Moon.. the next dumpyard?

These are going to be 3 bizarre points which will be woven into a single link towards the end…

1) Once upon a time one would look at the Himalayas and gawk at its sheer beauty and might.

Now we see expedition after expedition chartered to climb the mountain. This is made possible because today we can climb the range far easier than say, 200 years ago. And in a not so distant future we may not even have to climb it – just fly! We may have hotels and ice recreation (ice-creation) spots all across the mountain range. The once serene mountains will be painted in a completely different picture and the people of the future will not even realise it.

2) Coming to my main subject – the moon.

Today we send expeditions to the moon to study it. More nations are joining the fray. Am sure in the years to come flying to the moon will be like flying from Mumbai to London. Am unsure if it will be made habitable as much as it will become easy to at least travel to the moon.

Why all these random thoughts?

3) I have a habit of storing paper. Not newspapers but bills, notes, even books from my childhood to this point in time.

It first moves from my table to my drawers. From there to my shelves. For some the next movement is into their garage. Finally it’s all throw away and space is made for fresh (recent) trash.

Now I can’t possibly live in a house which is filling with trash. I have to move it out of my way. Today this trash lands up in landfills. And most of the latest trash is made of plastic which will never degenerate.

As human population grows and needs more space for living, farming, industry, and a safer environment, these landfills will have to be closed and reclaimed.

If I was one large human being and the Earth was my home, and I was filling it with trash, where will I move all the junk to?  The Moon?

I think the moon with all its beauty and splendour is only visible to us in this form today. Poets have written songs of love looking at the moon. Just like Everest is accessible to us today, years from now we will have regular shuttles leaving with people to the moon. At some point in time these shuttles will pack more trash than humans – processed trash for storage.

One may cry foul to this line of thought. And I sure hope that it will not happen. But history is replete with examples of man experimenting and then interfering with something beautiful in nature for his own good. The encroachments we do into our forests, the building of a dam on the grand canyon, the ruthless killing of animals for their hide or tusks. If these can happen, why not dump all this trash on the moon – at least it eases our life on Earth!

The beauty we see today will become a storage house of trash tomorrow. People of the future may not get to appreciate the beauty of the moon the way we get to do it today! Just as we are unable to fathom the beauty of the place we live in had we paid a visit to the same place 1000 years ago.

A learning from the financial crisis

We are taught history in school. Great leaders, fight for independence and the likes…

Why not add history of economics and finance to what we learn? Why not add an end note and discuss the learnings from History?

There is one good thing that happened because of the financial crisis. The Youth of today who know only about plastic money and juggling their credit cards should hopefully learn how to save now.

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime

Over the last one year I have traveled seven times and spent almost 120 days in various regions in Africa.

It is good to see the work that aid workers are doing in this region. It is also amazing to see how wealthy individuals are giving a helping hand, giving free food and basic resources to a lot of people.

However, when one sits back and thinks, is it really helping these African nations?

- People here have been accustomed to free aid for a long long time. For them aid is now their right. You don’t have to work, aid’s there.

- We need a radical shift to aid. People need to be empowered. Education and medication are the only two free aids I support. Everything else should be earned.

We say when you cut a tree, replant the seed. We talk a lot about renewable energy. But why should it not apply to us humans? When you give free food, we need to make people earn it rightfully. This will ensure that at some time in the future people will be independent to feed themselves.

- Instead of setting up camps and giving free food for years we need to set up local industries. Nothing complex – but something that will make people earn a living. It could even be basic farming activities, cottage work, anything! After one has worked during the day he could be given free food and incentivised with a little bit of money. This will ensure trade begins.

- Africa could be an amazing place for us to look at how human being evolved through time – although now it will be in an accelarated mode. You could start with basic building blocks of life – farming, housing and move it up to larger and complex industires.

- This could be one of the biggest “Sim Cities” for us to plan and make.

How do we begin? Go back to an old saying – Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime!

Since 1801

Ok, I have been seeing Ads for food items, wine, and yes, apparels with the – since 1801 tag!

But why not a Since 2008 tag for an apparel? Won’t it sound New and next generation? A different way, for a new brand to establish, and find the necessary connect.

Nuclear Super POWER?

Nuclear fuel costs ten times of what it used to cost a mere 5 years ago.

Is there something we have to learn from this?

India is a nuclear power. We need nuclear energy for a lot of good purposes. So does the world.

India has one of the largest deposits of Thorium in the world. GOOD!!! So what next?

Today, the gulf controls oil. Who will control nuclear (energy) tomorrow? The one who has the largest horde! Can we do something here?

Essentially, if I were to keep buying nuclear fuel today and horde it, there will be a time when this precious metal will cost a ‘Bomb’. And then, if I (as in India) were to have the world’s largest reserve, things will simply change directions in this world! What say?

Bottomline: It is time to partner with mining companies and nations which are allowing mining ASAP…. and at whatever cost it takes!

Nothing short of Number 1

I have rolled through school, graduation et al. Guess mediocrity just ran in me! (once upon a time )

So what’s all this Number 1 thing about?

Was watching the A1GP today. Where Great Britain won the title, their first ever… as was claimed. They were neck to neck with USA. Team USA too haven’t won the top position ever. GBR kept to the number 1 position right from start to finish. And USA kept on its tail with South Africa following it. World Champions Germany simply had a bad day.

