tabla didjam

Didjam by emni

siang submersion

flooding of the Siang/Brahmaputra after the lower Siang hydro power project. the Yemne, Siom and Siang rivers will be flooded for over a hundred kilometers by a 86m high dam near Pasighat. Read more at Kalpavriksh . . by Neeraj Vagholikar.

if there is one thing which defines climate, it is change . . .

and aptly similar is the chase the scientific community is giving to the evil factors behind it. When I was in school, it was called global warming. James Lovelock had just discovered CFC's in the atmosphere, though no real harmful effects were identified till the ozone layer depletion hit. Compressors, Aerosols and what seemed to me to be all american things seemed to be teeming with this lethal flouro concoction. We slowly eased away, either by finding alternatives like in the case of the aerosols or by doing what we do best, sticking our head into a television and ignoring!

The Gaia hypothesis was around back then, proposing that the biosphere is a living system that actually controls the systems on the planet as in say a human body. Maintaining the delicate balance of temperature, gases in the atmosphere, complex hydrological cycles like currents this system of which we are just a minuscule part was not to be understood as a lab experiment. The famous swallow flapping its wings to cause a hurricane a continent away is the most poetic example of the complexity that we are the most arrogant part of.

What I found funny was an article in the hindu which claimed that the influx of cosmic rays were the main cause of global warming as clouds are formed with help from the rays, and the lesser the rays the lesser the clouds so the more the penetrating solar radiation! But that's not the funniest by a long shot. The methane that the billions (?) of cows fart was my favorite. Then there was the whole confusion with the coming and going of ice ages. the nina brothers and assorted chaos . . i love the climate debacle . . its just so much fun.

. . have to sympathise with meteorologists though ;)

religion

to mr Dawkins

animal husbandry along with agriculture gave us settled lifestyles . . but of for civilisation i think the domestication of human beings was the key . . . brute force is the obvious factor for subjugation, but the humans are a twisted bunch . . religion and blind faith have been so inherent in the subjugation and control of the majority by a minority hardly superior in anything save cunning and perhaps white skin; that i fear it is invisible to us . . . so in sticking to Douglas Adam's revelation, it is not the answer that we are seeking, it is the question!!

. . and mr Diamond

environmental education

the shit has obviously hit the proverbial fan if environmental education is now a mandatory course in school! Attending a panel discussion at at 'Quotes from the Earth', a toxics links film festival at IIC on whether environmental education is confined to moral relativism, i really got thinking . . . walking through the pristine jungles of Arunachal, watching first hand the tussle between instinct and rationale the striking similarities between a Heideger speech on the duality of thought and the development conundrum suddenly gleamed strikingly clear! Education, not just environmental education has suddenly taken on devil like proportions in my mind. With that on my mind, sitting through the panel discussion the nagging thought was that there is a nice fancy rug and sitting on top of it we discuss the state of the floor.

The focus of the discussion seemed to be on how exam oriented education is and that takes its tole on a sensitive subject like environment. Real experiences being invaluable in disseminating any meaningful environmental awareness. Now here I am wondering back to my school days where by class nine pretty much half my class was on full fledged IIT or Medical preparation, all set to don the professional jacket and go out into the world and join in the shining growth we glimmer in these days! As David Orr puts it, the sustainability of a person's life style is inversely proportional to their educational qualifications! Adding an environmental education syllabus to the whole shebang is nothing but a mild placebo at best. Not without its evils though as an engineer with a vague environmental consciousness is probably far better at disguising the impacts of development than his merrily oblivious brother.

Another thing which seemed strange to me is how lopsided the understanding of the word environment is. People just don't figure, nor do adapted environments like urban scapes. Its all wild life and forests, rivers and wetlands. If social disparity, human habitat and development is not seen as part of the environment in this day and age i fear we are cuddling up in an imaginary world.

Not to be defeatist, i feel that education really needs a revamp. The relevance of the schooling system and higher education should be thrashed around a bit . . . linguistic skills, basic mathematics and the like form an essential skill set with which you could say call someone literate. Why that requires a 12 year education beats me. I may be ignoring the need for an educated elite for the time being but that really has enough going for it anyway! A 3 year syllabus without the exams and competition, aimed at simply imparting literacy and basic education should really be made out. Now that it seems we might actually have a census of everyone in the country, Mr Sibal should make sure that all the kids have the opportunity to avail of this stripped down syllabus. Further education should like most first world countries be divided into academic and professional. Why are our masons not trained? Or our mechanics? Its sad to see great mechanics languishing in their old age when they could be teaching or researching . . . In not the disparity in pay scale directly linked to the undervaluation of manual professions . . . should this not be the goal? Rather than continually train armies of engineers who then need environmental education to rein them in from their inherently consumerist progress driven education! The last thing which I feel is really important is the localisation of education. Being an architect, it is probably in my field more than any other (apart from agriculture) that I see the disconnect with local knowledge having the most dire impacts. The concrete boom fuelled by the large corporates and government policy gives us a world we aspire towards. Now I can't take away the dream of a comfortable home free from the worry of the rain carrying away your roof or snakes hiding in the corners, but I know that a solution to local problems exists in every situation, maybe it is concrete maybe it isn't! Empowering the local knowledge base and integrating it with the present is the way forward. Strikingly, all the engineers I met in arunachal come from a rich tradition in bamboo craft, house building, the works . . but in one short generation with the aid of education they have lost all interest in the craft. It is all but alien to them. So instead of a promising tribal youth who has studied engineering working on innovative ways to take the bamboo craft further, he is simple alienated from it all together.

Sometimes the mind really needs a purge . . . cheerios for bearing :)

january brrr

its that time of the year again when i can heave a sigh of relief and comprehend why it is i live in this city after all! the biting chill!

i'm sure there is no cause to elaborate on the striking imbalance that the temperature curve of our beautiful city has towards the hellishly hot! so if nothing else it is for the contrast that really get the winters going. But then this is no ordinary winter is it? You guessed it, the delhi metro is what has really transformed it for me. Its like walking suddenly got catapulted up the transportation ladder . . way up. Isn't that just la dee da . . . now i can go for a 10 minute walk and find myself on a train to chandni chowk. And what is it with the clean clothes, lack of groping, spitting even staring is decidedly on the decline. I never realised it would be that simple to tether the endless mass of people unburdened by civic sense or god forbid politeness!

Then you walk out of the saket station to find a row of 10 dudes peeing right on the main road! So its only till the confines of the brightly lit sanitised corridors policed by the CISF that this sea change has its hold. But hey in the winter even the piddle centrals don't smell as much!

The street food is another of the reasons . . the endless array of small eats and the insatiable hunger that accompanies the cold just ice the walking cake!

I just wonder when Delhi will actually get Buskers and street art . . . even if only for 3 months a year!!