Mirrors in the sky ?

REFLECTIVE DUST (dispersed in the atmosphere), GM CROPS (whose leaves are designed to be more shiny so that they can reflect more light), REFLECTIVE BALLOONS (launched into the higher atmosphere), SEQUESTRATION (storing CO2 underground), OCEAN FERTILIZATION (sprinkling iron dust to bloom photosynthetic plankton) and SPACE MIRRORS (in orbit to deflect sunlight away from earth).

We must be crazy. Where are we are getting all this fancy, "innovative" ideas from? More importantly “why” are our human minds coming up with such “wonderfully brilliant” ideas?

Is this how we are planning to "fight" global warming? It seems some of the best of the intellectuals (around the world in various universities, companies, and other organizations) seem to think so. I wondered if all these people needed some lessons on “life”, as I read the article in the latest issue of Down to Earth.

Of course, I am not an expert on climate change, yet can Technology (alone) solve all our problems? Should we not show materialistic technology its place, never overplay it ?

Does it simply not make sense to worry about the root cause of the problem? And just develop new, fancy, quick fixes for a problem we have created in a system which we don't fully understand (which we probably will never fully understand). 

And we do not even seem to have the humility to accept the limitations of human ability to understand, and intervene in natural systems that are far too complex for our minds to ever comprehend. True, human thinking, imagination, creativity, has no bounds, but the way we do science (and all other things), learning (“discovering”) by analysis, that is by systematically breaking down systems into comprehensible (for the limited human mind) parts, and repeatedly experimenting with it, to understand it, does not seem to be sustainable. Coz we have just one planet to screw up. We simply cant reverse engineer it.

What is the root cause of global warming?  In one line, we are producing too much green house gases, majorly C02. Does not this one line pretty evidently indicate the solution. Should we not produce less of it, start living a sustainable life? Simplistic, non materialistic approach to life, like a lot of wise people suggest.

Instead we seem to have these brilliant ideas. True, these are wonderful ideas people have come up with, if we just look at it in a narrow context of technology. Looking at them we can marvel at the ability of the human minds` intellectual ability. But we must stop at that. In the larger context, it is just a half baked fix (which might end up creating more problems). 

These are problems related more to our approach to life, world, and humanity, which need a holistic approach. Why do we think we can solve them by sending mirrors up into the sky? 

The less we have, the more we share ...(?)

Sitting in Cubbon park that morning, i just could not believe that such a calm, quite, colorful, beautiful place still existed in Bangalore. And that too in the heart of the city. Agreed, the park (like all other other parks) is not maintained well. But i still think any Bangalorean who visits the place (especially early in the morning) will be very glad to know such a place does exist in this chaotic city.

I had reached there very early, would now have to spend at least an hour before the entire skit team arrived and we started work on the new skit.

I found a spot - a stone bench, a little away from the main pathway, spread out the newspaper i had picked before entering the park, reminded myself that i was very much in Bangalore, and started reading.

As i sat enjoying the silence, i saw a couple of rag pickers, moving around a little away from me. They were literally in rags, their dress (in no way close to one) barely covering their body, with unkempt hair, looked as dirty as one could imagine. They were carrying couple of big plastic bags, full of "something". As i watched them, i noticed they were being followed by a big group of street dogs. At least ten of them. It is not very uncommon to see rag pickers being followed/chased by street dogs. After all, they both have to fight it out, to claim their share of food from the dirty bins.

Nowadays, i don't think i am bothered much by such things, have got used to the city. I went back to reading my paper. As i flipped the newspaper over to the sports page, i looked up momentarily. What i saw amazed me, i put the paper down and started watching the rag pickers and the dogs.

The two rag pickers had found a spot on a huge boulder. One of the guys climbed on top of it, pulled out some old newspapers, tore them uniformly into a number of pieces and placed them one beside the other even as the other guy below tried to keep the dogs away. I noticed he was not chasing them away, he was just trying to keep them at a distance. The guy on top pulled out from the two covers, "food", probably stale, probably accumulated over a period of time. He then spread out the food on all the pieces of paper. What happened next i had never expected.

The two guys now got down and started isolating one dog from the entire group at a time. They then fed it with one part of the food they had spread out. The two rag pickers, like this, ensured that each of the  the ten dogs got its share. For the dogs that were looking a little weak, they stood guard until it finished eating. This went on for the next twenty minutes. Once they had fed all the dogs, they got on top of the boulder, themselves ate, packed the remaining food in their bags and left the place.

The two rag pickers probably owned nothing in this world. They probably had no place to stay, wore only torn clothes, and probably did not even know when, how, or where (if at all) they would eat next. Yet...

Change by Design

The moment i looked at the contents page of the book, i felt i was holding a typical management book (advising readers on how to get better at everything in life for/from a "profit" perspective). It turned out to be exactly not that.

For a while now, i have been following this guy, Tim Brown, his blog, TED talks, IDEO etc, and all his "ideas on ideas".  

The book is very well written. The story telling really awesome. Tim Brown does it beautifully, "preaching" his religion of design (based thinking), providing pure gyan, seamlessly mixing it with opinion, real life examples, case studies, insights into the human behavior and the ability of the human brain to improvise and innovate, not to forget his thoughts on building sustainability into everything in life. He is able to do all this and more by connecting easily with us, the reader, and provoking us to think about a lot of things we would not have considered important.

