Nature Created Man, to Produce Plastic
- Madhukar Dama
- Apr 10
- 3 min read
A Socratic Dialogue in Three Acts
Characters:
Madhukar — the barefoot healer, a former scientist turned hermit.
Dr. Neelkanth — a respected materials scientist and public speaker, proud of human progress.
Aanya — an 18-year-old climate activist, emotional and idealistic.
Ravi — a 45-year-old corporate plastic manufacturer. Wealthy, tired, cynical.
Setting: Madhukar’s mud home at the edge of a forest in Karnataka. No electricity. Earthen floor. A cow chews lazily outside. Birds sing. Inside, clay cups hold warm herbal tea.
---
ACT I — The Assertion
Dr. Neelkanth (placing his bag down):
Madhukar, I’ve heard your lectures — about simplicity, nature, humility. But I believe you’ve missed a fundamental truth.
Madhukar (smiling):
Enlighten me, Neelkanth.
Dr. Neelkanth:
Nature created man to produce plastic. No other species could. We are nature’s evolutionary instrument, built to unlock hydrocarbons and manufacture this enduring, miraculous substance.
Madhukar (softly):
Ah. So plastic is not pollution… but fulfillment?
Dr. Neelkanth:
Exactly. If trees grow leaves, men produce polymers. It’s our unique function.
Madhukar:
Does every action imply purpose? When a drunk man sets fire to a field, is that nature’s plan too?
Dr. Neelkanth:
But fire spreads, reshapes, fertilizes. Destruction is not always error.
Madhukar:
True. But tell me, how much fire is needed before the forest forgets how to grow back?
---
ACT II — The Contradiction
(Aanya storms in, barefoot, flushed with anger)
Aanya:
Plastic is choking our rivers! My village well smells like melted wire. Turtles hatch in trash. And you say this was nature’s intention?
Dr. Neelkanth (calmly):
Plastic is the price of progress, child. Did your phone not arrive in a plastic box? Did your protest sign not rest on PVC?
Aanya (shaking):
So slavery was once the price of economy. Should we glorify that too?
Madhukar (placing a hand on her shoulder):
Breathe, Aanya. Let’s ask a simple question.
Neelkanth — if your body filled with microplastics and could not excrete, would you call it progress?
Dr. Neelkanth (pauses):
If there was no alternative… maybe.
Madhukar:
But nature gave alternatives. Bamboo. Leaves. Clay. Seeds that wrap fruit. Cow dung that becomes plate. Why did man reject these?
Ravi (entering):
Because there’s no IPO for banana leaves. No quarterly profits in mud.
Madhukar (turning):
Ah, Ravi. The priest of plastic himself.
Ravi (mocking):
And you — the monk of manure.
Madhukar:
What brings you here? Guilt or gas prices?
Ravi (sitting down):
Neither. Just insomnia. My warehouse is full, the rivers stink, my children cough — and I have everything. Except peace.
---
ACT III — The Return
Dr. Neelkanth (more quietly now):
We began with awe — look what man can make. But now I wonder: look what we cannot undo.
Madhukar:
Nature did not design man to produce plastic.
Man produced plastic because he stopped listening to design.
Aanya:
So what now? Are we doomed?
Madhukar:
Not if we become listeners again.
Return to clay. To compost. To community.
Not with guilt — but with gratitude.
Ravi (bitter):
And what of my factories? My workers? My bank loans?
Madhukar:
Then use your machines to make what dissolves. Build biodegradable tools.
Retrain hands. Not just for production — but regeneration.
Dr. Neelkanth (reflective):
We thought we were the mind of nature. But perhaps we were its fever.
Madhukar (softly):
Then let this be our cooling.
Man is not the end of nature’s story.
He is a pause.
And now —
Let him breathe, listen, and write again…
…in ink that dissolves.
---
Closing Scene
The fire crackles. Outside, the cow bellows gently. Ravi stares at the clay cup in his hand, thoughtfully. Aanya begins drawing in the mud. Dr. Neelkanth folds a plastic wrapper from his bag — and places it on the altar in silence. A small act of repentance.
---
god made dirt.
man made plastic.
they say
we're the final note in nature’s song —
well, we must be the burp
after a cheap beer.
ants build colonies.
we build malls.
birds shit seeds.
we shit styrofoam.
you think evolution’s proud?
that nature whispered in her sleep,
“ah yes, let’s grow opposable thumbs
so one day
they can wrap mangoes
in triple-layered PVC.”
there were forests.
we replaced them with
air-conditioned graveyards
called offices.
we invented guilt,
rebranded it as "carbon credits,"
and sold it back to each other
with a service fee.
they call it progress.
i call it a bad trip
on a toxic high.
some say god made man
in his image.
nah.
we made god
in the image of our garbage —
eternal,
non-biodegradable,
shrink-wrapped in fear.
and still
we sit in our plastic chairs,
scrolling past drowning turtles
with plastic straws
in our mouths
and delusion in our guts,
chanting:
“this is how nature intended it.”
---
