There is an abundance of literature on what constitutes green technology and how manufacturers and consumers can adopt cleaner, greener alternatives to power-guzzling products.
So, for a change I will not talk about ‘green technologies’ here.
On the contrary, I’m going to talk about things that may not sit well with how the entire ecosystem of industry and consumers operates in a fast-globalizing – but hot and crowded – world.
In the current scheme of things, manufacturers-sellers talk about faster times to market, constant product upgrades and creation of new niches or segments. Consumers, armed with all the new wealth being generated (especially in the developing world), are ‘going shopping’ with a vengeance. The result: an ongoing, accelerating cycle of ‘buy more, sell more, buy some more, and throw away a lot’.
I remember growing up as a typical middle-class child in pre-liberalized India. There wasn’t much to buy in the first place. We didn’t have large disposable incomes to splurge. And we were happy with what we could get, use and, more importantly, reuse. Books and clothes were handed down from older children to the younger ones. Fridges, TVs and other contraptions used to last generations. And there were few unnecessary gewgaws around us.
Today people buy ‘all kinds of stuff’. In all kinds of places. At all kinds of prices. For all kinds of purposes. And quite often, for no purpose at all – they grab it just on a whim or because it was on sale or because they couldn’t say no to the salesperson. The reason is not important – not in an alarming number of cases.
And what happens to the ‘stuff’ that is bought? It’s hardly used. Or goes phut all too soon. Or becomes out-of-fashion or obsolete. Or makes you feel bored with it because there’s a spanking new one on the market. Ultimately, much of the stuff is thrown away prematurely, remains underused or was never needed in the first place!
Like I said before, all this will not easily go down the gullets of marketers, salesmen and consumers determined to, well, promote sales and consumption. Their obvious objection: What happens to the industry’s growth and consumers’ prosperity? What happens to G-D-P? (I don’t know; something happening to GDP is important but so is something happening to the environment. Perhaps more.)
In my opinion, green is more about habit than technology. The habit of producing goods that last longer. The habit of selling customers what they really need. The habit of optimally ‘consuming’ things and not throwing them away or refusing to get them repaired and extend their life.
For the sake of the environment and our future generations and their secured well-being, are we prepared to change our habits to green? GDP and technology will follow.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Sunday, August 22, 2010
An Encounter with a Polar Bearer
No, there’s no spelling mistake in the headline and I’m not going to talk about any chance sighting of the great white beautiful resident of Arctic regions. (Given that chance, however, I would talk about it, too.)
This is a post about a man, his childhood dream, his perseverance to realize it and, finally, his global mission to keep one of the world’s biggest and remotest pieces of wilderness, Antarctica, out of the clutches of the wildest and weirdest of species – homo sapiens.
When Robert Swan was 11 years old, he saw a video about Antarctica. From then on, he knew he had to go see it – no matter what. Around the age of 22, he began raising money for his trip ($5 million to be precise), thinking it would take two, maybe three, months to do so. He was quite confident of his abilities of persuasion. And persuade he did, but it took him a little longer than he had imagined – seven full years. During this time, recalls Swan, he even drove a taxi to support himself and often got laughed at for his crazy ideas. But never once did he let go of his childhood dream.
Swan was in Delhi recently to address a motley audience gathered for a talk organized by 9.9 Media. The rather smallish room was bustling with people who had come to listen to Robert Swan. And the big draw? Not that he’s decorated with an OBE (Order of the British Empire) but the fact that he is the first person in history to walk to both the North and South poles.
As Swan began his story with impeccable humor, masterful narration and exemplary humility, the audience was all ears. There was a sense of adventure and achievement in the air, even though listening to the tale about walking the white wilderness in an air-conditioned hall was no match to actually doing it in extreme subzero temperatures while lugging hundreds of pounds of survival supplies.
It was in 1984 that Swan embarked on his first polar expedition, titled ‘In the Footsteps of Scott’, to the South Pole. (The title is in honor of Robert Falcon Scott (1868-1912), a Royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions.) He and two fellow travelers, Roger Mear and Gareth Wood, completed the first ‘unassisted’ 900-mile walk (without any dogs, radios or other means of communication) to the South Pole on January 11, 1986.