The best thing about the book, i think, is that all kinds of people can relate to things he is talking about, coz he is talking about a holistic approach to problem solving, an integrated, multidisciplinary, thought based thinking (Design Thinking as he calls it).Understanding human needs and thereby humans ourselves (what he refers to as human centered design).

The book can be read like a text book, full of management fundas. But i thought it was a lot of fun reading it like jus any other story book, the flow is awesome. After all, story telling is one of the most important things that makes us human....and Tim Brown is really good at it..one of the best books i have ever read...

in ACTION

It all started very informally, we came together to create and enact a skit for the rajyostava celebrations in our office. All of us felt it was a wonderful experience working together and that we should continue working together on 'something more'...we now present...

Janma jaaladi....enjoy madi...

in

ACTION

once is never enough

I realized only at the end of the movie that, i did not know the names of the lead characters. And as the cast started to appear i understood why. The lead characters were named "guy" and "girl" !

A very simple, beautiful, unsophisticated (yet, emotionally complex) inspiring story. A very subtle style of story telling. A great unexpected ending, with the guy and the girl taking their own distinct paths (yet, happy).

I really enjoyed the movie.  :-)

The 5 rupee techie

Four months ago we moved from Banashankari to NGEF on old madras road. Banashankari, is old Bangalore, NGEF the new. Banashankari always felt like Bengalur, the idea, I had of Bangalore from my childhood. The newer areas of Bangalore, Whitefield, NGEF, Marathalli, Electronic city never feel like Bengalur to me, its a whole new city, ahead in time. I feel the newer Bengaluru sometimes looks artificial, clumsy, and more like it was built in a hurry. Looks like pockets of neat, clean apartments in the middle of a slum. They just don’t gel.

Anyways, ever since we moved here, I have begun to use namma BMTC to commute, as part of my every working day routine. And most days I happen to see something that would bother anyone not used to BMTC. Nowadays though, I have got used to it ...for good or bad.

The first bus I get into everyday is to get to the old madras road (now making space for the new namma metro). It is only a couple of stops away from my stop, but since the road is too dusty to walk I am forced to take a bus for the short trip.

Officially it costs me 3 rupees. But when I give the 3 rupees to the conductor and say "main road", he `ll invariably give back 1 rupee and walk away. Yep, no ticket. And when I invariably give back the 1 rupee and ask for a ticket he`ll (or she `ll), grumble as if it is something strange and criminal to ask for a ticket. This, well, most people in Bengaluru, would know, is one of many common of tricks the BMTC bus conductors have up their sleeves. A lot the people are of course, happy paying the 2 rupees.

The other short trip I have to take is when travelling back, from my office to ITPL. And, a lot of the times I take a volvo, the frequency of these buses is pretty good, a lot of the times better than normal buses. These volvo buses are meant for the elite IT techies of Bangalore, who else could afford to pay 50 bucks for a trip from majestic to ITPL every day? The buses are very comfortable, air conditioned and you never feel the "pain of traveling", except of course the traffic (at whose mercy Bangaloreans are), about which the bus can’t do much.

And guess what, the trip from my office to ITPL costs 10 (only), "cool". Most people can afford it. Is it not? The entire bus will be full of people wearing their badges, IBM, TCS, GE, DELL etc. These buses and the people who travel in them are very different, a different section of the market, society compared to the people who travel in normal BMTC buses. The people traveling in volvo s are educationally more qualified, have better jobs, contribute more to the economy and society, supposedly.

Yes, supposedly, but only supposedly. On one of my first days, traveling on this route I witnessed something that made me think.

A lot of the techies paid the conductor only 5 bucks, and said "ITPL". The conductor took the 5 rupees and walked away expression less. This was the first time I saw someone doing this in a volvo. So I thought it was something very unusual and isolated. But it happened routinely almost everyday. It was either the passenger offering 5 rupees or the conductor returning 5 rupee when someone gave him a 10 rupee note.

By the way, there is no ticket checking on these buses. I have never seen one. Why does no one check the passengers in these buses? Because people traveling in volvo s are elite? Or because they are educated, so they would be honest and always buy a ticket.

I feel there is something seriously wrong with the way we people do things. In a normal BMTC bus, though this was not right, I did not care coz the people travelling were from villages, carrying their vegetables, flowers, or small shopkeepers with their plastics, garments or construction workers who are never even adequately dressed. But what’s wrong with the IT techies earning tens of thousands (if not lakhs), a month?

What is the use of education if we can’t inculcate basic human values? Does it not reflect very badly on us as a society? What is the use of trying to put a man on the moon if we cant do the simplest of things honestly, buying a ticket in a bus? Do not all our economic, technological developments become meaningless?

What forces people to do this? What forces the bus conductor to do this? Is it just that the transportation is just too expensive for the common man? Is the salary the conductor gets just not enough to lead a simple life in Bangalore? Or is it just human greed? Or lack of values? Or a complex combination of all these?

As I was discussing with a friend the other day, the goals we need to set for ourselves as a nation and society, must be things like getting people to form a queue for a bus, honestly pay for the tickets, not littering in public places etc. Everything else can come later.