Tuesday, November 20, 2007

The typical victim can sometimes be the stereotypical villain..

There are so many default victim categories entrenched in our minds-- the poor, the downtrodden, the worker, and of course the woman. In any given situation, we readily believe that the rich and mighty are the villain. No CBI inquiry is needed to establish their guilt, nor can it change our minds on the matter. The guilt is firmly established in our minds and that's where it stays for the rest of its life.
The only attenuating circumstance which can make us condone a wrongful act is if the perpetrator is a film actor. Sanjay Dutt not only gets special treatment in jail, he also gets hugged by the law-enforcers, never mind that he is convicted of possessing an illegal weapon that could kill several in a blink, and that he has barely escaped a stiffer conviction of being a terrorist. Saif Ali Khan and Salman Khan can kill people and maim them but when they step out of their homes, the world awaits their next step.

Typically though, the underdog is perceived to be the victim. So, if a tabloid newspaper in Mumbai, respected for its laidback, old Mumbai flavour, shuts down because of a dispute between its CEO and the owner, we can clearly see the CEO, who was playing journalist, is the victim. Especially since she wrote a moving account of the owner forced her hand.

All owners in the world are rogues, especially newspaper owners. This is our a priori understanding of the world. (For the benefit of those who shun philosophy, let me explain. Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher, divided all our knowledge into two groups: a priori and a posteriori. The first was what we are born with, is immutable and unchangeable while the second is derived from experiences.)

I am not saying here that it's the other way round. No. I am not privy to what's cooking at this tabloid. But I am sure the owner, rightly or wrongly, has a point of view which few care to hear out.

It is true that a journalist is an extremely powerful person and most powers quake at the thought of taking him on. But in this one instance, inevitably, he changes sides, and becomes the wronged --when his owner takes him on. History is unfortunately replete with instance of journalists being crucified by their paymasters.

It is therefore a given that everyone sides with the journalist, who is unequivocally seen as a crusader Ram against owner's Ravana. So, in this instance, the media's most enduring creation, Shobha De, expressed solidarity with the CEO; the media at large tut-tuts in sympathy and the owner never gets asked if he has a say.

Please be advised that I have used the example for illustrative purposes only. It's grave irony that the media, which places a premium on fair play. has decided to play such an unfair game. My point is a crib about how if it's journalist vs owner, the latter is always wrong. It doesn't have to stand to reason.

Regrettably, I have seen the other side of the coin. Yes, I have seen several corporates exploiting their woman employees, even high-ranking executives. I have seen women journalists facing sexual harassment at the hands of their male colleagues. I have also seen how the office suddenly becomes hostile to a woman who complains of sexual harassment. She not only faces finger-pointing, hostile stares and much shaking of head every day, she is persecuted even professionally and often forced to leave her job. Most men happily point to her smart dressing style as the culprit. The man's libido, it appears, is a God-given gift to be unleashed on anyone who remotely interests it.

At the same time, I know of at least one instance when the owner, always a symbol of rich/powerful and therefore the `sinner', is actually being exploited. I know of a sexual harassment ccomplaint by a woman against her boss only because he wouldn't show any interest in her and was, possibly, very tough on her. It's another matter that she had to quit her job and suffer ignominy as well. But the fact remains that the case was motivated.

Typically, the company has conducted no inquiry against either. And her boss today is one subdued man who walks with his head down and baulks at the prospect of speaking to a woman colleague. Justice, anyone?

The all-important domestic help, doubtless, falls in the Always Victim category too. I used to know this maid who cried on my shoulder about a family she was working for. She told me the man of the house had attempted to molest her once when his wife and mother were on a holiday and had told her to keep coming at the same time every day before his child came home from school.

I bought into her story promptly. I told her to simply stop working there and offered to find her another job. I not only found her another home to work in but also gave her a decent advance out of sympathy. Since she earned a piddly sum from that household anyway, I didn't see why she would want to stick to it. But she did, and whats more, I found she was visiting him the same time every day too. When I confronted her with it, she expressed shock, ``What?! I stopped going there after that day.'' Since I don't like being taken for a ride, I decided to get to the bottom of this.

I visited the household at the time she was supposed to be there and caught her there. The wife and mother were present too. And they told me they never left the house together because the man was handicapped! So much for the down-trodden.

