To share or not to share...

This is a big debate in the software industry freeware, shareware v/s proprietary software. Here I am confining to more mundane physical matters (hardware if you please).

I am reminded of a travelogue by Dinakar Desai a great chutuku writer in Kannada (chutuku is a small four liner with a hitting message) about his experiences in England when he went to attend a conference (in the 60s I think). In a bus or train he asked another passenger (English) permission to borrow his newspaper, this being a pretty common practice in India. The Englishman haughtily answered "We don't lend papers, we buy them". In his writing Desai appreciates their sense of paying for a product/service.

However the question remains in my mind - what is right? It depends on the context of-course. In the context of the economy, the producer is happy with as many of his products are sold. But in the bigger context of the environment and the purpose should it be so? Is it not okay for more than one user to take advantage of a product already produced thus meeting their need while also reducing the burden on the environment?

In our school days it was the norm to pass on text books to younger children. These days in many schools books have to be bought as a package (good for the school and the publishers but a burden for many parents) and so there is no question of reuse. I tried to offer my son's books on Freecycle but there were very few who were interested and only once I managed to give them to be reused. They ended up with the raddiwala on all other occasions. Another dimension to it is that the way children maintain their books (another related post on the load they carry which impacts the condition) it is a wonder that they last the whole year forget being used by others subsequently!

So going back to the question perhaps we need to look at some way give credit to producers who make things that last, which can be shared thereby reducing the raw material consumption as well as the load on the garbage dump. Otherwise the current Economics favors greater production and greater consumption alone ignoring the limits (remember the 'linear system in a finite world' statement Anne Leonard makes in Story of Stuff?). Alternately there should be a disincentive to those who consume and waste more. Until we citizens of this earth realize this and bring it into the systems in place there is no hope!

How much should a person consume? A review

This is a book by Ramachandra Guha which I read with interest some time back.

At a broad level Guha tracks the history of environmentalism in US and India. This provides a contrast of sorts. The key message being in US it is more of a preserving nature for the urbanites to visit in vacations. Nature takes precedence. On the other hand in India it has been intertwined with the lives of the people (tribals) who are integral to the forests. So the two have to be dealt with together and not in isolation.

This table provides three different environmental philosophies:

Utopias / viewpoints	Famous proponents	Tribal	Grain based civilization	Modern industrialized
Agrarianism (Dominant env philosophy in India)	Thomas Jefferson, Mahatma Gandhi	Nasty, brutish, short	Apogee Ideal is the peasant society, human scale technology, strong community bonds	Pursuit of wealth
Widlerness thinking (Dominant env philosophy in US)	Jared Diamond “Collapse” John Muir	The ideal state of hunter, gatherer where man and nature are one.	A fall from the ideal state.	Further distancing of man and nature
Scientific industrialization (universal – held by experts / scientists	Gifford Pinchot (US Forest Service) Jawaharlal Nehru	Illiterate, pre-scientific	Illiterate, pre-scientific	Future thinking. Solve industrializations problems (not look back at the past) with scientific knowledge (Edward Wilson?)

Some other interesting points:

The economic imperialism of a single tiny island kingdom (England) is today keeping the world in chains. If an entire nation of 300 million took to similar economic exploitation, it would strip the world bare like locusts – Mahatma Gandhi, 1928.

One of the key contributions of the Indian environmental movement has been to point to inequalities of consumption within a society or nation.

Analytical Social Ecology framework : omnivores and ecosystem people

Omnivores: Rich farmers, industrialists, state officials and the growing middle class based in the cities – have the capability of drawing upon the natural resources from the whole of India to maintain their lifestyles.

Ecosystem people: Roughly 2/3rds of the population rely for the most part on resources within their local vicinity. These are small and marginal farmers on rain-fed tracts, landless laborers, hunter-gatherers, swidden agriculturists, animal herders, artisans..

Development is the channelizing of ever increasing volume of natural resources via the state apparatus and at the cost of the exchequer to serve the interests of rural and urban omnivores.

1. The concentration of political power/ decision making in the hands of ominvores

2. The use of state machinery to divert natural resource to islands of omnivore prosperity especially through the use of subsidies. Eg: wood for paper mills, fertilizers for rich farmers, water & power for urban dwellers.

3. The culture of subsidies has fostered indifference among omnivores to the environmental degradation caused by them. This has been compounded by their ability to pass on most costs to ecosystem people and to society at large.

