(h)our earth....

Saturday was earth hour & i religiously switched off my electricity for an hour, eating by candle-light... Looking out of my house, though, i was aghast... the rest of the world was lit as usual..

Inspite of our media taking up the issue with great fervour, i could see it had little impact. So what went wrong? Why were all those people completely insensitive to the earth hour? I haven't seen much of the media campaign other than excerpts from last year's sydney earth hour. I believe they completely missed (though i cant confirm this, as i couldnt have seen tv all the time) the concept of earth hour. If we are trying to save some CO2 pollution by switching our lights, then was the whole idea even conveyed?

Also, i was hardly a willing partner to the whole idea. My skepticism arises from the fact that there may be better ways to reduce CO2 consumption on a regular basis, rather than such rare mass-movements. Our government does try hard to advertise use of CFLs over incandescent bulbs, switching off engines at traffic lights, switching off electronic items on standby and the likes. I believe the campaign is true at heart, but for some weird reason, nobody (in the media) wants to take it up voluntarily. Maybe, it has no "scoop" value. Anything that is regular becomes too ordinary to discuss & unfortunately our media thrives on new scoops.

So, how about an earth year? How about we decide that for the next 365 days we will:

1. switch off our electricity for half hour (one hour is too much, & those with power cuts are exempted)

2. switch off our engines at intersections

3. switch off all electronic items that have standby mode, and move our bums to start them only when we need them, rather than use the remote (aka tv, audio systems, laptops, etc etc)

4. remove chargers from sockets when not in use & switch off the plugs

5. drive at optimal speeds (upto 60km/h i believe) & not accelerate too fast & brake too hard

6. use the stairs atleast once daily instead of using the elevator (even downstairs helps!)

7. switch off our computers when not in use / atleast switch off screens when leaving the desk (even laptops have buttons to switch off screens)

8. promote (& use if possible) solar heating & lighting

9. close doors / windows when using air conditioners (ensure place is almost air-tight) & draw curtains to reduce heat load on the room (those with glass walled offices may demand partitions / dark +thick curtains)

10. reduce daylighting by using / creating ventilators in the room to allow ambient sunlight

These are things that hardly need an effort & yet can save enormous amounts of electricity & subsequently reduce CO2 pollution. For those of you who are really concerned, please go ahead & try these out! One radical point that i missed out : "Bicycle your way to the office / use public transport!!"

Dont look at me, i'm not the one who wants to save the world! Dont expect me to do this for the next 365 days! Besides, advice is always free! :P

A drunk society #2

This is in response to Jun's comment to my Drunk Society on: http://flippidy-flip-jun.blogspot.com/2009/03/response-to-sandys-drunken-society.html

I've been quite waiting for some response on this one! i quite agree point 3 is downright rude! Responses are numbered to Jun's points:

1-a) I repeatedly pointed out prohibition did NOT restrict access to alcohol, it only made it unacceptable in public places

1-b) The question of a parallel underground power structure is an interesting one. Albeit, the idea that it can exist only in presence of prohibition like Al Capone's gangs is wrong. Even when alcohol is legally available, there are standards guiding what alcohol is, for safety. In small rural breweries, alcohol is made directly from chemicals - it is essentially ethanol. A little mistake in that chemical process leads to the deaths of many unknowing persons. Hence, the government tries to control such unlicensed brewers. This results in the rise of another mafia - the cheap liquor mafia / the counterfeit liquor mafia, & so on. My point of the above ranting is that we cannot avoid a parallel power structure like mafia. It is a product of the society, & shall exist irrespective of prohibition.

1-c) morality & stigma ARE ineffective! thats why we need the law!

1-d) yes, prohibition is unacceptable to all, including you & me! all the same, its necessary for a saner society!

2) The very idea that treatment may  not be available to cure drug / alcohol related problems is one of the largest reasons of self-control in use of such items! Treatments are available to addicts, if only they are willing to accept the social consequences! There is enough research in drug related disease programs to cure most of them. Why they dont go? Its a social stigma to accept the fact!

3) this point is quite invalid. Its only because of prohibition that we dont find drugs being sold on every street corner, like we have pouches of gutkha. Nobody needs a lesson in diseases (aka cancer) arising from intake of any of the above. Very simply, WHY should the society tolerate those who willingly hurt themselves? only to turn back to the society for support when they are full with their stupidity??

