An Inconvenient Truth

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This year, as usual, Bangaloreans are complaining of an even hotter summer. Even as the trees were felled to make way for wider roads. Wider roads so that more traffic can be accommodated. More cars, scooters, autorickshaws spewing fumes and choking lungs.

Twenty years ago, a couple of sparrows built a nest in my home. I would sit in the room for hours and wait for the baby sparrow to peek out of its makeshift nest.

Now we don’t see too many sparrows. Nope, not in my home, at least.

I wonder how many of us in Bangalore switched on the TV this Sunday morning to watch ‘An Inconvenient Truth’. After seeing this movie, my respect for Al Gore and the makers of the movie increased manifold.

‘An Inconvenient Truth’, tells the truth like it is. Global Warming - the cause, the consequences. The policies and politics.

It’s the story of melting of glaciers submerging coastal cities. Of old ecological niches giving way to bizarre new ones. Of changing climatic conditions giving rise to new diseases like SARS, Avian Flu. Of the dreaded Malaria bug literally scaling higher altitudes due to global warming. And of an embarrassing truth called the rising population.

The story slowly unfolds as Al Gore narrates it. The players: The corporates vs the governments vs the common man. Did scientists team up to trivialize the problem to suit the big giant companies? What is the Kyoto Protocol and who is really following it?

‘Political will is a renewable resources. Each one of us is a cause for global warming but each one of us can reduce it as well with making the right choices.’

Al Gore speaks about how technology keeps changing but with it, habits must change too. Technology must cater to increasing energy efficiency and at the same time reducing Carbon dioxide emission - along with this there must be a corresponding change in habits.

‘Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb. If the vast majority of the world’s scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced.’

Yet another gore-y story doing the news rounds is the world hunger crisis which would actually occur as a result of global warming scare. In an attempt to reduce the petroleum consumption, more and more corn crops in the US are being diverted into the production of ethanol, and this is directly influencing the food chain. So if it is not global warming per se, it could be the world reaction to global warming that can create a change in global ecology.

So what’s in it for us? It’s time to carpool to work, folks. Say NO to plastic bags and reduce non-biodegradable waste accumulation. Plant more trees. Enjoy the breeze from the bio-friendly fan rather than the airconditioner. Take a little rough-riding on the non-A/C car. After all, you want your kids and grand kids to enjoy this world for a long long time. Right?

Now for a few astonishing facts from the movie:

	The number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has almost doubled in the last 30 years.2
	Malaria has spread to higher altitudes in places like the Colombian Andes, 7,000 feet above sea level.3
	The flow of ice from glaciers in Greenland has more than doubled over the past decade.4
	At least 279 species of plants and animals are already responding to global warming, moving closer to the poles.5

	Deaths from global warming will double in just 25 years — to 300,000 people a year.6
	Global sea levels could rise by more than 20 feet with the loss of shelf ice in Greenland and Antarctica, devastating coastal areas worldwide.7
	Heat waves will be more frequent and more intense.
	Droughts and wildfires will occur more often.
	The Arctic Ocean could be ice free in summer by 2050.8
	More than a million species worldwide could be driven to extinction by 2050.

Big B is blogging!

After Aamir Khan’s successful blog, it is now time for the Bollywood Guru Amitabh Bachchan to get up close and e-personal, with the launch of his new blog.

Currently Big adda blog has two categories- ‘interviews’ and ‘others’. All ye fans out there, check it out…

A few Good Men

You got go give it to these few good men. These Maasai warriers came all the way to London from Tanzania to take part in the Flora London Marathon. The run was to raise money for getting clean water to their remote village.

I saw this report first from the Treehugger blog and it really had me sit up and wonder about how many thoughtful things there are to do in life. If only we will it. Apparently, three out of every five children die in the Elaui village because the water they drink is dirty. Now that’s something that one cannot come to terms with. Water is a fundamental need of every living being, and if clean water is deprived, then what chance is there for these young ones to see adulthood?

News has it that these brave warriers reached their target of Sixty thousands Pounds by running in the marathon. Clad in their traditional attire, these men of grit and determination wore shoes made of car tyres to complete the Marathon.

Here’s a beautiful video of the Marathon:

Green Code kicks off…some plastic!

Yestderday was Earth Day.

