Dirt Strips on Our Roads

If you have recently been to one of European or North American countries and land back in Bangalore, the difference in the nature of the traffic is too stark to miss. There, it glides; here, it crawls. There are so many reasons for this. Here are some I can think of:

• There are simply too many vehicles and people in India
• Bad roads, i.e. potholes, uneven road width etc.
• Bad driving
• Lack of useful footpaths causing pedestrians to spill into the thoroughfare
• Hawker carts, taxis and vehicles parked within the edge of the road
• Commercial establishments built too close to the road
• Bad town planning which causes bottlenecks, e.g. ill-planned distribution of human establishments creating hotspots
• Bad traffic management

Many of the above are very difficult problems. We can't do much about our population. Most of the above need major replanning of cities, educating large multitudes of people about traffic sense, setting up surveillance and punitive structures and so on. This is very costly, and if at all possible in India's case, would take years to happen.

Road Dust

This post is not about all the above hard problems. It's about a problem which seems to me a much easier one to solve. It's the dust that accumulates on the edges of our roads. See this:

The light brown strip running along the road is earth settled on the road. Its width is over a metre. I wouldn't be surprised if this accounts for approximately 1/6th of the total road width. This part of the road is unmotorable and un-bicyclable. In short, this part doesn't get used at all, not even by pedestrians. In presence of such traffic woes, this is a colossal wastage of precious road width. They further choke the already woeful traffic, causing delays and accidents. If you are on a two-wheeler or a bicycle, this part has less grip than the rest of the road, making it dangerous. For bicyclists, its unusable because its uneven and rough, making it harder to pedal on them. When it rains, this part becomes slippery making it further dangerous to venture on them. And this is a very common sight on Indian urban roads.

And to the best of my understanding, this problem is nowhere close to as hard as all the above listed problems. With one cleaning operation done, I presume, even in a very dusty environment, it would stay clean for weeks if not months. The benefits are immediate and immense. It would free up that much width of the road, making it faster and safer to ply on. There are these dust sweeping trucks available which municipalities and Gram Panchayats can procure. They can share or rent these if they can't afford to own one. They can contract the task out to private parties. My guess is this won't be all that expensive. They already do this routinely in some of richer areas already.

I am telling something every road user knows well. Often, we don't say such things because we think it's too obvious, or that the authorities don't have the will to do anything about it. This time, I thought, let me just put this out for exchange of thoughts, and possible notice of pertinent authorities. Maybe, it's obvious. But it doesn't hurt anyone saying it anyway.

I request authorities to take notice and take a step. Doing something about it is easy and inexpensive, I think. One more thought (relevant to World Environment Day today). Please remove the dust off these roads and mark that part as cycling tracks. 🚴🚴🚴Automobile drivers are anyway not using this part in many places.

Belligerently Virtuous

 

I have spent years and decades (in fact, much of my life) being rather secretive about my ethical stands. Reasons?

• I wanted not scare people off.
• I wanted to come across as modest and approachable.
• I didn't want to be dismissed and persecuted as being prude.
• I didn't want to invite criticism that I am showing off my virtues.
• I didn't want to be misunderstood. For example, in multiple cases, my riding a bicycle to work, or not splurging on clothes has been openly interpreted as my miserliness or even poverty. I don't see anything wrong with being a poor man. But I have problems with something I am doing out of my choice being interpreted as something being done due to circumstances.
• In this world of 'cancel culture', there's a fear that those who choose to feel threatened and offended by you, will someday call out a small perceived slip by you as a weapon to shoot you down. A person who has been open about his good deeds in the past is more vulnerable to cancellation, because on top of whatever charges are levelled against him at the moment, he lays himself open to charges of being a hypocrite owing to his earlier opposite image.

Over time, I have realised that the above line of thought was useless and caused much time in getting wasted? Wasted in what?

• In caring about opinions which don't matter held by people who matter even less.
• In not allowing, to be positively influenced by your actions, many who are open enough to feel inspired by anything good you do, rather than feeling threatened by you.

