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!