Ever since, not only has Swan undertaken several expeditions to both the poles but also managed to evolve his childhood dream into a noble mission – and, in the process, inspire and motivate business folk, corporations, young people and anyone who would care to save what Swan calls ‘the last remaining piece of wilderness that nobody owns,’ the Antarctica.
He knew he just had to do something about the polar regions when, walking to the North pole, the color of his eyes changed and the skin began to peel off his face – thanks to a hole in the Ozone under which Swan and his team happened to walk for several days. Swan learnt of the reason for his condition when he came back, and decided he must spread awareness about ‘climate change’ (his preferred term to ‘global warming’, which he says tends to confuse people).
Initially, Swan talked to people about the effects of climate change but it did not receive the attention he had expected. “People don’t accept or appreciate negativity easily and are often turned off by alarmist talk,” he says. So he started lecturing on team-building, motivation, success and other positive aspects of his journeys. And the results, too, were positive, as more and more people came forward to help his larger goal of saving Antarctica and attracting investment in clean, green technologies.
Toward the end of his talk, Swan flashes a number before the audience: 2041. Besides being the name of his company and the address of his website (www.2041.com), 2041 is the year when the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty expires. As per this treaty, no mining is allowed on Antarctica. But come this year and things could change.
It is the mission of 2041 and Robert Swan that things change for the better and Antarctica remains what it is – pristine, unexploited, unowned, unfought-over-for by corporate or political squatters-spoilers…
I do hope this mission is achieved much before the deadline and, for once at least, ‘our story’ – as Swan calls the whole enterprise – has a happy never-ending.
This is a post about a man, his childhood dream, his perseverance to realize it and, finally, his global mission to keep one of the world’s biggest and remotest pieces of wilderness, Antarctica, out of the clutches of the wildest and weirdest of species – homo sapiens.
When Robert Swan was 11 years old, he saw a video about Antarctica. From then on, he knew he had to go see it – no matter what. Around the age of 22, he began raising money for his trip ($5 million to be precise), thinking it would take two, maybe three, months to do so. He was quite confident of his abilities of persuasion. And persuade he did, but it took him a little longer than he had imagined – seven full years. During this time, recalls Swan, he even drove a taxi to support himself and often got laughed at for his crazy ideas. But never once did he let go of his childhood dream.
Swan was in Delhi recently to address a motley audience gathered for a talk organized by 9.9 Media. The rather smallish room was bustling with people who had come to listen to Robert Swan. And the big draw? Not that he’s decorated with an OBE (Order of the British Empire) but the fact that he is the first person in history to walk to both the North and South poles.
As Swan began his story with impeccable humor, masterful narration and exemplary humility, the audience was all ears. There was a sense of adventure and achievement in the air, even though listening to the tale about walking the white wilderness in an air-conditioned hall was no match to actually doing it in extreme subzero temperatures while lugging hundreds of pounds of survival supplies.
It was in 1984 that Swan embarked on his first polar expedition, titled ‘In the Footsteps of Scott’, to the South Pole. (The title is in honor of Robert Falcon Scott (1868-1912), a Royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions.) He and two fellow travelers, Roger Mear and Gareth Wood, completed the first ‘unassisted’ 900-mile walk (without any dogs, radios or other means of communication) to the South Pole on January 11, 1986.
Ever since, not only has Swan undertaken several expeditions to both the poles but also managed to evolve his childhood dream into a noble mission – and, in the process, inspire and motivate business folk, corporations, young people and anyone who would care to save what Swan calls ‘the last remaining piece of wilderness that nobody owns,’ the Antarctica.
He knew he just had to do something about the polar regions when, walking to the North pole, the color of his eyes changed and the skin began to peel off his face – thanks to a hole in the Ozone under which Swan and his team happened to walk for several days. Swan learnt of the reason for his condition when he came back, and decided he must spread awareness about ‘climate change’ (his preferred term to ‘global warming’, which he says tends to confuse people).
Initially, Swan talked to people about the effects of climate change but it did not receive the attention he had expected. “People don’t accept or appreciate negativity easily and are often turned off by alarmist talk,” he says. So he started lecturing on team-building, motivation, success and other positive aspects of his journeys. And the results, too, were positive, as more and more people came forward to help his larger goal of saving Antarctica and attracting investment in clean, green technologies.