In summary, I do what I do because I think it's right to do it, not because I want others to praise me or even take to my ways. Having said that, getting praised or becoming a positive influence is acceptable, even desirable. It makes complete sense that, if you do something good with good intentions, you be open about it. And know that in doing so you are not being vain. In fact, those who say so are up to nothing good themselves than pulling down someone behaving well. This world indulges in unbridled voyeurism in lusting over images expressly intended to show off and make others feel deficient on account of money, physical beauty, exclusive attainment of sexual love and so on. And in this, they do not bat their moral eyelid. These buggers have no right to judge you if you are doing something good with your talent and intentions and are generous enough to share it with others.

In the Picture

This Thursday, I chose to travel by public transport bus to Airbus Takeoff. While their high official did a lot of talking about sustainability during the session, I did my little part to help sustainability. I took a bus (and enjoyed the ride) to and from the venue. I carried my own water bottle and refused to pick up the plastic packaged water bottle. A gentleman at the conference even tried to pick me on why I carry a plastic bottle and not a steel bottle.

On World Bicycle Day

I wish to join in to try and spread the message of clean commute using bicycles. On a broader canvas, I would request you all to give a serious thought to minimalistic living, to question the edification of consumerism as the driver of economy and prosperity.
Sharing two pictures.
 

The cartoon depicts how cynics would see vanity even in your simplicity. To many, showing off wealth, physical beauty and such is acceptable, but being proud of your simplicity is not. I have experienced something similar, and found that experience an immensely humbling one. On the one hand, it gave me the realisation that I shouldn't have too much expectation about the influence that exemplary behaviour can have in spreading a positive message. How far a good message can spread depends far more on how receptive people are to them. Good, positive thoughts and messages have to struggle against people's ego and judgements about you to spread. On the other, I have realised that good behaviour isn't vindicated only when its message is spread. It's a vindication by and of itself. So, it's correct to do the right thing. If it doesn't scale, it's most likely due to the negativity of the naysayers, not necessarily due to any inherent limitation of what you do.
 

Grocery. The second picture is something I am very proud of showing off. My neighbour Arun Awasthi took it for me when I returned after doing grocery one Sunday morning. And I feel, this picture shows what I consider bicycles really good for. Apart from all the other good things they are -- clean, cheap, healthy -- they are quick, light, manoeuvre-able machines and very useful!
At this point, I wish to tag several of my friends who have inspired me very much through their use of bicycles. They all are eminently successful people in their lives, capable of lavish exteriors like most, but had the courage and ingenuity to prefer simplicity and sustainability over vanity:

1. Pritesh Ananth Krishnan
2. Ananthakrishnan Gopal
3. Ganesh Shankar
4. Niranjan Roy
5. Sethu Madhavan
6. Ashish Verma
7. Satvik

#worldbicycleday #ResetWithCycling

Saraswati Puja Celebrations -- An Environmental Report

With inputs from Shilpi Banerjee

Photographs by Arijit Banerjee

We celebrated Saraswati Puja in our apartment complex on Jan. 29. The festival brought a lot of positivity and joy to hearts, and hopefully contributed to a general view of learning, science and arts as something pure and pious.

The goddess and the priest

As I have been pointing out the environmental aspect of community events in our neighbourhood, I think it would be good if I apply the same scrutiny on something we organised. So, here we go:

Decoration

We mostly used paper, flowers and leaves for decoration. The drapery used as a backdrop was reusable and went back to the tent house. The organic waste goes to the central organic waste disposal of our apartment.

After the puja, we ourselves removed the decoration. We created three heaps of waste: organic, recyclable and reject (very little). What remained were mostly work of art and craft done by ourselves. We retained them.

During decoration - 1

During decoration - 2

Drawings and paper decoration

Outdoor flower decoration

Idol

The goddess idol was a clay one; no plaster of paris or plastic. The idol was painted using organic colour and accessories were stuck using organic adhesive. After Puja, we did the immersion in a drum normally used within the society for sundry construction work. The drum, though not of a very presentable appearance, was very clean and hygienic. It was orders of magnitude cleaner than most ponds and lakes. We used freshwater for immersion. After immersion, the water and the dissolved clay was used in the society garden. The non-degradable parts of the idol, e.g. the clothing, hair and crown, were extricated and retained.

