Sunday, July 27, 2008

HAIR




21 Sat, 7:30 PM
English, 70 mins
Troupe: Evam Youth Forum Mumbai
Venue : Rangashankara

This play was based on the fairytale Rapunzel.
The story is well known- a baby girl is imprisoned in a tower by a wicked witch. She grows up to be a beautiful young woman with long, flowing hair. Things look pretty hopeless for her until one day a handsome young prince walks into her life. The prince climbs up the tower with the support of Rapunzel’s long hair which she let down from the top to the bottom of the tower…

A good job of acting.
Dialogues well delivered. The girl who played the witch did a great job I thought.
I was scared of her.

Using a rope to depict long hair was very effective usage of property I thought.



I am still trying to make sense of the ending though; an ending that is not quite happily ever after.
Expected the prince to free the girl from the clutches of the witch… but…
Wont spoil the ending for you… or have I spoilt it already???

And the small movie showed in the end did not help or fit in…

I probably lost some message. So did Anupama.
If you have more than the combined intelligences of me and Anu, which is very unlikely, :-) then go watch this play…

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Interpreter Of Maladies - Jhumpa Lahiri



200 pages. 9 short stories. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in the year 2000.

The author is a Bengali. She is known as Jhumpa Lahiri but was born as Nilanjana Sudeshna. The stories are all about Bengali people living in the US, UK and India, their way of living and to be more precise, about their predicament.

The nine stories are:

A Temporary Matter - A husband and wife, the death of an unborn child that changed their relationship.
When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine - A Bengali family abroad provide comfort to Mr. Pirzada whose family is in East Pakistan/Bangladesh when the country and its civilians find themselves in a crisis.
Interpreter of Maladies - A tour guide takes a family to Konark and observes the idiosyncrasies of the family members, particularly the wife, who later makes a shocking revelation to him.
A Real Durwan - A woman who guards an apartment building, her not so happy state and the attitude of the inhabitants towards her.
Sexy - A married Bengali having an affair with a white woman and the eventuality of their relationship.
Mrs. Sen's - A Bengali house wife in the US whose mind and soul remain in India and plays caretaker of an American boy to keep herself occupied.
This Blessed House - Its about two Bengali NRI's who get married, their differing magnitudes of reliigious tolerance and how a timid, restrained husband discovers that the woman he has married is an ebullient, outgoing woman.
The Treatment of Bibi Haldar - Set in Indian background, the story is about an abnormal epileptic young woman who craves marriage but suffers neglect by her own kin and how her ailment is finally cured.
The Third and Final Continent - A young Indian man lives in the UK and then moves to the US. Its about his initial efforts to cope with a new environment and people and his remembrances of these trivia after sevral years of settling in the US.

I did not find anything incredible or remarkable about the book. It’s quite plain. I would not use the word simple. I would say plain. Nothing remarkable about the language either.
Perhaps I expected more from an award winning work.

I was not happy with the ending of some of the stories either, particularly, “This Blessed House”.
Not that I am looking for an O Henry twist in every story but just an ending that feels like an ending.

“The Treatment of Bibi Haldar” is good. I liked the ending too. It’s one of the two stories set in an Indian background.

I did not find any nuances either. Or did I miss something?

I did note down some English words that every Indian gropes for almost everyday but seldom finds. These are words used to denote those “things” that you will find mostly in India or Indian households or Indian society. Words, the lack of knowledge of which make even the most fluent English speaking Indian stammer, stutter, fumble and falter.

Did you know???

Fennel seed or “fennel” is the word for “somph”, the mouth freshener or digestive that we use after meals.

There is actually a name for one of the most commonly found prints on Indian saris and other Indian fabric. Paisley print or simply paisley! A sari with orange paisleys…for instance…



Rava of which Upma is made is called “Semolina” or “Cream of wheat”.

The straw mattress you find in every household is called pallet.