There can be other ways of making you look like an ogre, as I personally experienced to some grief. My new domestic help, a shrimp of 19 years, decided to disappear just before Diwali after taking a month's salary in advance, leaving me high and dry. My Diwali cleaning therefore proved costlier with new bais coming in every day till I kept a new one permanently.

The shrimp surfaced 20 days later, to demand why I had kept another maid. When I told her I had no choice as she had not informed me, she began screaming her lungs out and demanded a month's pay. When I reminded her that she had already taken her month's pay, she screamed, ``But that was for the previous month!''

I was speechless and felt a wave of anger rising within me. I asked her again to shut up but she wouldn't, forcing me to yell back. Soon, she had tears in her eyes which drove me completely mad. I slammed the door shut even as she carried on with her victim act.

One look at her pitiable face and it would be easy to be convinced of my act of cruelty. The next thing I know, my new maid was imploring me to give her her pay! I tried to tell her that it was she who actually owed me money as she had taken advance pay. But my logical rants seemed too weak in the face of this compelling performer who had them eating out of her hands.

I didn't give in, of course, but managed to earn the tag of a tormentor for no fault of mine. I haven't since dared to indulge my neighbour in friendly chatter for fear of an inquisition that will eventually paint me all black. I already behave like the guilty party.

Now you know why I sometimes sympathise with the perpetrator. Sigh!

Moral of the story: Appearances are deceptive. The truth is not always out there...

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Here's a long agony-ridden SMS