4. Projects based on capture of wood, water and minerals such as eucalyptus plantations, large dams and open cast mining have tended to disposess eco-system people who previously enjoyed ready access to these resources.

5. “Development” has created a third class of people – ecological refugees who are permanently displaced in large numbers from their homes and end up in slums and temporary shelters in the towns and cities.

Given Guha's background, his strength in capturing the historical context and putting it into a neat framework shows. The area of solutions (answers to the question raised in the title) seems to be hastily dealt in the last chapter and causes some disappointment. Not that there are easy solutions but it needed some more attention is what I felt.

36 hours - a real life drama

5:00 am Thursday Dairy Circle:
A bull calf is frolicking, enjoying the free open road which is unimaginable at any other time oblivious of what is in store…
On comes a bus, the driver too enjoying the freedom at this hour to drive recklessly…
CRASH!
The calf is thrown a few away and lies there, frozen in shock and pain of the multiple injuries.
5:30 am Thursday:
The security guards at KMF Dairy whose entrance is right there witness the accident and move the calf out of the road on to the narrow footpath (as a result of the BBMP axiom: widen the roads and narrow the footpaths – people on the road are more important than pedestrians). This move would at least avoid multiple runovers and instant death for the calf.
7:00 am:
“K” a worker at KMF comes out of the gate after completing his night shift. Notices the injured calf and something tugs his heart and he stays there and tries to get some help in vain. Though KMF has veterinary doctors they cannot be reached at this early hour.
7:30 am:
Some more passersby gather around. A few Christ College girls on their way to classes stop and decide to do something. Everyone trying various animal welfare organizations on their mobiles – BlueCross, CUPA, PFA, Animal Shelter but not getting through or an assured response to come and help. Most of the times it is a tag with one number giving another number to call…
The calf’s neck is outstretched and eyes are turning up but makes no sound at all. The girls feed him water.
8:00 am:
“J” is on his way to his office at Madivala. Notices the crowd on the footpath. “one more casualty to the traffic madness” he thinks in his mind as he passes by. But the thought still lingers in his mind “what if I stop for once and see if anything can be done”. Takes a U-turn and comes back to the spot.
8:30am:
More numbers being tried out but not getting the response. The girls getting frustrated and restless at this lack of empathy. A policeman on his way to his “duty” who evades the sight and walks away briskly. Meanwhile the traffic on the road is building up. Two wheeler riders in a rush to office or dropping children to school take advantage of the additional space available on footpath to beat the traffic. This adds insult to injury and the furious girls block the way and force a two wheeler rider with 3 kids on a TVS back on the road. Meanwhile “R” a BBMP supervisor known to “K” joins the group. A loaded BBMP garbage collection 3-wheeler comes along. The supervisor directs them to take the animal to the nearest Govt. Veterinary hospital. They promise to come after unloading the garbage. Looking at the traffic it seemed unlikely that they can make it before another half-an-hour atleast.
9:00am:
Finally the group spot an empty 3 wheeler truck in the crawling traffic and manage to get him to park. The animal is loaded onto it and they start for Adugodi Veterinary hospital about 3km away. The girls want to be there too despite of the fact that they had to skip classes. They try a couple of autos but they are not interested in coming there. “J” offers to take them in his car. Only problem was that being a Reva only 3 can squeeze in and there were 4 of them. Finally one of them goes along with “R” on a two wheeler and rest take the Reva.
9:30 am:
“J” crawls with the traffic and reaches Adugodi but comes to know that the Veterinary hospital has been demolished thanks to the road widening in progress on Hosur Road. However the other group along with the calf seems to have reached the place! After a few phone calls figures out where they are and manages to reach them on the wrong side of the road – thanks to the fact that while the road has been widened with stones it has not yet been paved! The veterinary hospital has been shifted temporarily to the first floor of the Traffic police station building. However there is no question of shifting the calf upstairs for any treatment. Worse nobody thinks of (this includes the hospital staff) any kind of first aid for the visible wounds too L. The “asst. surgeon” there advises the group to go to Wilson garden another 3 kms or so, where there is another Veterinary hospital. The girls feel that they should not trouble “J” who is working (on something obviously “important”). However on the contrary there was not anything particular that “J” was upto that morning and wanted to see this to the very end. So he took them to Wilson garden along with the other group with the calf in the truck.
10:00 am:
Luckily for the rescuers and the calf, there is a veterinary doctor and two assistants at the hospital in Wilson garden though the building itself is dilapidated and being under renovation. The doctor administers a drip and medication for shock and the calf shows some signs of recovery. However the overall diagnosis is bad – one hind leg is fractured at the hip and there could be other internal injuries too. The doctor candidly says that such hip fractures are difficult to fix; needs an operation fixing a metal rod etc. – costs around Rs 4000 for which one can get another calf! Suggests that the calf be taken to the animal shelter as they have no facilities to keep animals at the hospital. If at all any operation has to be done it can be considered after a few days. Further such an operation could only be done at Hebbal Veterinary College. “K” from KMF seems to have developed a great attachment for the calf – is visibly in tears and openly declares that he is ready to bear the expenses of the operation. Considering the fact that he may not be a person of substantial financial means that is a remarkable statement. Finally the girls take leave after taking mobile numbers to get in touch later. Offer whatever amount they have with them which is denied by “K” considering that they were students.
Meanwhile there is a visitor to the hospital with a cat. One of the assistants say that he is a great cat lover – has around 150 cats virtually living all over him at home. On learning about the calf, the cat lover rains the choicest urdu abuses on the owner of the calf, the driver of the bus and leaves…
Somebody makes an interesting observation except in case of humans, males are considered worthless in all animal species!
“R” the BBMP supervisor calls up to arrange one of his vehicles for taking the calf to the animal shelter in Koramangala.
11:00 am:
“J” takes leave to get back to office, with “K” and “R” assuring him that they will take care of getting the calf into the animal shelter…
12:30 pm:
“J” gets a call from “K” that the calf has been admitted to the animal shelter. One veterinary doctor is supposed to make a daily visit and they will start any treatment post his visit.
7:00 pm:
One of the college girls call “J” to enquire. Gives her an update and thinks of making a visit to the shelter the next day….
11:00 am Friday Koramangala:
“J” visits the shelter – a vast open space ( a rare sight in the city these days!) next to the Games Village. One of the workers there leads “J” to the calf. It is lying in the same position as it was on the footpath the previous day. The worker says it has not eaten anything and was only drinking some water. His prediction was that it is not going to survive. “J” talks to the staff at the shelter and realizes that the veterinary doctor had not visited the previous day and may come in some time later that day. The shelter is primarily for rescued animals and not really a place for treating such injured animals.
11:30am:
“J” returns to office with many thoughts at the back of his mind – “should we give up now, should we be trying out something more”.. Talks to a friend who has some contacts in CUPA and gets in touch with them. CUPA is willing to transport the animal and take charge of treatment provided it is in a treatable condition. They understandably do not want to add to its pain by shifting it again if it is a hopeless case. However they do not have a doctor available who can travel over and check the animal and take the call. It becomes a Catch-22 situation.
3:00pm:
After some more calls the CUPA doctor at the Koramangala dog pound agrees to come over and check the animal. “J” also goes to the animal shelter to see that he gets the access. On reaching the place the staff of the animal shelter inform him that the calf passed away about 30 minutes back. Finally it gained relief from all the pain and misery it must have endured for this long.