Conclusion : I will not say it’s a bad piece of work, but just that there is nothing remarkable about it.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Sign Boards On Hilly Roads


Have you any idea how it feels to be hanging on to the edge of a precipice that looks down at a valley thousands of feet below and is perpetually made deeper by a roaring river of brutally cold water?
Well, how about doing this for a continuous ten hours?
Imagine it just started raining and the surface of the precipice is getting slippery.
Add to this a massive body speeding at you from the opposite direction, threatening to knock you down.

More or less, this was my situation for almost a month in the Himalayas.

28 days. 173 kilometers on foot. The rest of the distance, we covered by road. Sitting by the window seat made me see the precariousness of my situation all the more clearly. More than once, I thought it was all over.
At certain places the road was really narrow. Our bus took 20 minutes to co ordinate with a vehicle coming from the opposite direction, carefully moving ahead, covering inch after inch;
On one side was the vehicle which was separated by our bus by a mere inch as it crossed us. We almost scraped each other.
On the other side was the valley, at an immeasurable depth.
Even a minor error in judgment on the part of the driver and we would plunge into the valley; a fall that would hurt even before the sudden stop.
I had my heart in my mouth.

As we moved on the winding roads, in semicircles, U’s, V’s and other curves, we enjoyed reading these signboards.

“Nazar Hati, Durghatna Ghati”

“Horn Bajao, Jaan Bachao”

Better be Mr Late than to be Late Mr
- this we have in the plains too…

Peep peep, No sleep

Time is money, But Life is precious
– applies to other situations better.

No race, No rally, Enjoy the beauty of the valley

This is Highway. Not Runway

Keep your nerves on the curves

Alert today, Alive tomorrow

After whisky, Driving risky

Drive slower, Live longer

Road is hilly, Don’t drive silly

Life is a journey, Complete it
– Very meaningful.

AND THE OSCAR GOES TO…………

“Be soft on my curves” :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)


Friday, July 18, 2008

Rudraprayag


After Kedarnath, the next destination was Rudraprayag.

All this while, I had seen rivers in the valley; Alakananda, Mandakini, Nandakini, Pindar…. But I had not touched the water anywhere.
It was Rudraprayag where I decided, I would make my first contact with the water of the mountains.

The word prayag indicates confluence of rivers. There are five such prayags in Uttaranchal. Devaprayag, Karna prayag, Vishnu prayag, Rudra prayag and Nanda prayag.

Rudraprayag is where the confluence of two major tributaries of the Ganges, Alakananda and Mandakini, takes place.

Mandakini comes from Kedarnath and Alakananda, from Badrinath. As the two become one, Mandakini looses her identity and the river continues to be known as Alakananda which will, in a few miles, a few hours, loose its identity too for the privilege of becoming one with the mighty Ganges.

Every evening Ganga Aarti takes place here. The aarti for Ganga and her tributeries happens every evening in every village, town and city that stands on her banks.
What a magical country this is…..where everything from mountains to rivers to animals is held in religious sanctity! Truly India is incredible!

It is here, that an epiphany struck me as I stood on a rock right at the epicenter of the confluence with Mandakini on my immediate right and Alakananda on my immediate left.

An epiphany, that science is ludicrously inadequate.

On my left was a water that was characterized by really fast currents, turbid muddy waters, brown in colour and roaring boisterously – Alakananda.


On my right was another water, deep emerald green in colour, quieter in movement and a surface that was relatively tranquil – Mandakini.



The two waters were so different although they flowed just a few hundred meters apart. Each water had a unique identity, a unique appearance and unique properties.

And science attempts to define water as H2O – 2 molecules of hydrogen and one molecule of oxygen. Thats the definition for any water and every water. What an inadequate definition!
One has to go to the mountains and take one look at the many rivers to understand that there is so much more to water than just 2 molecules of hydrogen and one of oxygen!
Verily, science has the potential to drain the romance out of even the most romantic aspects of life and nature.