Have a voice and want to sing? Want to dance with two left feet? Aspire to be a leader? There is an easy road to the hall of fame (and fortune, for the unnamed beneficiaries in the fray). All you need is a healthy bank balance or a wealthy family/ friends who can SMS-power your way to glory. There is a mini-revolution happening out there in which, it seems, everyone has a stake.. you either participate or you SMS. It's another matter that each SMS can set you back by Rs 5 to Rs 7, depending on the deal the producers have worked out with the telecom companies. Every channel and her aunt is prospering on the newly discovered virtues of the Short Message Service. If you think there are only three talent shows showcasing the nation's vocal virtuosity, you are obviously not keeping count. Forget Zee TV's `Sa Re Ga Ma Pa', Sony's `Indian Idol', or Star's `Voice of India', there is the `Bathroom Singer' and at least a dozen more on the regional channels on the SMS spree. Flick up and down the remote and each time, as if by magic, the screen morphs into a new singer, a new set and a new show, channel after channel, language after language. Just when you thought you simply have to wait out these contests to get some meaning back into TV, there comes one more: `Nach Baliye-3'. Aha! This one expects you to cast your SMS vote right from the start. No elementary elimination by the judges. You simply vote and vote after every single episode for your favourite celeb. Celeb? You mean Rakhi Sawant, Kashmera Shah, and someone called Vikas Something. So what if you have never heard of them, or heard of them in wrong contexts? They have partners and will dance. On the time-tested principle of no-one-can-have-his-cake-alone-on-TV comes `Jhalak Dikhla Ja'. Another SMS war that scales up and up in concentric circles to dizzying heights as the competition screams its way to a crescendo. Surf at your peril, there is simply no escape from them. Everyone has risen to the SMS challenge, so to speak and mastered the art of appeal. ``Please, please mujhe vote kijiye,'' they go, moving many a hard-hearted viewer towards his cell. I should know; I have fallen for the bait. Once. Television has utterly and abjectly surrendered to this loathsome technological innovation. Several lakhs of notes... oops... votes change hands and before you know it, some -- not necessarily a contestant -- have become millionaires. The SMS is like a rocket that jet-propels its payload of participants (and several others) into a new orbit. Inevitably, the new orbit enables further movement only through SMS-derived oxygen. Television being the prodigal kin of the print media, I used to arch a brow and scoff at the mindlessness of it all. Dumbed down it may be, perhaps heavily so, but print would never fall prey to such low brow gimmckry. Nah! The print, alas, proved to be dumber -- or, the lure of the lucre proved to be stronger, depending on which side of the fence you're on. A top-of-the-line newspaper is today scrambling for those SMS votes for a `deserving' leader. Yeah, leader, as in `leader of the country'. Go ahead, cast your vote freely. Election Commission, move over, the telecom companies are here. We will no longer need to go to the dreary polling booth to cast our votes; we may simply thumb our choice in. It's another matter that in the new version, a single vote won't do. You need to keep voting furiously till your favoured contestant reaches her destination. It's a small matter if you get bankrupt in the process and gray in the hair. What about the poor, did you say? Huh, where are they? Are there any BPL (below poverty line) wallahs without a cellphone? If there are, nobody's heard of them, darling. What are you if you can't afford to SMS? It's nice for the aam janta to be playing God. Only, one small voice keep buzzing at the back of my head: why us, pray? Are we all equally equipped to judge voice quality, sur, rhythm, dancing or the so-called `X' factor? Yeh public hain, yeh sab nahi jaanti. I am also a bit confused about the point sought to be made: if you really meant to empower us, why allow us to cast any number of votes? Surely, my opinion is as important as everybody else's and vice versa. Why, then, should my 1,000 votes eclipse your single vote? This discrimination makes nonsense of our democratic fundamentals, but also devalues the product in the bargain, with money muscling in to crown the winner. Last year, a couple participating in Nach Baliye, Shweta Kawatra and Manav Gohil, were said to be buying mobile phones for their relatives to vote them into the next round. Of course, they dutifully refused committing such blasphemy but, is anyone surprised? A certain Ms Lata Mangeshkar had gently snubbed these arbitrary talent contests and suggested that real talent is in singing new compositions. But her voice is drowned in the clutter of currency raining down every minute. The SMS has the hypnotic sway of the Pied Piper. Have money? please sms. I am hugely sceptical whether SMSes are really counted by anyone except the telecom companies. I remember `Indian Idol', which started this mayhem two years ago with its first instalment, categorically refused to share any data on the number of votes polled by each participant, citing exclusivity and contract conditions. A lot of us back then were curious about this novel format and wanted to know how many were taken in by this pattern of selection. So, we asked them about the votes polled by the two finalists on that contest but were turned away. VoI shares the margin by which one loses or wins but I'm not sure if they will open up their ledgers for public scrutiny. It's strange how all winners are male, how the north-eastern states seems to be the flavour of the season (remember the threats held out in case Debojit Saha didn't win `Sa Re Ga Ma Pa' contest last year-- he did), and most importantly, how the judges' favourites' always get top billing. Toshi, a participant who lost out early on VoI, was brought back through a veto vote by a select panel of judges. The next thing we know is that he is not only back, he has scored the maximum number of votes in the next round. Sure, there were local protests over his exit; but I dont know if all of India saw this as an emergency and sat up to vote him back with a vengeance. I suspect a lot of drama on the screen is the handiwork of TRP-starved producers. Should we be losing money so that our favourite participants makes it big and rich? As it is, they are a wee bit over-priced. Most of the Indian Idol contestants left me, with my unabashedly pedestrian tastes, cold. There should be more to reality TV than a phone line that is open certain days every week. If an alien were to land in India, and land plumb in front of a TV studio, he is likely to be launched into an over-heated SMS market: ``Is he an alien or not? SMS your answer to alpha beta gamma delta. Sorry, we have run out of English numerals and will henceforth be using the Greek alphabet for all SMS communication. Rest assured, we are in the process of booking the Chinese alphabet for future use so that neither you nor we run out of work. Keep watching.''

P.S. If you have any comments to offer, pl SMS. Send as many as you like, in keeping with the spirit of things.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Modi and his nine lives (in the media)


