An Experiment in Public Transport

April is the first month in the last 25 years when my usage of public transport within the city will exceed my driving. Over the last year, the transition to Bangalore's bus system has been a humbling & delightful experience. On the bus from Indiranagar to Koramangala, for instance, or on the way back, one sees the microcosm of humanity that, in traffic, hides behind the ubiquitous helmet or dark-tinted screen. The air in the bus is heavy with the sweet smell of gutka, the killer substance I have elsewhere referred to as Branded Cocaine, the odd string of jasmine on a lady's hair adding to the existing heady perfume. A number of young men and women from the North East are regulars, leaving the lazy comforts of their lovely, verdant homes to labour in an alien city as watchmen, gym instructors and retail store staff. They - both men and women - are still the subject of some distasteful attention from the 'locals', despite Bangalore's cross-cultural, cosmopolitan history - the attention being entirely due to skin colour, the other Indian obsession (other than gold, that is). The odd foreigner is always interesting company for he (or she) has a most perplexed expression while conversing with the conductor, whose genetic absence of courtesy, combined with a rough, ready wit, is displayed in full splendour to the amusement of those around this odd couple. And then, there are the eunuchs.

Well, eunuchs need to travel, you know. What was most interesting for me was to learn that they were particularly well behaved with the conductor and with other passengers on the bus, in sharp contrast to the exaggerated displays of crudity that we see increasingly at traffic signals on main roads. One vocal pair sat behind me (a few anxious moments, I agree) and spoke in animated Tamil on domestic issues that we would otherwise ascribe to others, not as engendered (my childhood propensity for puns must be excused).
And finally, there are the mofussil commuters - the men and women who travel to and from the city everyday. If I had the lamp with a genie, I did wish that he gave them the opportunity to have a bath at shorter intervals. Thus, when I do take the mofussil bus, it is often with a heavy heart and a close examination of the carbon I am keeping out of the atmosphere by doing so.
A brief word on the Bangalore bus network: a huge improvement over the last decade, excellent connectivity, niche products for different price points and an army of drivers who would gladly slaughter the population to be on time, if their driving is to be witnessed from an inside-out view.
Here's the crux though: I don't find enough of 'us' on the bus. The definition of 'us'? Those who have the economic power to pollute - the middle & the upper middle strata of economic distribution. We are the problem. Just as in Mumbai, the problem is not the Bihari, but the rich Mumbaiya, who sees consumption of finite resources as his birthright, in Bangalore, the problem is the lifestyle - seeking software engineer, buying his SUV-cum-truck-cum dining-hall-in-the-back-seat, not the man from the North East. I am convinced that the tipping point for the environment will be when people who can afford something learn to not have it, rather than when people who do not have something get it.

Yes, we need more of 'us' in the bus, and not just in the air-conditioned Volvos that ply restricted routes.
The Volvo has its own charm, a subject that I shall keep for another day.

MacKhanna's Gold

I just do not understand the Indian craze for gold - the 'festival' Akshaya Tritiya is around the corner and the marketing of gold has reached a frenzy. Gold is the cause of much distress in our country - witness the grief it brings to the millions who are the victims of unreasonable demand for it: the aged father-in-law and the young bride being two entrenched examples. Yet, no one, least of all the jewellery maker, learns. New ways are found to perpetuate this demand and the 'festival' is one such way.
Here's the odd part: gold has really no use; the bulk of it being used as an investment, the rest as jewellery that spends most of its time in a bank locker. Its investment record - if we were to 'normalise' the price trends of the last few years and look at a larger time frame - is, at best, average.
Here's the worst part: gold is a metal that kills. It is mined either by large corporations that move 250 tonnes of rock for just enough gold for a ring and then process this rock with cyanide or by artisans who use mercury @ 2-5 grams for every gram of gold recovered. Gold is an environmental catastrophe. Three additional sources of information are given below:
1. National Geographic - issue of January 2009
2. www.rootcause.in/gold.html
3. www.nodirtygold.org

The best thing we can do for the planet is to avoid buying gold. Being a responsible consumer is the single best way to drive change.

Dishing out advice to those who want to save water

An old subject, but worth a visit. I have been experimenting with a number of ways of conserving water at home and the results are surprisingly reassuring.
For starters, I learnt to wash dishes, providing many moments of mirth and relief to my wife. If you are slow to open the tap and get just the right amount of water flowing from it, the saving is enormous, a factor that I find frustrating to explain to the house maid. In addition, I have also tried to wash dishes (other than the one used to boil milk) with used lime peels. I first rinse under a tap and get the food bits off, after which lime peels are used to scrub the vessel clean, followed by a rinse.
This has a number of benefits (in addition to the lime juice, that is)
1. the phosphates in detergents are not released into the environment - phosphates are bad for plants and the worms in the soil and do not degrade, leaching instead into the groundwater.
2. its better on your hands
3. the second rinse water is best collected in a vessel and used to water the garden. Of course, if your drain leads to a backyard garden, the water from the first rinse is excellent as well for plants.

If you want to go completely organic, use coconut fibre to scrub the vessels - its great for your biceps......