Toward the end of his talk, Swan flashes a number before the audience: 2041. Besides being the name of his company and the address of his website (www.2041.com), 2041 is the year when the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty expires. As per this treaty, no mining is allowed on Antarctica. But come this year and things could change.
It is the mission of 2041 and Robert Swan that things change for the better and Antarctica remains what it is – pristine, unexploited, unowned, unfought-over-for by corporate or political squatters-spoilers…
I do hope this mission is achieved much before the deadline and, for once at least, ‘our story’ – as Swan calls the whole enterprise – has a happy never-ending.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
The India of My Screams
I was looking for something to write on India's Independence Day today, when this idea just struck me...
In many schools in India students are often asked to write an essay on 'The India of My Dreams.' Having done my own share of such juvenile writing in school days, I just thought it might be time for me to put out a little writeup with a slightly twisted but perhaps more realistic title, 'The India of My Screams.' So here it goes...
We used to be a sort of sleeping giant before liberalization began in the early nineties. But ever since we've 'woken up,' we don't seem to stop screaming - for one reason or the other.
First of all, none of our geriatric leaders had the vision about how to really go about liberalizing a country as vast as ours - so they took a patchwork approach to it, doing a little here or a little there, but never enough anywhere! And I feel sorry to say that even to this day, we don't have a single leader who can pull the country out of the morass it is in (And even if there were, he or she would find it difficult to steer things their own way in the midst of coalition politics).
So while the incumbent Congress government won on the promise of doing something for the aam admi (common man), nobody knows what it is they've done. And the common man? He's screaming to be heard against rising cost of basic necessities.
Our infrastructure - be it roads, power, water, electricity or sewage - is screaming, creaking and, as we've seen during recent rains in Delhi, weeping too. We have made it a fine art of always allowing infrastructure to lag behind current needs. Lag not in number of months or a couple of years, but lag in decades - perhaps centuries! Has any of our rulers heard of the term 'town planning'? I seriously doubt it. Have they wondered at the mess they have been able to create in and around what many call the Millennium City (Gurgaon)? I have. At least one person wouldn't be complaining (Mr KP Singh of DLF, the biggest builder in the area and the country as well)! The so-called builders of modern India have 'malled' our cities but, in the process, also 'mauled' its infrastructure, the environment and, often, the local inhabitants and the underprivileged...
Our people, especially those ensconced in cars, keep on screaming, too, and they often use the machines they sit inside for several hours each day for screaming. It's called honking and it's a favorite pastime of drivers in most places in India. Never mind that the guy ahead of you is not in a position to move in the bumper-to-bumper traffic, let's honk! Or so goes the popular mood amongst motorati.
Even within the malls, people just cannot help screaming. On most Saturdays and Sundays, they shout their throats hoarse, trying to catch the attention of the cashier at the food court. Then they go to each 'cuisine' counter (the cuisine often being industrially made formula food) and again scream to be heard and served. When they have had 'a good time' hopping from counter to counter for food and are ready to head home, there's a long line of vehicles waiting impatiently to get out of the mall's cavernous clutches and onto the crowded roads. Of course, there's plenty of scope and opportunity for honking and screaming, and most people find it hard to give it a miss.
The situation is no better for those who don't - rather, cannot - go to the malls. They often wait in queues for the water tankers to come. Meanwhile, they scream at each other for breaking the queue or putting two buckets instead of one in their 'occupied' position. On other occasions, they gherao (surround a place for a demonstration) the local power distribution center, demanding that they have had enough going without electricity for the past 10 or 15 hours. There is a lot of screaming going on here, too...
That's not to say that our leaders and rulers are immune to shouting and screaming. But they are much used to it - there's so much screaming and blaming going on in the Parliament and in state legislative assemblies that nobody notices any longer. Many of our leaders are often seen sleeping or snoring amid all this din - most probably dreaming of their multi-million dollars stashed away in Swiss accounts. After all, foreign education of kids, separate lucrative businesses for kith and kin, and other desirables in life come for a cost - and a lot of screaming, apparently...