Prescription drugs may give us a high, but not many of us are willing to try that. Only the desperate do it! Liquor has been given the status of a social status symbol / necessity against wordly problems. It is this label that i am completely against, & prohibition is a tool for that! There is no way we can control anything completely! Not atleast in our great Indian democracy!

4) The problem of liquor is very different from that of smoking. We are not just talking of the urbanites here, but the other 50% - rural folk. Liquor available in urban areas & to middle class (+ above) has high standards - meaning it does not give much of a high! But local brewed chemical based liquor available in rural areas (our potli!) is quite a thing! Its no less than a synthetic drug. It can give a high like no other & even kill the user! When taken in, the person is hardly in control of oneself. When you turned up drunk that day, you had a commercially available brand! The best you could have done is taken your pants off! But had you tried true-to-its-name potli, you would have ended up pulling everybody's pants down! Believe me, you just need to go to rural areas to see what brews there! They put in anything that works - from chemicals to dung to animal fat / meat to rotten flesh, anything!!!!

5) I dont believe gujarat is the safest place exclusively because of liquor. My point however was that it is quite an assuring thought to not have drunk people running around the place! & i will stress again, its hardly a problem in urban areas - im talking about rural areas. The  reason why we dont hear enough of it is because media is urban-centric. The rural news come in only when hordes of people die due to consumption. No brawls / riots / drunken stupors are reported in mainstream newspapers! 

Regarding my view of drunk people, im sure you can make out the difference by now - its in the liquor buddy! The things urbanites use regularly are hardly stupefying!

Your historic perspectives are quite catching! I had no idea of the same. Gives me all the more reason to talk about prohibition! The examples are apt too, as a society level structure of drinking versus a personal riot. A social drinking ceremony leads to further ills, a personal bout is also less harmful.

To quote myself again, prohibition is a good social practice. While people may enjoy liquor personally in their homes, it is quite risky for the state to publicly allow liquor consumption & face the consequences.  I too believe that any kind of prohibition should not be regulated by the state, but we live in a society that is hardly self-regulatory!

The Story of Isaac by Leonard Cohen

The door it opened slowly,

My father he came in,
I was nine years old.
And he stood so tall above me,
His blue eyes they were shining,
And his voice was very cold.
He said, I’ve had a vision
And you know I’m strong and holy,
I must do what I’ve been told.
So we started up the mountain,
I was running, he was walking,
And his axe was made of gold.

Well, the trees they got much smaller,
The lake a lady’s mirror,
We stopped to drink some wine.
Then he threw the bottle over,
Broke a minute later,
And he put his hand on mine.
Thought I saw an eagle
But it might have been a vulture,
I never could decide.
Then my father built an altar,
He looked once behind his shoulder,
He knew I would not hide.

You who build these altars now,
To sacrifice these children,
You must not do it anymore.
A scheme is not a vision,
And you never have been tempted,
By a demon or a god.
You who stand above them now,
Your hatchets blunt and bloody,
You were not there before.
When I lay upon a mountain,
And my fathers hand was trembling
With the beauty of the Word.

And if you call me brother now,
Forgive me if I inquire,
Just according to whose plan? 
When it all comes down to dust,
I will kill you if I must,
I will help you if I can.
When it all comes down to dust,
I will help you if I must,
I will kill you if I can.
Have mercy on our uniform,
Man of peace or man of war,
The peacock spreads his fan.

A drunk society...

The Times of India Ahmedabad has a reader's debate on whether we should allow drinking legally in Gujarat. Most readers have voiced that it should be allowed because it leads to additional revenues!!!

Are you out of your mind!!!???

First of all, in theory, i would disagree with the government deciding who should drink or not. But we are not a society blessed with a good enforcement agency. Hence we cannot control the drinking problem. So, for this imperfect location, a draconian law prohibiting liquor consumption is necessary.

I am aware that liquor is freely available, as & when required in whatever quantities. The only disadvantage is that the state does not earn anything from such transactions. So, why should the state earn trying to kill its people? By enacting prohibition, the state has the following advantages:

1. Nobody comes out drunk on the streets (except rare instances). This leads to a high level of public security, making Gujarat one of the safest places to live. 

2. Offenders can be booked for more than just drunk driving or public harassment. They can be booked for long & fines taken from them.

3. The state can officially deny free medical benefits to diseases arising from drinking & thus save itself a lot of mess. If there was no prohibition, the state was bound to admit those with drinking problems / diseases & create an enormous infrastructure for them. That will take away more than the earned revenues.