Goddess Saraswati

The immersion drum (PC: Mrs. Sudeshna Banerjee)

During immersion

After immersion (PC: Mrs. Sudeshna Banerjee)

Left over hair and accessories

Prasad

Much of the morning time prasad was served in biodegradable plates. However, we eventually ran out of them and were forced to use paper (foil filmed) plates which are non-eco-friendly.

Lunch

Main course of the lunch was served in biodegradable betel leaf plates and spoons. Sweet Dahi was served in earthen pots, rosogolla was served directly on the plate.

Lunch being the most real time, populated and probably the most sensitive aspect of the festival, saw a few points of failures.

Towards the end of the queue, we ran out of plates. Eventually, we had to arrange more plates which were, unfortunately, not bio-degradable. Since all used plates ended up in the same bin, it all turned into reject waste. This was a bad failure for us.

Water was served in use-and-throw plastic bottles.

Number of people taking lunch was kept track of using lunch coupons generated out of the payment records. No paper coupons were printed. Of course, on the ground, most people having lunch were friends and acquaintances. Hence, the coupons were not used.

Waste Management

Amid her many tasks, my wife Shilpi was continually keeping an eye on the way waste was being managed on the puja venue. She ensured that all organic waste generated from the process was kept segregated from non-biodegradable waste. When we finally left the puja hall after cleaning up in the night, we had three neat heaps of waste: organic, recyclable and reject.

One failure on our part was that we couldn't ensure that the above segregation was honoured by the waste collection people when they picked it up in the morning. This happened primarily because none of us was available onsite at the time of clearing of waste.

Conclusion

Though not directly related to the environment, let me mention that the surplus fund (which was of course rather tiny at this scale) was donated to fund the education of one poor child through Akshay Patra foundation: as a tribute to the Goddess of knowledge a small deed of kindness to make knowledge accessible to one more person.

Overall, I think, we did set a good example of an eco-friendly celebration. Not so much because we didn't create any pollution at all, but because we paid attention to this aspect, and at least a few members of the team consciously worked hard to ensure that this aspect was not forgotten as unimportant. And it showed in the output.

We couldn't prevent being eco-unfriendly in some aspects. I think, we will do better in future through better planning, more explicit buy-in from the organising committee and better communication to all participants.

For celebrations of larger magnitude, the organising committee should appoint one person who keeps an eye of the environmental footprint of the entire event. Of course, such a person should be  passionate about sustainability. As much of his/her responsibility will involve making other people's work a bit harder (at least that's how many would perceive it), he/she will have to mentally sign up to earn a bit of unpopularity amidst other organising committee members and public. However, such a member's role will exceed in importance to most others'. By paying special attention to sustainability, organisers of large festivals and gatherings can make a big difference to the level of pollution that such events create.

Sustainability is going to be the key mantra of future public events. Because that's precisely where we tend to forget about the planet we live in and what we are doing to our habitat through our unsustainable lifestyle.

A Citizen's Contribution to a Sustainable Planet

The reality of human caused climate change has passed the stage when denying its presence would give any real solace. It's happening and humans are responsible for whatever will unfold upon our future generations because of it. The lasting solutions to these problems – if they ever come – must be spearheaded by governments. However, governments are constrained by other more immediate problems to deal with: economic development, education, health, national security, not to mention elections and vote banks. Individuals, on the other hand, are free to apply practices of sustainability quite directly. For them, the problem is that of replicating the benefits: how do I convince people around me to adapt these methods? Or how's it going to help if only I do it while most others continue living callously? Many of us have the tenacity to work towards a sustainable model of life at an individual level, but can't find the will to spread the word.