End of this story but questions remain…
Should we blame the owner of this calf to have let it free?
Should we blame the bus driver for his rash driving?
Or the govt. for the lack of adequate facilities at the veterinary hospitals?
Should we be happy that there still considerate souls like “K”, “R” or the college girls who felt the need to attend to this call of distress rather than their other commitments?
???

Sensitivity

My last post referred to water leakages and BWSSB call center. You might wonder why I mentioned only about water leakages. Now there is a reason and that is the topic of this one! I find that people are sensitive to different things and react differently. For eg: I am very sensitive to water leakages. Invariably on my way to office or while returning home I notice them. Earlier I would suffer with this sticking in my conscience and not knowing what to do about them (but no longer thanks to the BWSSB call center). However I am not so sensitive about overflowing drainages/manholes. It is primarily due to the fact that the solution that exists today - of collecting alll sewage and then dumping it (with whatever treatment) on neighborhood villages is not the right approach in the first place. So any leakage is only making the problem visible to us the people who are actually the root cause of the same and hence does not incite me into action ( My dream is that we should get to a stage of locally handling the problems for which we are responsible - could be sewage, could be garbage). Similarly littering while it makes a place look ugly is no big problem in my view since the current solution is just to truck it all away and dump it on some poor village to deal with the consequences. Water on the other hand being a resource for which we do not pay the "right cost" being transported from 100s of kms to reach the city is far more precious in my mind. However my wife who is a doctor is highly sensitive about the sewage given her professional background and a heightened urge for cleanliness!
Similarly on electricity I feel very uncomfortable to see a room without people but with lights on. I have to barge in and switch them off!
This reminds me of an incident from Ramakrishna Paramahamsa where he says he cannot stand the touch of money. Vivekananda tries to test by placing some coins underneath his bed when he is not around. When Ramakrishna comes and tries to sit, he gets up as if hit by an electric shock. Long back when I had read this I would wonder if this is possible but now with my own experiences I can relate to it better.