The nail has hit on the head. So, the communal riots of 2002 in Gujarat had the unofficial backing of chief minister Narendra Modi, no less. Aha! It's that time of the year again. Tehelka has stung. Only, this time, it has stung at the same place. Ever since 2002 happened, the world and its media have been shouting from the rooftops about the role of the Gujarat government in engineering the communal carnage. There were quotes, victim accounts, eye-witness stories, etc. etc. filling page after page to prove how Modi's gang of operatives killed in broad daylight.
What Tehelka has achieved therefore is a far cry from a tehelka. It is a meow. What's new, sir? If Modi has been painted communal in this story, Tehelka's fantastic sense of timing has got itself tainted as well in a.... huh, what's the colour of the Congress? Why now, Mr Tejpal, bang on the cusp of yet another stirring election?
Make no mistake. What Babu Bajrangi and his goons allegedly did is unacceptable, unpardonable, and grossly perverse. There can be no two ways about it; there can be NO justification or tolerance for stabbing a pregnant woman who has done no harm except to belong to a certain community. One cannot condone such subversive acts in a civilised society. If, after doing what he allegedly did, he thinks nothing of it, there's something seriously wrong not only with this person but also with society at large which nurtures such evil. An act of violence, committed in a moment of insanity, should drown the perpetrator in remorse. But a flagrant flaunting of such a heinous act strips him of the veneer of humanity.
It's therefore not about whether what happened was right or wrong. It wasn't right. But then, the other side looks equally bad. What kind of person gets into a compartment, sets fire to it so that all the innocent men, women and children get burnt? Why is it that the Godhra goondas are still at large? No one in their right mind will buy the conspiracy theory. It has much too many holes. What kind of society allows such mindless violence to go unpunished? That's particularly strange considering it happened in Modi's Gujarat. It's also an important sidelight that such a carnage on a majority community can happen only in India.
And, if we condone the first phase of the communal riots of 1992-93 in Mumbai started by Muslims as the outcome of the demolition of Babri Masjid -- which incidentally is different from burning or killing people, why cannot we accept that the post-Godhra riots were a backlash from the Hindus? If the demolition of a non-functional mosque in the distant north can spark a conflagration in Mumbai, can't the burning of innocents cause a flare-up in the immediate neighbourhood? It's such double standards of pious Hindus that I find baffling. There's no question of justifying either. Both are wrong -- the razing of Babri and the Godhra tragedy. But if we are logical and `unbiased,' the aftermath of each incident is as reprehensible or justified as the aftermath of the other.
I find it self-contradictory when we accept the communal riots of 1992-93 in Mumbai as an empathisable offshoot of the Babri Masjid demolition but find the Gujarat rioting unacceptable. Yes, the official backing, if any, by the Modi regime is something we need to get alarmed at but the fact remains that Modi did not stir up the mass hysteria overnight nor did he actively seek out people to go on a rampage. His role, if there was any, was allegedly that of a caretaker who is believed to have looked the other way. He was, by no means, the perpetrator. And, from one account cited below, he didn't entirely look the other way
In both riots, one critical fact has been overlooked by all sides-- the saffron, Muslim and secular hate-mongers. Many Hindus too lost their lives in both Mumbai and Gujarat riots. The much-revered Srikrishna Commission, which probed the riots of 1992-93, has religiously documented the casualties in both communities-- the stats speak louder than all the newsprint and footage. It is a travesty of truth to project or pretend that only Muslims have faced the wrath of a saffron backlash. The Hindu toll, too, was quite high. So, what saffron trishuls are we talking about, Mr Singhal? And, thank God they were not used.
In Gujarat, according to answers given in Parliament by the UPA home minister, 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus were killed and 2500 were wounded. Certainly more Muslims paid for their lives for the Godhra carnage than Hindus in a land dominated by Hindus but it is clear they didn't take it lying down.Even as the media played out the misery of the hapless Muslims in relief camps, there were over 40,000 Hindus in relief camps by the end of the first week of riots.
As human beings in an ordered society, we need to tolerate. We should tolerate difference of opinion, religion, customs, practices and beliefs. But one has to draw the line at being doormatish. it's rather hypocritical to view ourselves and the world through different prisms. Few possess the art of self-criticism that Indian excel in; it is of great value but only so long as it doesn't peter out into masochistic self-loathing.
Even if you choose to be so, at least be factual. There are several inherent inequities that stand out in a sensible evaluation of both the situations-- 1992 and 2002. Let us look a little closely at some facts-- first, the impression that all of Gujarat was in flames. Officially, only 60 `locations', not necessarily villages but areas, were struck by rioting. You could argue the number is negotiable. Probably. But look at the fact that all the 200-odd industrial townships in Gujarat continued work as usual without a single day's loss. That takes care of the inflamed reportage.
While ruling parties usually have the wherewithal (read: clout) to get around the flak in the form of an increasingly coloured coverage of every communal or religious event, it's the police who haplessly carry a permanent scar on their credibility, time and again.Were both Mumbai and Gujarat state commandeered by a biased police? According to the Srikrishna Commission report which is certainly more secular than the secular, police opened fire 153 times in the first phase in which 30 Hindus, 133 Muslims and 11 others died. In the second phase, it opened fire 308 times in which 80 Hindus, 90 Muslims and one other person died. Two police officers, and five policemen were killed while controlling the riots, and about 500 policemen including officers injured. It certainly doesn't sound like a one-sided affair, and we are not counting the number of missing persons or unidentified bodies here.
Yet, bafflingly, the police were heavily upbraided by the Commission for its supposed bias. While failing to pinpoint a categorical, doubt-free incident in support of its tall claims, the commission records its appreciation of the sterling services rendered by the police at different places. It also bring out equitable inaction in some instances (!) as in the fact that the police did not act not only against the allegedly inflammatory writings in the `Saamna' and `Nava kaal,' but also kept silent on some ``communal Urdu writings'' circulating during this period.
In Gujarat, the police was derided for being a `biased' protector. Consider this factfile: On February 28, 10 Hindus had been shot dead and 16 Hindus had been wounded in police firing. On March 1 (the next day), another 24 Hindus were shot dead and 40 Hindus wounded in police firing. In the first three days alone, out of a total of 611 deaths, 101 were caused by police firing -- of whom 61 were Hindus and 40 were Muslims.
As for the common myth happily perpetuated by the English media that Narendra Modi did not call in the army, B P Singhal, an ex-DGP who claims to have been continually intouch with the Gujarat state police, gave this chronology to a news channel (Aaj Tak): the Godhra carnage took place on February 27, the Hindu backlash started the next day and the army was doing a flag march on the ``forenoon of March 1''. This means, within a single day, the chief minister had summoned the army, as recorded by The Hindu as well. So, what was the channel's reaction to this revelation? `Why no action was taken on February 29, 30, 31?' it wanted to know! Even if 2002 had been a leap year, it appears our man in the TV studio would not have been appeased.
Similarly, the post-demolition pogroms were not all a play of passion. The commission says about the January 1993 rioting, ``a number of individual Muslims and Muslim criminal elements appear to have indulged in violence, arson and rioting.'' In Bainganwadi, for instance, the attacks on Hindus ``appear to have been masterminded by Gharya Aslam and Abdul Ghani Kamruddin Mulla, two notorious characters of the locality.'' There were instances of private firing by Muslims too. Some Muslim criminals like Aslam Koradia and his associates ``moved around the locality (Pydhonie) on motor bikes and fired indiscriminately at people on the streets.''
None of this exposition of facts is intended to imply a condonation of anything that happened. Rather, it is an attempt to point out the whole picture instead of a pick-and-choose reality that is daily projected on our TV screens and often, nowadays in the newspaper. I fail to comprehend how there is no similar outcry over the 1984 riot against the Sikhs-- the only pogrom that was more of a genocide than a riot. Are Sikhs less equal than the Muslims? Whatever happened to the secular sensibilities of the country?
The urbane Englishman generates 450 kgs of waste annually, according to a local UK report. Happily, a Mumbaikar generates 260 kgs. Nothing to pat your back about, but good enough to give us the advantage of sniggering at the whites.