Mera Bharat Mahaan! (it's a customary salutation in India to show respect and appreciation for your country - the countrymen be damned!)
In many schools in India students are often asked to write an essay on 'The India of My Dreams.' Having done my own share of such juvenile writing in school days, I just thought it might be time for me to put out a little writeup with a slightly twisted but perhaps more realistic title, 'The India of My Screams.' So here it goes...
We used to be a sort of sleeping giant before liberalization began in the early nineties. But ever since we've 'woken up,' we don't seem to stop screaming - for one reason or the other.
First of all, none of our geriatric leaders had the vision about how to really go about liberalizing a country as vast as ours - so they took a patchwork approach to it, doing a little here or a little there, but never enough anywhere! And I feel sorry to say that even to this day, we don't have a single leader who can pull the country out of the morass it is in (And even if there were, he or she would find it difficult to steer things their own way in the midst of coalition politics).
So while the incumbent Congress government won on the promise of doing something for the aam admi (common man), nobody knows what it is they've done. And the common man? He's screaming to be heard against rising cost of basic necessities.
Our infrastructure - be it roads, power, water, electricity or sewage - is screaming, creaking and, as we've seen during recent rains in Delhi, weeping too. We have made it a fine art of always allowing infrastructure to lag behind current needs. Lag not in number of months or a couple of years, but lag in decades - perhaps centuries! Has any of our rulers heard of the term 'town planning'? I seriously doubt it. Have they wondered at the mess they have been able to create in and around what many call the Millennium City (Gurgaon)? I have. At least one person wouldn't be complaining (Mr KP Singh of DLF, the biggest builder in the area and the country as well)! The so-called builders of modern India have 'malled' our cities but, in the process, also 'mauled' its infrastructure, the environment and, often, the local inhabitants and the underprivileged...
Our people, especially those ensconced in cars, keep on screaming, too, and they often use the machines they sit inside for several hours each day for screaming. It's called honking and it's a favorite pastime of drivers in most places in India. Never mind that the guy ahead of you is not in a position to move in the bumper-to-bumper traffic, let's honk! Or so goes the popular mood amongst motorati.
Even within the malls, people just cannot help screaming. On most Saturdays and Sundays, they shout their throats hoarse, trying to catch the attention of the cashier at the food court. Then they go to each 'cuisine' counter (the cuisine often being industrially made formula food) and again scream to be heard and served. When they have had 'a good time' hopping from counter to counter for food and are ready to head home, there's a long line of vehicles waiting impatiently to get out of the mall's cavernous clutches and onto the crowded roads. Of course, there's plenty of scope and opportunity for honking and screaming, and most people find it hard to give it a miss.
The situation is no better for those who don't - rather, cannot - go to the malls. They often wait in queues for the water tankers to come. Meanwhile, they scream at each other for breaking the queue or putting two buckets instead of one in their 'occupied' position. On other occasions, they gherao (surround a place for a demonstration) the local power distribution center, demanding that they have had enough going without electricity for the past 10 or 15 hours. There is a lot of screaming going on here, too...
That's not to say that our leaders and rulers are immune to shouting and screaming. But they are much used to it - there's so much screaming and blaming going on in the Parliament and in state legislative assemblies that nobody notices any longer. Many of our leaders are often seen sleeping or snoring amid all this din - most probably dreaming of their multi-million dollars stashed away in Swiss accounts. After all, foreign education of kids, separate lucrative businesses for kith and kin, and other desirables in life come for a cost - and a lot of screaming, apparently...
Mera Bharat Mahaan! (it's a customary salutation in India to show respect and appreciation for your country - the countrymen be damned!)
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Punishing the Powerful
Just read a news item about a "sitting MLA" getting jail for committing murder during riots in Kandhamal in Orissa. The report says he has been sentenced to seven years' imprisonment by a fast-track court.
This is a rare type of news, especially in a corruption-infested country like India, where justice is not only routinely delayed (Bhopal gas leak is a case in point), it is in such a shambles that the corrupt and the powerful are actually 'encouraged' to perpetrate more crimes and excesses.
