Not a typical Friday

Friday means the start of a weekend. For some people it is a party night but for people like Aastha Godha Friday is standing outside the Mumbai suburban local station with a placard which says, ‘Climate Change is real’.
Godha (27), has done her graduation in Bachelor of Management Studies from Mithibai College. She has her own startup OrangeSky which humanities human resource policies with different companies. Godha has left her job and is a part-time traveler. She is also involved in the day to day activities of Fridays for Future (FFF).
As one of the earliest members of FFF-Mumbai chapter (FFFM), Godha explains the nitty-gritties of the movement, “FFF is a movement started by a 15-year-old Swedish girl Greta Thunberg. She bunked her school on Friday to demonstrate against the politicians for their lack of action on climate crisis, outside the Swedish Parliament. The movement soon spread across the world. FFFM was started on March 18th.”
Godha likes to be called an “active” member of FFFM. She proudly talks about the biggest global strike they held at Marine Drive on May 29th. “There were around 200 people who joined us along with Anushka Manchanda (singer),” says Godha. They talked about various environmental issues.
“FFFM came very late in my life”, says Godha. She has been living a sustainable, vegan and a low-key life even before joining the movement. “There was a little bit of turmoil when people thought that I might be overthinking about the crisis,” complains Godha but her parents are very supportive.
An avid trekker, Godha has completed treks like Rupin Pass, Sadakhphu and Chadar with zero waste. She doesn’t carry any plastic packaged food in her treks. She even uses menstrual cups instead of sanitary napkins in the mountains. She recalls an incident when she got a sunburn during Rupin Pass trek. She didn’t use sunscreen as it has plastic packaging. “Beauty of human body is to let it work to its fullest capacity,” says Godha who allowed the sunburn to recover by itself.
Godha sees herself as a movie ticket seller for the movement. If she wants to make the movie a blockbuster, she needs to sell the tickets. “Any amount of newspaper and advertisements will not help unless people talk about it,” emphasizes Godha.

Photo Courtesy: Aastha Godha

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