Come to think of it, though we find it hard to believe, we are actually better off than our evolved cousins in the west in practically every department. We don't sit with our shoes on the table; we dont block all air out and switch on the AC (traditionally, that is. I can understand the English and other Europeans needing to shut the draught out but why do we do this in tropical India?), we take bath every day (well, many of us); we don't smother our flooring with carpets (I have never understood the need for these extremely unhygienic -almost filthy- practice. Even Gandhiji spoke out against them); we greet people better (with folded hands rather than a kiss, hug or a handshake which, again, are oh-so-unhygienic, apart from not being half as polite); our meals are far healthier; our clothing lets us breathe (research has shown the lungi and the dhoti are the best forms of apparel for the lower male part as it lets the organs breathe and stay cool. I dont understand the sari though, except for its sex appeal); we respect our elders (or are supposed to); we worship nature and abstain from killing animals or birds for food (quite a few of us); and our traditional educational system is far more holistic and professional (than the Macaulay brand of degree-totting that it has become today).

There is lots more we need to do: we need to understand women ARE equal (we don't need to be treated as such); we need to stop littering the streets, and most of all, we need to arrest the consumerist culture from spreading any further.

Wherever you go these days, you land at a mall or a multiplex. We have little need for either. either. The supermarkets have the best foreign or MNC brands but no local brand for cornflakes. They refuse to stock any soap produced by a cooperative or a small scale unit. Their fruit and vegetables are artificially coloured and cost 30 % more than the neighbourhood hawker. They survive on brands and therefore don't give a damn about the pathetic quality of wheat, rice or other essential fare they are forced to sell. By the time you are through with the mall, you're lugging two huge sacks in your hands, mostly full of unnecessary stuff.