Thus I contemplated, with a sardonic smile on my face, as I witnessed the confluence of the two waters in awe.



Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Kab Tak Rahein Kunware


This was a Hindi play in Chowdiah memorial hall I watched on 20th June, Friday.
It was not worth braving Bangalore traffic.

It’s a story of 4 bachelors and their luck with love and marriage.

I would recommend this play only to those below 20.
The humour is very slapstick. People falling down, pushing one another, girl slapping boy and several boisterous actions.

It lacked polish and refinement.

The acting skills were not particularly commendable.
Costumes were colourful. I must admit that the girls danced well. Some of the dialogues did tickle me. But a certain class was missing.

If you are below 20, you may catch it.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Parineeta - Sharat Chandra Chatterjee



It is a Sharat Chandra, but for a change, it is not a tragedy. :-)
This one was a more enjoyable reading than Devdas.
In hindsight, the movie based on this book had certain fabricated sequences but they only served to make it more interesting and dramatic.

It is a story of 13 year old Lalita and 25 year old Shekhar, their families and the norms of the society those days.
In both Devdas and Parineeta, the women are 13 or 14 years old but seem so know their minds so fully well. They know they are not merely infatuated but deeply in love. They get married at that age and manage a household like experienced homemakers. Such maturity cannot be a product of imagination alone. People during those days must have truly been superior (in some respects).

Gurucharan, the impoverished father of five daughters, is a Brahmin. According to customs he would have to give dowry to get his daughters married off. He would be ostracized by the society if could not get them married before they turned 14 or 15, for he would be guilty of harbouring aged, unmarried daughters. Lalita, his niece reflects on how the society would have no objection if a girl became a widow soon after marriage and returned to the father’s house. Quite sardonically, she thinks that the only safe way for a girl older than 15 to stay in her fathers house is by becoming a widow!

A Brahmo (not a Hindu, but a follower of Brahmoism), did not have to give dowry. Gurucharan seeing no other escape, converted to a Brahmo but was ostracized by the society for giving up his religion. One way or the other the poor man had to be ostracized.

This episode has been excluded from the movie entirely.

However, this conversion of Lalita’s uncle to a different religion made it almost impossible for Shekhar who was a Brahmin to marry her.

In the end however, Lalita is accepted by Shekhar’s mother who was fond of her and they live happily ever after.

I googled “Brahmo” to learn more.
Brahmoism was founded by Ram Mohan Roy.
It is the youngest of India's 9 recognised religions. It seemed to have been founded to counter the evil practices of the Hindu society of those times like sati, caste system, dowry system, permanent widowhood etc.
And lastly, there are only 177 Brahmos in India according to the latest census reports!

If you havent watched the movie yet, good. Read the book first.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Metamorphosnow


Snow, snow and more snow
Each, a different snow
As if it has an identity

Sprinkled on this mountain top
Smeared on that peak

Powdered snow
Paste like at times
Narrow streaks of white here
But liberal patches there

Layers of cream on brown earth
Like vanilla and chocolate

Coarse like powdered sugar
Fine like talcum

Glistening sparkling
Playing hide and seek
As the sun and the clouds
Battle to lay claim

Milk white all day
Grey during dusk
Turns peach when bathed in golden rays
Of the morning sun

Ever elusive
But when finally in reach
Chunks of ice
Heavy as a stone

Soft as feather from far
Stiff as rock when near

So cold
It feels like a thousand needles

Inviting yet invincible
Hiding hollows beneath a beautiful surface

Slipping from beneath your feet
Even as you climb most cautiously
As if to say, “To crown a mountain is my prerogative
Nobody else shall get to the peak”

Dangerous innocence
Just like the Ocean
But who has been able to resist the lure of the Ocean?
And who has been able to escape the charm of Snow?





Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Kedarnath


After Badrinath, it was Kedarnath. We took a bus to Gaurikund from Badrinath; Ranjana, yours truly AND Major Abhiskek Dimri. This was a newly acquired friend whom we found on our way back to Badri from Vasudhara. :-)

The drive via Rudraprayag up to Gaurikund was very very scenic. The mountains were green, unlike the mountains leading to Badri. The river in the valley was Mandakini and the water was clear unlike the turbid waters of Alakananda. It took us 10 hours to reach Gaurikund and we were stuck in a traffic jam for a good 30 minutes. Narrow roads and a motley assortment of motor vehicles. Cars, buses, jeeps of all sizes. Moving in all directions.

Gaurikund is a dirty, wretched, miserable, Godforsaken place. “Love it or hate it, you can’t ignore it” because there is no other way to get to Kedarnath.

Our trek to Kedarnath began the next morning. We hired a mule to carry our backpacks :-), bought a chhadi (bamboo staff) and started. The chhadi really helps. I know this because when I trekked to Vasudhara, I did not have one and I was panting for breath. Of course, there was a dearth of oxygen too (the area was dry and arid. No greenery at all) but the chhadi would have helped. When you go for a trek, always remember to carry one with you.

I must mention that when you begin trekking to Kedarnath, it is not a very pretty scene. The path is strewn with mule shit and urine. There are labourers carrying people. One man carrying a person on his back, four men carrying a person in a palki (a crude version of palanquin), there are people on horsebacks…people pushing their way… its nauseating…
But after the first kilometer, you find more space.

The trek is 14 kilometers long. And here it begins...


But there was such a cornucopia of green on the mountain and all around that I would have preferred it to be 28 kilometers. Also, I did not feel a lack of oxygen; probably because there was ample greenery around.

When sunrays fell on tender green leaves, the result was so magical.


The Mandakini river below was just too beautiful. It was deep down in the valley and I could not go to the waters. :-(


The first view of snow as we climbed further.


I paused every few steps to take in more and more of the valley.



Mandakini, gliding through thorns, shrubs, stones and rocks, rejuvenating them all...



There are Dhabas in every corner. Jal Jeera, Lime juice, channa, chai, water melon, cucumber. I stopped here and there to take some liquids. We had completed almost 9 kilometers and it started raining. We slipped in to our raincoats.



As you approach Kedarnath, you see mountains with streaks of snow. This one was chocolate cake with vanilla topping.


When you see cloud or fog in the valley after rainfall it means the weather is getting clear. Mausam Khulne Ki Nishani.


Can you believe that this is the Mandakini glacier? Behind the town of Kedarnath… it’s covered by soil … therefore its grey and ash like…


We are almost there.


The night was very cold. I saw snow all around the place. Next to a building, in front of a restaurant, behind that wall…

This was the next morning. Usually the sky is clear in the mornings. In the afternoons and evenings, it gets cloudy.


The Kedarnath temple.


We had been to the temple the previous night and seen the Shivling completely decorated. We went again the next day. There was a long queue and believe me, it is difficult to sneak in but we told the police we were students. He took pity and after a long wait he let us in. The ling inside was a different sight altogether. The gold coloured silky fabric that decorated it the previous night was no longer there. It was a rough piece of rock which did not even resemble the usual lingas in its shape.


Time to return. But before that…


As we returned… some more Mandakini.


We were covered by fog all around.



It began to rain and the picture was so different from what it was the previous day. The same valley looked so different and so much more beautiful. As someone said, life takes on a new meaning in the rain.







To see all the pictures, do visit Kedarnath

Friday, July 04, 2008

Silence! The Court is in Session


A writer or a novelist has the luxury of several pages(as many as he wants), to sketch a character he has in mind, by describing the character in detail like his/her appearance, habits, lifestyle, idiosyncrasies. He can even illustrate by the help of certain incidents and examples from the past. And added to all this, the author may first describe all the characters before actually going on to the narration of the story itself.