If there was one sound that Bangalore did NOT want to hear, it was the rustle of plastic. Thousands of friendly ‘Green-Coders’ sacrificed their Sunday sleep to make a plastic-free point to their fellow Bangaloreans.

The Green Code walkathon that started from Cubbon park meandered into Lal Bagh, Bangalore’s pride possession- a park with many species of old trees. Operation Green Code flagged off in Lal Bagh with food and fanfare. The Who’s who of Bangalore- painters, to Home Guards to eminent IPS officers, to senior corporate officers were all there in jeans and tees.

Members of the Art of Living Foundation led teams to different zones in the park where they picked bits of plastic debris and shot ‘em straight into wicker trashcans. The message to the average city-zen was to say no to plastics bags and use eco-friendly shopping bags instead. Especially imporant in a country where the cows roam freely and dip their noses into trashcans all t’ time to pick out the choicest plastic bag to chew on.

Green Code plans to continue the plastic-picking activity for the next few weeks with the hope that the average Bangalorean will turn over a new leaf. Now that’s an eco-friendly thought indeed!

For more information on Green code, check out my other blog: www.yourstrulymanju.blogspot.com

Sons and daughters

Babita

Priyanka

Flash news on NDTV Channel: Father wants to sell son to save Babita, his ailing daughter.

Children are so precious. We’d do anything to see a smile on our kids’ faces.

So what can a father do if he cannot afford a life-saving operation for his daughter? And what would the son be feeling about all this? Not exactly the run-of-the-mill job search for sure. Into whose hands would he be sold? Is the hapless father actually selling his son’s life to save his daughter’s? I am not even going into the moral route here. There is no moral highground to take. It is just hard choices.

Yet another daughter, Congress Party member Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, met Nalini. Nalini serves a life sentence in prison for being an accomplice in the assassination of the then Indian Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi (Priyanka’s father). Priyanka desparately seeks closure for her father’s untimely death which happened seventeen years ago. Some call this party politics. I prefer to call it coming to terms with a larger-than-life loss. Or loss of a dear life.

At times, life seems totally connected. It’s almost like joining the dots- like adjusting the mind-lens a bit. Blow off the dust. And what do you see?

You see that the world moves through love. Love for a father, love for a daughter. Love for a victim, for the accused. Love for the body, for the soul.

Love for life. For death…

First show, last thought

You, me aur Hum

Even as the main road in Sanjaynagar is getting tarred and straightened out, I thought that I could iron out my thoughts early this morn’. By posting a blog.

My team completed a release on last Friday, so we thought we’d head out to a movie-and-lunch session on Monday. We booked online tickets to the latest release ‘You, me aur Hum’ (literally tranlated to ‘You, me and Us’). It was the first show of the season, so we felt mighty good about walking in to the theater (small pleasures, what?)

It was good, quite good. The storyline was a delicate yet powerful one. Boy-meets-girl, gets married to her. What initially was construed to be minor forgetfulness of the wife turns out to be Alzheimer’s. Lapses of memory loss- particularly short term memory.

The heroine plays the victim of the disease very well. The first terrorizing incident she experiences is when she is stranded on the road, unable to remember her home address. She fumbles for her cellphone and desperately tries to call her husband- if only she could remember his name!

The first half could have been better edited, particularly the mediocre song sequences. And the rather bothersome jokes. But we got to give it to Ajay Devgan (the director). He got it right in the second half- the theme hits us in the solar plexus. Scene after scene unfold to depict the pathos, the sadness of both the wife who is suffering and the empathizing husband. The husband goes through his own agony by trying to deal with the situation in the best possible manner, and yet going on a guilt trip when he relents to the doctor’s advice of moving his wife to a Care Center.

Good acting, and a movie that makes you totter to the exit, as you choke through the storyline.

To us who have our minds intact, let’s thank God each day for being able to make some sense of this world around us. But to those who drift into a world unknown to the rest of the world, getting back can be a trauma in itself. Shows clearly that the brain, the intellect and the mind are interconnected. But the one who rules is clearly the mind.

You can see the movie. But keep that popcorn packet handy to chew off those tense moments.

Made for date-ing!

Our moods are often governed by what we eat. I always find that on days when I eat well-balanced light meals, drink lots of fluids, and follow my regular Yoga routine, I just don’t seem to get tired or irritable. But when I eat fat-rich food, I feel lethargic for most of the day.