It made me wonder: what would happen to India's polity if there were a way to accentuate such 'fast-track' courts and punishing verdicts against the high and mighty? It will be nothing short of an all-body cleanser, a transformation of sorts, a miracle...alas, miracles seem to happen only in the movies!
This is a rare type of news, especially in a corruption-infested country like India, where justice is not only routinely delayed (Bhopal gas leak is a case in point), it is in such a shambles that the corrupt and the powerful are actually 'encouraged' to perpetrate more crimes and excesses.
It made me wonder: what would happen to India's polity if there were a way to accentuate such 'fast-track' courts and punishing verdicts against the high and mighty? It will be nothing short of an all-body cleanser, a transformation of sorts, a miracle...alas, miracles seem to happen only in the movies!
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Going to the Wash Room? Be Warned!
I don’t know who said it, but I kind of agreed: India is a vast latrine. Everywhere you see across the nation, there are people relieving themselves in open spaces, on railway tracks, at the boundary walls of ill-lit bungalows, near drains on the roadside or just about anywhere they feel they must go.
Of late, however, there has been a shift in the way Indians, especially urban, well-to-do Indians, obey the call of nature when not at home. Thanks to a growing number of restaurants, malls, multiplexes and other concrete contraptions where you can now find toilets, people finally have alternatives to open spaces. In fact, sometimes, it seems too good to be true. Toilets in public places? For Indians?? Wow!!!
But when I look at how the toilets are constructed, and how they are maintained and serviced, the wow factor goes down the flush. Let me give you some examples.
There’s this restaurant I went to one of those weekends when you go to a restaurant to eat out. After a while, I felt the urge to pee and went in search of the rest room. Now, this was a fairly upmarket restaurant with upper-class clientele. But look at their toilet! Soon as I pushed open the door, the commode blocked it from opening fully. One way to get inside the toilet was to clamber onto the pot – there was no space around the pot – and shut the half-open door right back. But there were two dangers in doing so: one, I could be seen in this funny position; two, I could break a bone if I slipped. Neither option appealed to me. So what I did instead was slightly open the door just so to squeeze behind it beside the wall, and then close the door from this spy-like position. I did what I had to do and hurriedly maneuvered my way back out.
Why is it so hard to find a decent sized and utilitarian rest room when you are away from home in India?
Consider another wash room, this one at a spanking new mall. They had done up the toilet nicely, with starry floors and expensive-looking bath fittings – only, they didn’t know how to fit them. Take the faucet of the wash basin, for instance. The curvature of the faucet was so elongated that it jabbed into my face as I lowered it down for washing. “Why can’t they keep things simple if they don’t know how to do it?” I remember cursing under my breath while rubbing my bruised nose.
Another time, as I used the loo at a multiplex, I found that there was no waste bin kept for the toilet paper. Had the builders resigned themselves to the fact that most Indians don’t use the bins anyway and flush the toilet paper down the drain (often clogging it)? And the spray tap they did provide was indeed weird. Because when I pressed the tap, water came out with such formidable force that I nearly drenched myself in the squirt. By the time I trained myself to use the tap with considerable self-control, I was already looking like I had performed the miracle of getting wet in the rain inside an enclosed loo.
The rest rooms are supposed to be places where people can relieve themselves comfortably. What we normally get, alas, are ill-conceived pissing holes.
But part of the blame for the sorry state of affairs should go to the toilet users as well. We Indians don’t really know how to behave ourselves in public places, even if those places are as private as toilets. So maybe the builders and restaurant owners try to beat us at our own habits. I remember seeing this notice next to a soap dispenser in a restaurant toilet: 'Push once gently for enough soap.'
“What a cleverly contrived message,” I thought. In one go, it communicated to people about two of their nasty habits: of pounding too much on the push button and of making a mountain of soap on their palms. I have seen many soap-starved chappies collect more than their fair share of soap. Enough soap, in fact, to make do for a whole bath. Not that I ever saw anyone take a bath at the wash basin, but you never know what can happen in the world’s largest democracy! Anyway, I have witnessed far too many people supply themselves with ample soap – and then wash it off their face vigorously by spreading their personal wetness around. One of my most pressing thoughts at such moments: Get out fast.
