“We still carry bags. But not just to avoid plastic. Now we carry meaning.” – Ishita
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It’s been a year since that restless day at Madhukar’s mud house. The family never forgot the conversation, though they never spoke of it all at once again. It became a quiet river underneath their decisions, bubbling up here and there in unexpected ways.
Dr. Arvind, once obsessed with perfection in health metrics and molecular control, now teaches a short elective in his medical college titled “Healing is Not Hygiene.” He encourages his students to question the obsession with purity and embrace the art of living well with uncertainty. His clinic still has steel tumblers, but it also has a corner for village kids to sit and draw while their elders wait. He grows four vegetables on his terrace in upcycled paint buckets.
Ishita, once a yoga teacher with Instagram-ready morning routines, has gone private. She stopped recording videos, stopped telling others what to eat. Instead, she teaches a silent morning yoga circle in the local park. The fee is compost. Her students bring peels, twigs, and leaves. She makes soil, not content.
Kavya, who once stayed up reading about planetary doom, now runs a small zine with six other teenagers called “Dust & Dew.” They write about tiny joys, mistakes, and making peace with an imperfect world. One of her essays, “My Spoon Has Plastic and I Still Smile,” went mildly viral — not for its reach, but for how many quietly emailed to say, “Thank you. I can breathe now.”
Nikhil, always sarcastic, now bakes bread once a week with a neighbour’s grandmother who never went to school. He’s still online — but he posts jokes about urban eco-anxiety and makes reels about plastic-free thinking, not just plastic-free kitchens. His most-watched reel is a 20-second clip of him sitting under a neem tree doing nothing, titled: “This is the new detox.”
They still live in the city. Still filter their water. Still avoid packaged snacks when possible. But now they also sit on the floor more often. They let bananas blacken sometimes. They visit a village once a month and offer health camps in exchange for rice and stories. They have learned to touch the world without the fear of being stained.
And Madhukar? He heard from them once. A postcard with turmeric-stained edges and Kavya’s messy handwriting:
“We didn’t remove all the plastic from our lives. But we removed the panic. And that has made all the difference.”
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