More than a conversation starter, a cause should be something that we can give a bigger voice to: Kajol
Rachana Dubey (BOMBAY TIMES; January 23, 2019)

This power couple will celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary in a month. For them, time has gone by in a flash. After working on numerous films together, they have now decided to front a social cause together, one that they feel passionately about — making beaches in the city plastic-free. During their beach clean-up drive last week, Ajay Devgn and Kajol spoke to Bombay Times about what unites their thoughts on a social cause:

A few weeks from now, you will celebrate 20 years of being a married couple. In a day and age when marriages are losing their importance, how does spending two decades together feel?
AJAY DEVGN: Shuru shuru mein problem hoti hai, phir aadat pad jaati hai…
KAJOL (LAUGHS!): Yeah, right! I think that for us, it’s just gone by in a flash. In all these years, I think both of us have worked each and every day to keep this relationship intact. There were times when one of us took the other’s presence for granted. Whenever I did that, he turned around and corrected me and whenever he did that, I brought him back on track. We’ve proven to each other, day after day, that we want to be with each other. There’s no volcanic fire of romance that stays alive for so long, it’s the desire to be together that keeps you going.

This year is special because it also unites the two of you on the big screen, in Tanhaji. Does working together feel any different from what it was, let’s say, a decade ago?
AJAY: No, it doesn’t feel any different. Right now, we are just shooting together and it’s all feeling very normal. It’s how it was when we worked together years ago. Nothing has changed. So, we have no idea how different it is for people, because our focus is only on delivering our performance well.
KAJOL: We’re really not thinking, and that is the truth. Nysa is in class 10 this year, that is my bigger worry. When we are closer to the film’s release, probably it will sink in that...yeah, we have worked together and maybe, it is different. (smiles).

You both have taken time off work to create awareness about cleaning beaches and water bodies, and recycling plastic collected from such places. Where did all of this begin?
AJAY: I’ve always been conscious about our surroundings and the need to keep them clean. In fact, even when people were not talking about environment and beach clean-ups, I used to speak about it, to the point that the women in my family thought I was being fastidious about it. I would even send out messages to my family about global warming and the need to reuse the resources that we have. I’ve nagged my children, Nysa and Yug, about this, too. So, now they have learnt not to waste resources at home or anywhere else.
KAJOL: I think a cause that brings us together is something that we both should believe in and this is one of them. For us, more than a conversation starter, a cause should be something that we can give a bigger voice to.

Do you think that we have woken up late to realise the harm we have done to nature?
AJAY: Woken up? Or are we still waking up? I don’t know that, but we need to create awareness and tell others what can happen if they don’t wake up to it now. Plastic is just seen as a bane, but it can be beneficial also. It’s about how you can keep using and reusing it. Pollution is nothing, but resources not being harvested. Plastic has a whole lot of good to offer, but its end-use wastage is the problem. We need to change people’s behaviour towards plastic and things can change. It can benefit the society if it’s used intelligently. Plastic is a devil that won’t die, so we have to change its form and make it more useful to us.

The BMC imposed a ban on the use of plastic, but it was recently reported that people have gone back to using plastic ad-hoc.
AJAY: Why blame the BMC officers for the ban not being followed? Why will they stand on your head all the time and tell you what needs to be done? Look at the population of this city and compare it with the number of officers. Why do we want to be caught and be reprimanded all the time? Basically, we don’t want to take any responsibility for whatever is being done for us. What right do we have to blame a BMC officer? You don’t have the right to live if you can’t take the basic onus of keeping your surroundings clean. If all of us control ourselves, it will make a visible change to our society. As responsible citizens, we can just create awareness. People should also want to follow what is being imposed as a rule. Even if a few of us start practising the change we want to see, we will be able to make a difference.

Do you think that the reason people have woken up to make beaches garbage-free today is due to the realisation that kids are missing out on a great outdoor place to play?
AJAY: Kids don’t want to go out to beaches. This city is just a strip. There is no space to open up anymore. It’s also a population issue, but hamare paas jo hai, usko toh saaf karke dobara use kar sakte hain na. There is no point trying to open up new avenues when you can’t care for what you already have. There is one per cent of the world population trying to do some ecological good, another one per cent that doesn’t believe in their efforts and the remaining 98 per cent of us, have only opinions to offer. We are so useless. We need to change.
KAJOL: I think the world is everyone’s responsibility. I mean for how long has the BMC been asking us to segregate our trash. But do we take it seriously? Today, plastic is something we can’t work without, but the layman has to be taught that kachra hai, but it needs to be separated for further processing — recycling and reusing. We can’t just stop using plastic one morning, but we can make it friendlier. We have to do this for our children, because they deserve a better world.
AJAY: We have gone beyond that point of creating a cleaner world; it’s about creating a liveable world now. Earlier, we thought, hamari agli generation ka kya hoga. But today, we have to think of how we will survive the next five years because that’s how fast we’re damaging our eco-system.

Is there anything that you’d advise people to do to make this a liveable place?
AJAY: Save resources and be careful how you use them.
KAJOL: First and foremost, we need to spread the word about segregating waste and that starts at our homes. Literacy has nothing to do with this. It’s about cultivating a habit. Ajay and I have got a tailor down the road to make us 40 cloth bags. So, now our staff doesn’t need to ask for a plastic bag. It’s not a question of expense or weight. We’ve also ensured that we use steel and glass at home instead of plastic plates. Finding options is better than creating a fuss, right?