One novelty that seems to have emerged as a result of toilet users’ nasty habits is the push-type water tap that spits out water for a split-second - often making you wonder if it was indeed water or a bolt of lightning that kissed your hands. You have to push the darned thing several times if you are really serious about achieving any washing. On second thoughts, it gives you an opportunity to exercise your muscles. But should you be doing so in the wash room? I doubt it. Useful tip: if you do not want to die of irritation at pushing the tap two hundred and forty three times, keep one hand constantly pressed on the tap and do your business with the other one.
Nothing beats the stupid infrared, however, when it comes to inducing irritability in the rest room. I’m sure most of you would’ve noticed infrared-activated flush systems installed in several places. The moment you walk close to the urinal (this one is for men specifically, and I don’t know how or if it works for women), the sensor gets activated in a hurry. Before you know it, water from the flush pipe, which is often funnily positioned and perforated, sprinkles onto your clothes in addition to spurting down the ceramic wall of the urinal. It looks as if the system is peeing at you before you get to pee into the system. This problem is so severe that very few automated flush systems ‘get it right’ – causing me to develop extreme anxiety each time I approach one.
It’s going to take a little while before I either become tolerant of toilets or there’s some sort of revolutionary change in the way toilet makers make toilets and the way people use them. Until then, going to the loo is certainly going to be a pee-vish thing. Hey, can you stop splashing it around, please!
Of late, however, there has been a shift in the way Indians, especially urban, well-to-do Indians, obey the call of nature when not at home. Thanks to a growing number of restaurants, malls, multiplexes and other concrete contraptions where you can now find toilets, people finally have alternatives to open spaces. In fact, sometimes, it seems too good to be true. Toilets in public places? For Indians?? Wow!!!
But when I look at how the toilets are constructed, and how they are maintained and serviced, the wow factor goes down the flush. Let me give you some examples.
There’s this restaurant I went to one of those weekends when you go to a restaurant to eat out. After a while, I felt the urge to pee and went in search of the rest room. Now, this was a fairly upmarket restaurant with upper-class clientele. But look at their toilet! Soon as I pushed open the door, the commode blocked it from opening fully. One way to get inside the toilet was to clamber onto the pot – there was no space around the pot – and shut the half-open door right back. But there were two dangers in doing so: one, I could be seen in this funny position; two, I could break a bone if I slipped. Neither option appealed to me. So what I did instead was slightly open the door just so to squeeze behind it beside the wall, and then close the door from this spy-like position. I did what I had to do and hurriedly maneuvered my way back out.
Why is it so hard to find a decent sized and utilitarian rest room when you are away from home in India?
Consider another wash room, this one at a spanking new mall. They had done up the toilet nicely, with starry floors and expensive-looking bath fittings – only, they didn’t know how to fit them. Take the faucet of the wash basin, for instance. The curvature of the faucet was so elongated that it jabbed into my face as I lowered it down for washing. “Why can’t they keep things simple if they don’t know how to do it?” I remember cursing under my breath while rubbing my bruised nose.
Another time, as I used the loo at a multiplex, I found that there was no waste bin kept for the toilet paper. Had the builders resigned themselves to the fact that most Indians don’t use the bins anyway and flush the toilet paper down the drain (often clogging it)? And the spray tap they did provide was indeed weird. Because when I pressed the tap, water came out with such formidable force that I nearly drenched myself in the squirt. By the time I trained myself to use the tap with considerable self-control, I was already looking like I had performed the miracle of getting wet in the rain inside an enclosed loo.
The rest rooms are supposed to be places where people can relieve themselves comfortably. What we normally get, alas, are ill-conceived pissing holes.
But part of the blame for the sorry state of affairs should go to the toilet users as well. We Indians don’t really know how to behave ourselves in public places, even if those places are as private as toilets. So maybe the builders and restaurant owners try to beat us at our own habits. I remember seeing this notice next to a soap dispenser in a restaurant toilet: 'Push once gently for enough soap.'