I love sweets but I also realise that sweets can get oh-so-rich in fats! So I keep trying to reinvent the sweet recipes I know with simpler ingredients, or I find new recipes altogether.

It was during one of these ’sweet’ quests that I stumbled on a sweet made out of dates. It tasted quite good. Then I decided to go ‘non-Google’ in my search attempts and simply sample as many date desserts as I could.

Upon much coaxing, my friend Rahim sent me her sister’s recipe for date ‘burfis’.

Date burfi (pic from www.daawat.com)

A ‘burfi’ is a sweet paste that has the propensity to harden when it cools, so that you can cut it into cubes.

Ingredients:

Condensed milk or milk cream- 100 gms
Dates (deseeded and coarsely crushed) - 500 gms
Ghee (clarified butter)- 2 tbspns
Marie biscuits (low sugar biscuits) - 10.12 nos
Procedure:

Heat ghee (clarified butter) in a pan. Add the dates and condensed milk.
Cook it well, constantly stirring the contents, until the mixture leaves the sides of the pan.
Add powdered biscuits and cook for another couple of minutes.
Spread the mixture on a plastic sheet or an aluminium foil. Twist it into a roll (like a Swiss roll)
Refrigerate the roll until it thickens.
Remove the roll from the fridge and cut it into small pieces. You can eat it all by yourself or serve to the bunch of folks who are watching with hope.

That said, let me wrap this recipe with a few good words on dates.

Dates have been known to the Arabs and Indians from 5000 BC. The scientific name is real pretty too- Phonenix dactylifera.

Dates are low in calorific value (a single date might contain around 23 calories) and rich in minerals like Selenium. Selenium is said to lower the risk of cancer and heart diseases, keeping the immune system healthy. Dates also contain vitamins A1, B1, N2, B3, B5 and C.

Hope you go date-ing, some day real soon!

Traffic blues in Bangalore

The problem with Bangalore is the vehicular heterogeneity. Cars, buses, scooters, cycles, autorickshaws (three wheeled cabs) compete for the road real estate. Forget the poor pedestrians- they never had a chance at a sidewalk!

Reams and reams of newspaper is dedicated to complaints on the city traffic but nothing is really done about it.

We do have some solutions that the average citizen can rely upon. Carpooling is a great, green idea. Some IT companies actually advocate working from home on a few days. I take the wfh option once a week. On weekends, you can actually shop at a nearby mall rather than wade through the traffic to reach your favorite one.

As far as movies go, have you ever tried to do a morning show on your weekend? Traffic is lean after 10.00 am, and you get out of theater for lunch. You can do lunch at a restaurant and head for home to nap the afternoon off. It works just great.

It helps if we can create our own little township around our homes- plan your shopping, entertainment and siteseeing around your vicinity. There is a park ever kilometer apart, and that’s great for taking your kids. Plant a few trees in front of your home, and it becomes a nice stress-free zone.

The new red buses are really fun to ride in. Try using one to take the family out. Club an outing with a neighbor’s family.

There are ever so many ways of doing our bit to reduce traffic ‘noise’. So be creative to think of new ways to beat the traffic. Else, we’ll have to creep kawling, er sorry, keep crawling, lane by lane.

Speaking of crawling, I didn’t know that ladybirds can be caught in jams too!

Photo from www.Flickr.com

Hi-tech Horrors

The thought occurred to me as I was trying desperately to wrench open the fancy lock of a conference room.

I had inserted the key, turned it gently to the right, and then to the left, and proceeded to turn the knob after that.

The door did not open.

I withdrew the key from the keyhole, and reinserted it, this time gently turning it to the left, and then to the right. After that, I repeated the knob-turning once more.

But the door did not budge from its initial stand.

Once more, I inserted the key, a tad forcefully, just to ensure that it reached its final destination nice and proper. Then I turned it to the left and then to the right and then turned the knob, this time in both directions, hoping that any one maneuver would be the right combo. The door remained jammed.

Muttering a few indelicate words under my breath, I rammed the key into the keyhole, turned it to the left and right, right and left, leftish right and rightish left. Then I proceeded to lead the doorknob through a few brisk dance steps…left and right, centered, right and left.

Uh, uh, the door did not open.

Finally, it took me a screwdriver and bare hands to pry the door open. Later, a hideous bill managed to replace the lock, but did nothing to reduce my soaring blood pressure.