Theatre, in comparison, offers very limited resources. You have to use time very judiciously when you have at hand the task of sketching a good 10 characters in a short span of 2 hours.

And a playwright has to do the character sketching as the plot is enacted (No additional time is available for the job). Therefore, he has to use time very judiciously and those few dialogues and actions meant for conveying the idiosyncrasies or features of the character need to be very effective or the audience will not get it…

I must admit that this play that I watched at Alliance Francaise had good character sketching.

A play by Vijay Tendulkar, it’s a story written in 1967, originally in Marathi. It mirrors the society of those times - really conservative, orthodox, judgmental and curious to the extent of causing disgust.
A motley of people in a village including the educated and the illiterate scheme to humiliate a Mrs Benare, a school teacher, who has a relationship with a colleague that is considered illegitimate by the society. Mrs Benare who has been tolerating the rest of the characters speaks up at last.
The play attempts to give the likes of “Mrs Benare”, a chance to defend themselves against a deaf, unforgiving society. I will not reveal more.
I heard it was controversial during those days. I am not surprised.

It is very humorous throughout although it revolves around a serious subject. Only towards the end, it gets grim. I actually became incited at one point and uttered a profanity at the “wicked woman”, under my breath. Not very proud of having done that.

Just a few words from Rokde evoke so much laughter from the audience not because what he said was very funny in itself but because the character of Rokde was so very well sketched that the subtle humour in a single line that Rokde delivered was not lost on the audience. The crafty lawyer, the innocent and naive Samanth, the comical, forgetful, Rokde whom everyone makes fun of… all the idiosyncrasies well depicted.

There was some stammering and faltering in dialogue delivery. But given that each one had so many lines to deliver, I would forgive that.

Overall, “Great job!”

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Root Cause Analysis


The following is the artcile that I posted to WritersBlend in the month of June when the Leit Motif was "Environment".
------------------------------------------

It’s a story about those days, not so long ago, when reading was not a hobby but an activity that I would engage in only occasionally. Poetry, painting and drawing had become hobbies of the past. Come weekend and there was plenty of time but nothing to do.
I would pick up my mobile, scroll through the list of contacts and call up friends one after the other. Movie, lunch, dinner? Sometimes, a friend would agree and we would have fun. Other times, I would hear from all of them that they had already made other plans or that they wished to rest at home or that they were bankrupt or …..
So I would sit on my bed all day in a godforsaken PG (paying guest accommodation) and get bored.
One day, unable to stand this boredom any longer, I decided to go shopping all alone.

I went to Commercial street. I bought a white skirt with pink floral prints on it. I ate American corn from one of the makeshift shops. I entered “Westside” thinking I would only window shop. After three hours I came out of the shop with 4 Salwar Kameez suits and a stole in my shopping bag. I bought 3 pairs of earrings from a street hawker. Although I was not hungry, I entered Woody’s and had cauliflower fritters and some “Pesarattu”.

I bought a pair a beige coloured angle boots which would go well with a long skirt. It was 7 PM. I had spent a good 7 hours shopping. I decided to return. I came back to my PG (can’t say “I came home”) and flaunted my purchase to my roommates who exclaimed that the skirt and the suits were so beautiful. I looked forward to that day when I would try them all. I had spent 5000 rupees but what the heck, it was a great weekend.

This was the first of a succession of weekends that saw one after the other, the numerous malls of Bangalore, Brigade road, MG road, some more commercial street, more shopping, more eating and more spending.

It’s been a year now.
The white skirt with pink floral prints has not been tried once for there has been no occasion to wear it. The angle boots are still in the box for I haven’t found a skirt to go with it. I wore the stole only once and I don’t have a matching dress for the earrings that I bought. The cauliflower fritters and “Pesarattu” that I ate in Woody’s were soaked in fat and I really shouldn’t have had them.
In hindsight, the 5000 rupee worth pleasure that the weekend shopping had brought with it lasted only until the next weekend.