“What a cleverly contrived message,” I thought. In one go, it communicated to people about two of their nasty habits: of pounding too much on the push button and of making a mountain of soap on their palms. I have seen many soap-starved chappies collect more than their fair share of soap. Enough soap, in fact, to make do for a whole bath. Not that I ever saw anyone take a bath at the wash basin, but you never know what can happen in the world’s largest democracy! Anyway, I have witnessed far too many people supply themselves with ample soap – and then wash it off their face vigorously by spreading their personal wetness around. One of my most pressing thoughts at such moments: Get out fast.
One novelty that seems to have emerged as a result of toilet users’ nasty habits is the push-type water tap that spits out water for a split-second - often making you wonder if it was indeed water or a bolt of lightning that kissed your hands. You have to push the darned thing several times if you are really serious about achieving any washing. On second thoughts, it gives you an opportunity to exercise your muscles. But should you be doing so in the wash room? I doubt it. Useful tip: if you do not want to die of irritation at pushing the tap two hundred and forty three times, keep one hand constantly pressed on the tap and do your business with the other one.
Nothing beats the stupid infrared, however, when it comes to inducing irritability in the rest room. I’m sure most of you would’ve noticed infrared-activated flush systems installed in several places. The moment you walk close to the urinal (this one is for men specifically, and I don’t know how or if it works for women), the sensor gets activated in a hurry. Before you know it, water from the flush pipe, which is often funnily positioned and perforated, sprinkles onto your clothes in addition to spurting down the ceramic wall of the urinal. It looks as if the system is peeing at you before you get to pee into the system. This problem is so severe that very few automated flush systems ‘get it right’ – causing me to develop extreme anxiety each time I approach one.
It’s going to take a little while before I either become tolerant of toilets or there’s some sort of revolutionary change in the way toilet makers make toilets and the way people use them. Until then, going to the loo is certainly going to be a pee-vish thing. Hey, can you stop splashing it around, please!
Friday, January 1, 2010
Some Old Thoughts on The New Year...
For many, each New Year is a time for resolutions. I have often made such resolutions - and usually broken them (just like most others)...
This year, I'm doing something different. I'm just going to reflect on some of the thoughts and 'bulbs' that flashed somewhere in my grandest personal 'home theater', one that needs no electricity but displays the highest-definition results (you guessed it right, I'm talking about the mind). Some of you would've already seen these as Facebook posts, but hey, in a world of retweets, ain't I entitled to some rethweets :)
Without much voodoo, here you go:
* Your own heart and mind is the best place to escape the wretchedness of the world.
* Love and hate have remained constant since the time of Adam & Eve - 50:50.
* If we truly try to be sincere to ourselves, there'll be no need to feign sincerity toward others.
* There's so much heartburn in the world, it's causing global warming.
* Wanderlust often leads to wander*lost* but that doesn't mean we should stop exploring - only that we should be aware of where we are going.
* The world is full of a**holes - but that's no reason why you should be one...
* As long as children have the ability to love unconditionally - no matter how much the grown-ups tamper with that - there's hope for all of us.
* The future shocks us, because we spend too much time reconciling our present to our past.
* An evolved person is not necessarily one with a refined palate, but essentially one with an exalted mind.
* Regrets are nothing but detritus of past actions that keep floating in our mind until we forgive ourselves.
* A heavy heart is worse than a heavy mind.
* A lot of politicians call themselves public servants. They are right - with a stinging twist: Public Serpents.
* The distance between despair and hope can be a leap of faith or a chasm of doubt.
* The mind is the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. And the rainbow itself is the bridge - invisible but perceptible - from the heart to the mind.
* The way a child touches you - physically, emotionally and spiritually - nothing else possibly can. . . Is there anyone who still thinks angels don't exist?
* Music is the vacuum cleaner that smoothes out the cobwebs of tangled thoughts from the remotest corners of our mind.
* What we do not do often reveals more about us than what we end up doing.
* Do not give me wisdom at the cost of kindness.
* In many places in India paperless office is dead; paper mess office, however, is still alive - and kicking you where it hurts most!
* Don't mortgage your present to your past - the future has no interest in it.
* The burden of the lies we speak is nothing compared to the burden of the ones we live...
* The day I stop doing any of these three L's - Learning, Laughing and Loving - will be the day I stop Living. . .
* There are only two things that really matter in life - unfortunately, nobody knows what they are!