What was important was the closing 8 laps. USA kept edging further and further. until it was as close as 1.3 seconds apart and they kept fighting tooth and nail. Finally the last lap came, and the difference squared down to just about .6th of a second. But Great Britain walked away with the coveted glory, despite all the efforts by team USA.

It is important to note that USA has won a second place only once before. Never have they performed as good as this.

Yet, with all the good job done by USA, the cheers went for the Britons. Only the Britons were photographed. Only the Britons finally lifted the cup!

Second was just, second place. It was not the first!

We all know this. I know it too. But never felt it. Dunno, but today it seems to have hit my head! Hit hard! There is no place for mediocrity in this world.

Don’t Support Beggars !!!

Who’s child is it?

This is going to be a very controversial statement from my end. But it comes with a reason.
Let’s accept one thing. The beggar you see in your city is a part of an organised mafia ring. Gone are the days when there were truly poor people begging for alms. In fact, if a poor person was to come begging, the mafia would beat him/her away.

So why do I say “don’t support beggars”?

Back when I used to reach college on time at Vivek College of Commerce, we used to take a short cut from behind a temple. Dunno if it was really a shortcut!

There, behind the temple at 7am a lot of poor people (so to say) would gather. And a white Maruti 1000 used to drive in, open the boot and hand them all “katoras” and other utensils. Business started like that for them every day.

There were really poor looking children, women in shabby clothes, men with an arm or a leg lost, et al! It was a sad scene. But the truth!

I was wondering how do they get these kids? Why are so many male kids without arms and limbs, same goes with the men.
Perhaps the answer runs in the cases of lost children from hospitals and parks and schools.

Children who are so young, but do not know when they were picked up from any of these places. They would have been amputated when they were young, and were forced into this business. It is indeed a sad tale.

That’s why I strongly believe, if we need to stop this racket. We need to stop our emotions and think before handing over that coin or note to the so called poor.

If you really want to support, keep saving those ones and twos every time you see a beggar. And then give the collected amount to a good charitable organisation. Think of “Cry”, which is actually working for the under-privileged children. Think of “Support” an organisation for street children. Think of “Help Age India”, if you like to support the elderly. They are much better options than supporting this menace!

Keep your children away from beggars, and keep them under watch when young!

Stop supporting those beggars!

Traffic Signals go GREEN in Mumbai

This image was taken from Andheri Kurla Road on the fourth of March this year. (04/03/2006). Close to my previous office!
Did you observe???

The Signal is not running on electricity, but on sunlight!
Way to go!
Oh, by the way, i’m not too sure if it’s serving it’s purpose.
It’s supposed to signal vehicles to go slow (blinking yellow), not park besides it…

See the Earth!

We’ve seen stars form, from Earth. As we all know, the twinkling of the star in the night is a light that has passed many years through time and reached us. It is not a reflection of the present that we see, but of a past, a time, even we were not born in.

Will man ever make a spaceship a 100 times or 1000 times, faster than light? Wish man would someday accomplish this!

Then we could send this ship into the distance and capture images of how exactly Earth was formed.

Am sure, we will see the Hand of God in it then…

Who said cats alone have nine lives?

Now everyone would’ve faced near death situations. So have I.

The ordinary life and death situation was when I was curious to know how deep 6′ feet was? So i nudged myself, slowly into the 6′ feet zone, entering the forbidden side of the pool. HEAAL(gul)p! HEAL(gul)p! HEL(gul)p! went my cry.

The crazy lifeguard was slow to react to it.. (he had to become wet to pull me out na!) besides, i need to be taught a lesson.. some friends came to my rescue quickly.. in fact we became friends after the rescue. All’s well that end’s well. Now I am 6′3 in height. so maybe, I can retry the stunt now.

Speaking of lessons.. my second encounter was pretty SHOCKING!!!!!

At home, post school, no parents, what does one do anyway.. I got a wire in my hand. Wire as in the type that you use to pass electricity. Dad has this huge cache of fix it stuff. And I regularly borrow items from it. Never do i return them though.. and have had to hear quite a bit every now and then for lost items.

I knew that in a conjoint wire, one line was positive and the other negative. And that electricity passes through appliances. How i figured electricity works is important. The positive wire delivers electricity, and the unused part of electricity is driven out via the negative wire back to the socket. So it formed an inlet-outlet mechanism to pass electricity.

The question in my mind was, if this is the logic, then why not connect the two wires (positive and negative) and try letting current pass through them! Just information sake – had to prove my hypothesis, right?

My advice to all you readers. Don’t even think of trying this.

I stripped the con-joints into two. Put them into the two parts of the socket. Then switched it on.

Then…. took the two ends and touched each other… TADA!!

I was blinded. I satthere for a good minute, still. And the fuse tripped at home. Bless the guy who thought of the fuse!
No. I was not shocked. I was sitting still only due to the temporary blindness caused by the flash in front of me.

What was a wire tip before i touched it, became a ball. For that matter 2 balls. I got over the blind feeling soon. Switched the trip back on and continued the study of the balls in front of me. And then, I had to make up the right questions in the night as to how does electricity actually work. If I blunder, my folks would definitely know I was up to something as always…

This has been long.. maybe someday.. I will write of my experience with lightning… watch this space!!