How mistaken I was in believing that shopping and spending would help me defeat the feeling of loneliness that engulfed me during those weekends!

Recently, as I watched a famous talk show, I learnt that people buy a lot of things out of compulsion without realising that they are doing it to beat the loneliness in their lives. It is their way of filling up the lacuna or vacuum in their monotonous, uneventful life. Spending time in malls and buying materials keeps them occupied, gives them pleasure (though temporary) and they deceive themselves into believing that their life is very “happening”. It’s a psychology “thing” that has actually been documented.

We forget that material possessions cannot satiate an individual beyond a certain limit. Shopping to kill loneliness is like drinking sea water to quench thirst.

***************************************************
My grandparents in Mysore lived in an antique mansion that sprawls over a piece of land that is 100 by 120 feet in area. She was blessed with 9 children. The other occupants of the house were a brother of my grand mom, 2 children of her sister, my oldest cousins who went to college there and my great-grandmothers.

During the earlier days, the members of the family had to run the household using traditional means and methods. But as days passed by, modern home appliances made their way into the house one by one. The kitchen became equipped with a mixer, a grinder, a heater, a gas stove and a refrigerator. A television set was installed in an empty corner of the hall. All members had agreed upon a list of common programmes and they would assemble in the hall before the TV to watch the same.

Although too many children lived in the house, not too many clothes needed to be bought. As the oldest outgrew his clothes he bequeathed them to a younger one; the younger one bequeathed his clothes to his younger one and so on until finally the youngest one inherited all the clothes in the family as he grew up. And when the youngest brother outgrew his clothes, he bequeathed them to the eldest brother’s son. :-)

One day, a two wheeler and a four wheeler were driven into the courtyard. The vehicles were used to escort the aged and middle aged men and women of the family to places and in case of emergencies.

25 years have passed.

The antique house stands where it stood. Some members continue to live there and some have moved out. There has been proliferation of people as well as property. I am not in close contact with all the descendants but only a few of them.

I will talk about four families who live close by. Two of them are brothers and two others first cousins of the brothers.
In the age of nuclear families, needless to say, they live in four separate mansions. Unlike olden days, even the women in these households go to work. There are just 2 children in each family. Some are recently employed and some go to college. As a reason, for most part of the day the houses remain empty.
But I am told that there are enough occupants even in the empty houses. Although they are small families, each member has a separate bedroom and there are guest rooms too. Each room has a television so that the members may feel free to watch any channel they please unlike those olden days when there used to be conflicting interests and a common list of programmes had to be prepared.
Although people these days have a poor appetite, there are two refrigerators. One for the kitchen and one in the hallway upstairs to store water, chocolates and aerated drinks so that the children don’t have to run down the stairs into the kitchen all the time.

There are two fancy cars and two bikes in each house. All are independent.

While it is good to see such proliferation of wealth and abundance of materials all around, it is saddening to see that in today’s world, the virtue of sharing seems lackluster before the artificial shimmer of “personal space”.

This concept of personal space was unknown to India. It has come from the west. I don’t have anything against it and I enjoy it myself for some part of the day, but as I see it tending towards extremity, I can’t help smiling sardonically at its implications.

People seem to be building walls around themselves. They have acquired layers of protection to shield themselves against their own fraternity. One has to exercise caution even while talking to friends for you may ask a question casually (or even out of concern) and the other person may narrow their eyes and ask “Why do you want to know?”
Husband and wife no longer proudly claim to know each and every thing about one another. There is space between the two of them also!!

The amassing of materials – be it a private two wheeler or a private wardrobe of clothes and accessories, a private car (one for every member of the family), a private room, a personal TV set – is a manifestation on the surface while the actual cause beneath is a mindless chase for privacy and the absence of willingness to share.

***************************************************
Supermarkets and shopping malls.

Cookies, sweet corn, handbags, soft toys, clothes, accessories, cosmetics, footwear, jewellery, furniture, electronics, entertainment, automobiles, real estate and lots of people.