Story of my terrace gardening - I

Post my RWH project I was thinking of what next and started to explore terrace gardening. I visited Purna Organics founded by Mallesh Tigali an ex-Wiproite and saw the square-foot-garden. While the concept was good it did not fit my needs primarily since his “boxes” rested on the terrace which in my case would conflict with the RWH that I have. It is a collection system as opposed to a ground water recharge and hence there was the possibility of contaminating the collected rainwater with the water discharged from the garden. While still thinking of a way to use the box concept instead of waiting for a solution we started off with 22 pots. Initially we placed them where we expected the max sunlight. Disaster struck in terms of a heavy rain overnight which made the muddy water mixed with manure to overflow into our rainwater tank. As a result most of the rain water had to be let out. Luckily one of the terrace pipes had not been connected to the RWH system and hence we could move all the pots close to it though it was not the best corner in terms of sunlight. So this pot based system is going strong since last August.









I have tried to address some questions which you might have:

What vegetables can be grown?

I think there is no constraint given Bangalore’s weather. We have tried out tomatos, brinjal, chillies, doddipatre, groundnuts, greengram, potatoes, ridge-gourd (hirekai), cucumber, mara thogari (toor dal), ladies-finger, bitter-gourd, capsicum, alasande, avarekayi, dantu (greens) so far. Only our experiment with creepers has not been successful.

How about watering?
I am following the bucket and mug method. Needed about 2 buckets for the 22 pots on a daily basis. Apart from the physical exercise this also ensured that I pay attention to what is happening in the garden.
How about pests?
The major pest has been the white mealy bug which sticks to the underside of leaves. Have tried out the “ginger paste” concoction with some success though not 100%. With the onset of rains I have seen the bugs to reduce significantly. Another thought here is who defines the pests – perhaps we are also the greatest pests from the plants viewpoint!
Don’t you buy vegetables at all?
While we have tried out various varieties, I would’nt say that we are self sufficient. Unless we do this in a sufficient scale and in a kind of factory mode of operations we cannot expect a sustained yield. But then that would defeat the whole purpose of going for organic terrace gardening!

In my view the experiment is yielding a lot of insights into a miniature eco-system and the time spent in the garden is one of the most relaxing times during the day. Further it is also a time for introspection into what one wants from the garden – is it a measure of ROI (cost of inputs to market value of output), value of time spent in the garden (versus doing some other “productive job”), should there be only quantitative measures. Finally it is also a question worth mulling over what is the purpose of the plants to grow – to provide us with food, feed the various insects (so called “pests”), to propagate themselves…
It is interesting to recall what Woody Tasch says in Slow Money
Each head of broccoli that I grow costs me at least ten times what I could purchase an equivalent head for at the supermarket (or a lower multiple of an equivalent head at the health food store). In terms of economic rationality, my time working in the garden is wasted: I am investing thousands of dollars’ worth of time to produce vegetables with a market value of hundreds of dollars.
To a “ground zero” way of thinking, there is no such thing as an “equivalent” head of broccoli available from any purveyor, and what is incalculably valuable is the satisfaction that comes with the good work that is connected to the land. If it is not rooted in respite from good work, leisure becomes as cheap as the cheap food that makes it possible. If it is fresh, organic, and the product of my own nurturing over a few-month period, then broccoli is something more than just a product to be valued in terms of its market price and the market value of my labour.
I attended a workshop on Organic Terrace Gardening early this year at AME foundation by Dr. Viswanath where I got some more ideas on the “box”. So that triggered my experiments with terrace gardening phase 2 which is the subject of another post!