Anyway, parking the above very real and difficult issues, let's see what changes an urban citizen can bring about in his life to approach a more sustainable lifestyle. It turns out the steps are concrete, doable, have multiple benenfits, cost little or nothing, and immediately becomes examples for willing others to replicate – eschewing the need for explicit activism.

Reduce Vehicular Pollution. Vehicles contribute significantly to atmospheric pollution. Individuals can reassess their part in this major evil. Office commute is probably the single biggest reason why we travel on road everyday. We should ask ourselves if we are being considerate to sustainability in our choice of our mode of daily commute. For example, cars are a good choice if you have to travel a long distance, and there are at least 3-4 people travelling the same way. However, if our workplace is within a few kilometres of our residence, if we are reasonably fit, and if there is no one else to travel along with us, there seems to be no justification to travel by car. There are several other alternatives: car pooling, public transport, 2-wheeler and so on. For those willing to go a step further, walking and bicycling are not just eco-friendly, but also good for your health. For longer journeys, consider travelling on land instead of air if possible.

Water conservation. Water tables are plummetting around us. Water bodies which used to be a pride of our city's landscape have been gradually consumed by greed and corruption of the real-estate sector. Most apartment complexes in the city are now at the mercy of water tanker suppliers – which is much less a business than a ferocious mafia. Unavailability of pottable water has been quoted as one of prime reasons for possibly turning Bangalore into an uninhabitable city in the next one decade, as predicted by some experts. There are a hundred things through the day that we can do to conserve water. Bathing from a bucket instead of shower. Using RO filter reject water for mopping, cleaning and flush. Immediately repairing tap leaks. Ask your apartment management to ensure perfect maintenance of the sewage treatement plant (STP), organic waste converter (OWC) and rainwater harvesting system. Also, working towards having a centralised RO plant for supplying drinking water to the whole apartment complex would result in thousands of litres of water being saved everyday.

Waste management. Our cities are drowning in filth. Choked drains. Overflowing landfills. Polluted lakes and rivers. Contaminated ground water. Much of this filth emerges from our homes. What can we do to stop contributing to this hellish affair? Following the well-known mantra of reduce, reuse, recycle is a good starting point. We should start segregating waste at its source, so that only the most unprocessable of domestic waste ends up in landfills. Avoid plastic use (e.g. carry your own bag to grocery shops). Use printing judiciously at office. Encourage your apartment complex management to spend resources in keeping their STP and OWC in working condition.

Cut Down on Consumption. There's a lot of stigma around the topic of leading a simple life, these days. Never have people shown such fierce unity in anything as in voicing their right to consume blindly. However, the arithmetic of consumption and pollution is a straightforward one. Binge shopping, eating or any type of consumption has an environmental cost which we are not paying, but somebody else surely is, or will. Our addiction to electronic devices, AC and other electrical appliances are feeding off the thermal power plants, which are major contributors to carbon emission. Our seers and visionaries have cautioned against a life of greed and consumption for thousands of years. Our generation has now enough evidences to know that our seers were never as correct in any other matter. Cutting down on blind consumerism is no more a moral stand in our age; realities of climate change have turned this into plain common sense.

Debates on how governments and leaders should play a central role in shaping an environmentally sustainable society will continue. But consider the following: every bill or law enforced by government bodies will have to be implemented on the ground by citizens through daily practices and processes, whether willingly or under the whip. With a bit of awareness, it's not difficult to understand what those practices should be. Why can't we not go ahead and do them ourselves? At our apartment complex, we have implemented waste segregation entirely as a voluntary initiative; and it has worked. At an individual level, I and my family have been following most, if not all, of the above practices. And I am there to testify that this hasn't dealt a blow on the quality of our lives. These are not sacrifices, but just the right things to do. That 'nobody understands' is honestly a very lame excuse to keep following the herd marching towards the precipice. Let's get rid of our resistance to change, and embrace sustainability as the way of life. Let's not just leave a liveable planet for our children; but also teach them how to leave one for their children in turn.

The article was published in Deccan Herald on April 21, 2017. Here's the link.