You need to carry this home yourself whereas your neighbourhood grocer would have home-delivered the entire stuff had he only known.

Discouraging malls is of essence to protect our established system of commerce --the damn malls are wiping out the grocers everywhere. It is also critical for all-round economic progress in a growth model fuelled by local enterprise. Given the vast reach of khadi and the native Indian entrepreneurial skills, our cities, towns and villages are saturated with thriving small-scale units that produce everything from soaps to cornflakes, to clothes to phenyl to wooden furniture. If all consumer products and consummables go upscale (i.e., are slammed with a brand name), it will throw the well-established networks, and thereby the economics, out of gear. These units will be wiped out-- they already are getting wiped out in big numbers as HLL, and its like-minded rivals take over businesses after businesses that they know little about except that two principles work everywhere -- economies of scale and cutting costs at all costs. MNC success stories are jigged up by these simple tenets of MBA wisdom. Quality, as a result, take the first backseat in their scheme of things.

Now, for the multiplexes. How many of us really love these shut dens of misery that look bright but drive you blind simply by having the screen bang in front of you. So, you trade the larger cinematic experience -- the charm of sitting in a huge auditorium with attendant atmospherics of film-watching like the cheaper popcorn, the clapping, cheering and hooting -- for a supposedly better viewing in a small enclave with people who just about manage to stand up for the national anthem, stay politely non-committal throughout the movie except when their cellphone rings, and wiggle in their plush seats forever to give you way when there is none. That the popcorn comes for a princely Rs 50 and the pint-sized stale samosa sell for Rs 40 doesn't help matter much.

Sorry if I have hurt your sentiment, guys. I belong to the old school of thought which sees a movie as a mystique; and its stars as ethereal entities-- not to be touched, seen or even whispered about, and certainly not munchies to be devoured every day at the breakfast table. There was a halo around the older stars whether they deserved it or not; the newer lot believes in wooing reporters and editors through saam daam dand bhed. Any trick in the trade is fair to stay visible to beat the morning attack of insecurity/anxiety.

Isn't the way you see a Rajesh Khanna or a Raj Kapoor very different from the way you see Shah Rukh Khan (with the hideous ponytail and yucky six-packs)? It's no thrill to see those dimples in your paper every day, every single day. It certainly doesn't help that he can't act.

Now that we are done with the loathsome fellas, lets talk about the subject of the day. Ahem! How wasteful are we as metro citizens? First, look at our use of disposables: it has shot through the roof. We use plastic cups, glasses and bags for everything: liquids such as water, beverages and juice is served in paper/thermocol/plastic cups in all takeaways. We buy packaged juice, packaged cornflakes, packaged milk, packaged soft drinks. Our groceries, veggies, etc. come in plastic, whether from the grocer or the mall. Granny's old cloth bag is just too downmarket, never mind if our upmarket ways makes the world a nightmare to live in, bit by bit.

Offices everywhere use disposable cups with a vengeance. In the good old days, you had a simple steel glass placed atop an earthen matka. Today, the office dustbins are venomously cluttered with plastic.

Each house today has one PC, one laptop, one car, one or two TVs, three to four cell phones, a washing machine, with a home theatre or two thrown in. Consider the electronic waste (called e-waste) generated by a single family which will keep changing its cellphones, TVs, cars as and when newer models float in. The older models could get re-used once but then what? They are summarily consigned to the dustbin which sees more of inorganic and hazardous waste these days than the old-fashioned, and harmless, dudhi ka chilka.

There is a policy under way at the union level to dispose of e-waste but I'm not sure how it will work. In spite of having faced the problem long before us, the US and European Union, among others, are still grappling with their mountains of e-garbage, let alone the other forms.

For the environmentally conscious, let me remind you that while paper does degenerate and is organic, it is made from precious resources such as wood. So, it's not enough to say we use paper cups; these can be re-cycled only once or twice, with some waste built in each recycling.

The only answer, therefore, is to live a simple life, cut down our needs to the minimum, eat healthy, and walk instead of taking the car for a 10-minute drive to work. In other words, follow Gandhiji zealously!

I haven't even begun talking about carbon emissions and depletion of fossil fuels.

P.S. I think the move by EU to impose a carbon tax is quite asinine; it blinks at the problem which, I fear, won't go away... And we still organise debates on whether Gandhism is relevant today. Sigh!