* How to get more time, you ask?? Stop killing it!
* No matter where we are, most of us tend to think we should be somewhere else!
* Diwali is not so much about setting fire to crackers as it is about lighting up your inner selves with the spirit of celebration - of joy over sadness, of good over evil, of friendship over enmity, of love over hatred...
* Dieting tip: don't lose steam; lose cream!
* It takes a little time to realize that mathematics is the science closest to God. Thankfully, you don't have to be an Einstein to say this.
* No matter how much we know, there'll always be more to know than we do.
* Theory of relativity: what's "austere" for a few is simplicity for some, necessity for many and, unfortunately, luxury for many many more...
* What Obama probably said (or should've said) to General Motors: "I know what you did last Hummer!"
* The world is a stage and we are all puppets - but some of us do try to pull our own strings...
Let's continue to hope that the drama played out in the global theater becomes more interesting than ever in what can be construed as the year of Vision Perfect: 20-10
Happy New Year...
This year, I'm doing something different. I'm just going to reflect on some of the thoughts and 'bulbs' that flashed somewhere in my grandest personal 'home theater', one that needs no electricity but displays the highest-definition results (you guessed it right, I'm talking about the mind). Some of you would've already seen these as Facebook posts, but hey, in a world of retweets, ain't I entitled to some rethweets :)
Without much voodoo, here you go:
* Your own heart and mind is the best place to escape the wretchedness of the world.
* Love and hate have remained constant since the time of Adam & Eve - 50:50.
* If we truly try to be sincere to ourselves, there'll be no need to feign sincerity toward others.
* There's so much heartburn in the world, it's causing global warming.
* Wanderlust often leads to wander*lost* but that doesn't mean we should stop exploring - only that we should be aware of where we are going.
* The world is full of a**holes - but that's no reason why you should be one...
* As long as children have the ability to love unconditionally - no matter how much the grown-ups tamper with that - there's hope for all of us.
* The future shocks us, because we spend too much time reconciling our present to our past.
* An evolved person is not necessarily one with a refined palate, but essentially one with an exalted mind.
* Regrets are nothing but detritus of past actions that keep floating in our mind until we forgive ourselves.
* A heavy heart is worse than a heavy mind.
* A lot of politicians call themselves public servants. They are right - with a stinging twist: Public Serpents.
* The distance between despair and hope can be a leap of faith or a chasm of doubt.
* The mind is the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. And the rainbow itself is the bridge - invisible but perceptible - from the heart to the mind.
* The way a child touches you - physically, emotionally and spiritually - nothing else possibly can. . . Is there anyone who still thinks angels don't exist?
* Music is the vacuum cleaner that smoothes out the cobwebs of tangled thoughts from the remotest corners of our mind.
* What we do not do often reveals more about us than what we end up doing.
* Do not give me wisdom at the cost of kindness.
* In many places in India paperless office is dead; paper mess office, however, is still alive - and kicking you where it hurts most!
* Don't mortgage your present to your past - the future has no interest in it.
* The burden of the lies we speak is nothing compared to the burden of the ones we live...
* The day I stop doing any of these three L's - Learning, Laughing and Loving - will be the day I stop Living. . .
* There are only two things that really matter in life - unfortunately, nobody knows what they are!
* How to get more time, you ask?? Stop killing it!
* No matter where we are, most of us tend to think we should be somewhere else!
* Diwali is not so much about setting fire to crackers as it is about lighting up your inner selves with the spirit of celebration - of joy over sadness, of good over evil, of friendship over enmity, of love over hatred...
* Dieting tip: don't lose steam; lose cream!
* It takes a little time to realize that mathematics is the science closest to God. Thankfully, you don't have to be an Einstein to say this.
* No matter how much we know, there'll always be more to know than we do.
* Theory of relativity: what's "austere" for a few is simplicity for some, necessity for many and, unfortunately, luxury for many many more...
* What Obama probably said (or should've said) to General Motors: "I know what you did last Hummer!"
* The world is a stage and we are all puppets - but some of us do try to pull our own strings...
Let's continue to hope that the drama played out in the global theater becomes more interesting than ever in what can be construed as the year of Vision Perfect: 20-10
Happy New Year...
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