Modern technology is certainly not my cup of tea (oh, what does it matter if it’s iced, decaff’d, or whatever?).

I guess I have this ‘thing’ for modern keys in the first place.

On a trip to Singapore, I was handed a card instead of a key, to open my room. No matter how correctly I tried to swipe the card, I always seemed to do it in the wrong direction. Every time I closed the door to go out, I would look suspiciously at the card, quite skeptical over its ‘lock-ability’. Now if the hotel had provided me with a nice big lock, which displayed ‘LOCKED’ on my way out, wouldn’t it have been just great?

It was just before one of these transcontinental trips that my brother presented me with one of those suitcases that had a combination lock. He swore by it, saying it was a state-of-the-art security system. But it was only when I failed to remember the magic number and stood agape in front of the stern custom official for a few unwholesome moments, that I realized that it was the ’state-of-the-heart’ that really concerned me.

A few years ago, mother insisted on buying a fancy suitcase and promptly discarded the old rugged steel trunk which she would take on all her train journeys. The trunk was hard and sturdy, and quite often, on hot sunny afternoons, while waiting for an odd train, we would all sit comfortably on it without ever worrying that it would give way.

Now the new suitcase mother recently bought had those tiny wheels attached to its base, which you could comfortably drag along on any smooth airport flooring. But Indian railway stations have rugged terrain to negotiate. So during one railway (mis)adventure, the suitcase chugged along obediently for some time on the platform, with mum dragging it proudly up front. Then suddenly, it came to a grinding halt. Mum was forced to stop in her tracks, but with her head held high, she just tried to pull the suitcase a bit more ferociously. The suitcase, now lodged comfortably in a cozy crevice, was peaceful in its haven and made no attempt to respond to brute force. Mum did not want to concede defeat either; clearly it was a battle of wits and wheels. Mum yanked the handle. It snapped briskly and collapsed entirely in her right hand. She then proceeded to wave at a porter nonchalantly and have him carry the suitcase to her compartment.

Fast cars are the order of the day, it seems. I’ve no real problems with that, but why do the windows not respond any longer to a good ol’ crank? Dad’s old Morris had cranks everywhere, and every time the car heaved up a slope, it would sigh ‘n stop. Dad would then take out a long bent rod and would proceed to yank it round and round somewhere around the bonnet, until the car choked, coughed and gently obliged to carry the entire family up to the movies. If I wanted my window glass lowered, I’d crank away at that too. But now cars have push buttons that upped and downed windows, quite unexpectedly, the rights being transferred to the driver!

The good old days had tellers at banks smile sweetly at you and thrust a greasy wad of notes into your palm. At least, the money felt intimate and personal. Now you have cards that get wolfed down by ATM machines and you wait anxiously until the machine completes interrogating you thoroughly, before shooting the card back at you. Your thoughts turn completely self-destructive. “Did you answer right? Did you give your pin number or was it your aunt’s phone number? Did you please the machine God enough?” Finally, if you’re lucky, you could be sending a grateful prayer to the local newspapers by evening, for cash ‘n card being hurled at your face by you-know-who (why take names? One hears that even ATM machines have internet spies these days…)

One wonders if love too, has gone high-tech these days. Now it’s time for e-cards, virtual hugs and radio messages. Gone are the good old days when you’re greeted by a real man standing by your doorway, holding a box of chocolates and armed with a real hug that made you swoon for more…

Once upon a College Fest!

Last week, I happened to drop into MS Ramaiah Institute of Technology, Bangalore to meet someone. The place is usually ‘grey-tinted’ what with all the old and dilapidated buildings mixed in with the more modern constructions. A few trees around add some much-needed color.

But on that day, last week, MSRIT had a makeover, thanks to a festival of students, by students and for students. The theme was ‘ethnic’ so you found girls dressed in beautiful saris with perfect blouses to match. Hair styled, nails done, accessories matching to a tee; they simply looked great. I wouldn’t be quite done admiring one dress, when another girl would walk by wearing an even more gorgeous outfit. The boys were in Indian silk suits- tights and long knee-length Kurtas. With a long scarf draped on one shoulder. The chief guests (a Swiss University delegation) walked into the pendal wearing garlands and were welcomed with Indian classical dance performed by the students.

Hmm….student days are THE BEST EVER! Foot loose and o’ so fancy free!