4. The state does provide loopholes like licenses for drinking to foreigners, NRIs, "health problems" etc. Its a safe way of earning, controlling drunk behavior & having a list of all those who drink officially.

5. It is legal to have parties with drinks for corporates who can take permanent or temporary licenses. Hence, the state does not suffer the problem of hospitality to outsiders.

6. Social drinking is as common as elsewhere, but only under wraps; and nobody walks on the roads after drinking, which is better! Also, because one has to pay a high price for the liquor, drinking is restricted. In addition, local liquor dens can be kept under control, and death due to drinking improper liquor among poor people is reduced (if not prevented completely)

7. Why the hell should the state allow for an activity that is harmful to oneself & others? If smoking & drugs are banned, why should liquor be allowed freely?

8. I would agree that we miss the famed pubs here. But the drunken brawls seen at pubs all over are a happy avoidance here, at the risk of sitting idle on weekends! UAE has a law where one cant be found drunk outside a pub! If we had such governance & enforcement, we would have happily opened pubs everywhere! But, with our system, prohibition (& then secret drinking) works better!

what a night!

i went along with my own kidnapping (not kid, but oldie now...) they took me to rajwadu (traditional gujju food), fed me till i was on the verge of blasting! & then they took me on top a flyover....

what a perfect way: bakra halal karne ka!

& lo it was 12... a few gave hugs, rest handshakes.. but all applauded!

& yet... how can one not have a rebel in the group..it was sandy.. not me, the other one...

so he greeted me with an egg on my head just as i was to cut the cake... well i took two down with me...spoiling the dresses of the two ladies!! thanks to sandy...

well. whats more to say...they painted me brown, white & yellow (ughh the yolk).. & yet it was one of the most memorable nights ever!

thank you all for coming together, however randomly, and making my night a dream!!

best wishes to all & eggs to sandy ! ;) :P

Bureau-cut

I have been grappling with the political system for a couple months now. A few weeks back, i came up with a random proposal for personalized democracy. While i was right in choosing the words, the content was mis-directed. I have been reading Toffler's Third Wave among other things.

Toffler talks of a version of personalized democracy that didn't cross my mind:
SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS

Our most visible NGOs, discussion forums on the web, groups  on yahoo / orkut / facebook, etc are all a visible version of a special interest group. Toffler describes how we will increasing resort to special interest groups (SIGs henceforth) in order to channel our voice / frustration / complaints, etc. It is the simplest form of a gathering, and yet so powerful. My projection of a personalized democracy shall run as follows:

- instead of having a large bureaucracy filled with babus, we are already using ngos & regulators (an official SIG, so to say) in order to smoothen our daily administration. The power of the political system is diminishing before the strength & voice of such gatherings / SIGs. This will only be magnified in the future, leading to regulators for every large & small thing / service / idea, etc. The marked change will be that instead of being appointed by politicians, these systems will be largely self-reliant. Regulators will be chosen by the general vote of special interest groups and so on.

- the second phenomenon that is increasingly becoming general is self-reliance. We resort to self-help more than ever, instead of calling in the expert. We have idiots guides to everything now. So, instead of electing one representative to solve all our problems, who will in turn appoint competent persons to do the work while he supervises them on behalf of the voters, we will remove the representative himself! We will, each one of us, become regulators, appointing competent persons in each field for each issue, and monitoring the problem on a real time basis. Our collective voice / participation shall lead to a direct interest & responsibility to each issue. 

But, in a life busier by the day, how can this be envisaged? Busier is a relative term. We are busy with what we are concerned with. And yet, we have time to fix our own cars / phones / computers, etc. These smaller tinkerings take up all our time. Now imagine a person beginning to tinker with his neighbourhood issues....

Not convinced? Take the times of india Teach India / Lead India campaign, Clean Ahmedabad (or your city) campaign, etc. Instead of complaining as usual, people are participating to make a difference.

I completely agree when anyone points out to me that these things have existed since decades / centuries. Yes, but the scale of these events is now so large, thanks to the technology & lesser work times (please get a perspective with worktimes of peasants / industrial workers to those in service sectors). We have more time to be involved in things other than those which directly earn us our daily bread. The government / bureaucracy is being replaced, piece by piece, by a series of SIGs. 

I believe the direction is right, but no rules of the game exist for now. We are in a stage where mass democracy is being phased out, but a personalized one is not yet implemented / envisioned. It is this phase that will be the hardest, and today, we are directly in its path...