A superfluity of materials. A feast to the eyes. It feels so good to just be in a mall.

But beware. Beware of the crafty salesman behind those counters … You are the guinea pig of his experiments. Even as you enter his shop just to do some window shopping, he is trying all the tactics, tricks and trade secrets he has gained from the newly acquired MBA.

He is out to trap an unsuspecting shopper.
He is constantly thinking about how to get a fat slice of a customer’s wallet.
He is scheming to entice a customer to spend his hard earned money to buy his product whether or not the customer needs it so that he may become richer.

He is a parasite.. feeding on your weaknesses. Feeding on your loneliness, on your aloofness.

If there is a lacuna in your life, he benefits because you will shop more to fill that lacuna.
The lesser you want to share, the more he benefits because that way, you end up buying more.

All of them in the malls thrive on your weakness, on your problems.

But it’s not the salesman’s prosperity I am jealous of, as I write this.
It’s not the “emptiness in peoples’ lives” alone that saddens me nor is it the “diminishing of the virtue of sharing”.

I write this article today, because we are faced with a cause that is above all other causes. A cause that I will call an emergency as it is screaming for attention.

It is the cause of environment. Even as we engage in rhetoric and shout slogans of “Save environment” and “Stop deforestation”, we fail to realise that it is we who are responsible for the state of our environment today, in more indirect ways, than direct.

Why did I talk about weekend shopping and why did I tell you about my grandmother’s family?

To prove a point that our innocent consumption of goods that is caused by factors rooted deep in aspects of psychology and sociology is having implications that actually affect our environment and we are not even aware of this possibility.

Let’s do some quick analysis.
1.All goods available in the market and shopping malls can be classified broadly as those made of either natural substances like wood, cotton, jute, fibre etc. or man made, synthesized substances (there are many).

2.For every natural product that is made, some amount of nature is being depleted. And for every synthesized product that is made, again, an amount of nature is being depleted because the raw material comes from nature, even though it may be as little as a mug of water.

3.The processing requires energy.

4.The processing results in solid, liquid or gaseous wastage to be released to the environment.

5.In the factories that perform the synthesis, man power is being harnessed resulting in an increase in human activity and thus, the environment is warming up .

That was the story of production. Now the story of consumption.

6.A mall has to be built where the goods will be showcased. This mall sprawls over an acre of land which was made level, either by closing a lake or by felling trees that occupied it before.

7.The entire mall is air-conditioned. Needless to say, this consumes copious amounts of energy and releases more chlorofluorocarbons into the atmosphere.

8.The consumer drives to this mall and more often than not, the vehicle is a large four wheeler. You already know it releases carbon monoxide. It also increases traffic, necessitating the widening of the road for which hundred year old trees lining the road will have to be cut down.

No matter what you consume, a cup of corn, an ice cream, a piece of garment, a handbag, fuel for a vehicle, soft toy, furniture, a home appliance, electricity… be mindful of the fact that it affects the environment one way or the other.

Even a large mansion that you own occupies a large piece of land and can be thought to have encroached into what ought to have been a rice field or a mango groove. Why desire several mansions then?

One may issue or follow a hundred specific rules to protect the environment. I will say just one thing that will summarise all of them. Cut down on consumerism. DO NOT BUY. (Unnecessarily).
It is the only holistic approach to save our environment.

But that sounds a little negative. Isn’t it? If you have read my previous posts (I am not against war, I am for peace) where I talk about the law of attraction, you will think I am contradicting myself here.

So rephrasing it to give it a positive tone, I would say, “Lead a life of simplicity”. Consume only as much as you need. Cultivate good hobbies to spend your time fruitfully, so there will be no room for lacunae in your lives.

Before signing off, I will leave you with these thoughts.

Two things are important in life.
How we live &
What we leave.

For future generations are not simply survivors but also inheritors.