A Simple Lifestyle.

I truly enjoy my simple lifestyle, free from frills. I only wish to be rich so this lifestyle can be a virtue ....

Skin Color as a proxy

This morning, I was reading a post by my sister-in-law, the multi-faceted Nandita A about her unhappiness about how skin color was used as a comedy ruse in the recent blockbuster "Sivaji".

The whole of India (and in fact the world) is quite obsessed with skin color. History is full of colonizers invading countries and attempting to impart their "culture"/"education"/"religion" or "values". And invariably, the invading nation has the fairer skin (with a few exceptions).

The treatment of blacks/native Americans in the US in the past, Hitler's obsession with white skins/blue eyes are other examples of this obsession.

Black skin is assumed to denote an inferior person ... For example, our Hindu caste system although supposedly based on occupation (warrior, trader etc) is really based on color - Kshatriya, Brahmin etc are all "varnas" - which means "color" in sanskrit. Essentially, our dumb caste system was based on skin color.

And I guess subconsciously, the desire to get married to fair people/get fair daughter's in law etc is really a subsconscious attempt to elevate one's social status. The fairer the family, the higher the social standing. Skin color as a proxy for achievement :-)

Even amongst the Nadars, I guess there is discrimination against the darker skinned people from the deep-South districts (Nagercoil, Tirunelveli etc) and the first generation rich from the deep south attempt to whitewash their modest past by acquiring the fairest daughters in law.

It's sad but true. And of course, movies are only a mirror on society - So, there is no point blaming Sivaji, the movie - It is us all that allows the perpetuation of the color based disrimination and humor. And in any case, there is no kind of humor that is uniformly kind to every type of person.

Flights in the US

Flights in the US are supposed to the most bare-boned of them all - Service on most flights is just a little bit above Air Deccan levels - With a tiny bag of pretzels and a few drops of soda being the pretty much the summary of inflight service.

Apparently, things were a lot better before 9/11, but I am unable to comment on that as my flight in the US was in 2002.

Recently, I was on an American Airlines flight where a passenger asked for a pillow. He was told that pillows were not free anymore - He could "buy" the pillow if he wanted and take it home!

I am waiting for the day when you have to buy your own seatbelt ... Or worse still, imagine the pilot making this announcement - "This is an emergency, there is low pressure in the cabin, please swipe your credit card for oxygen!"

How environment friendly are you?

In the last few months, the environment has come to the forefront of discussions in the US and there is a huge push to become more environment-friendly through the use of better bulbs or cleaner sources of energy.

The culmination of this campaign (led by former Vice President Al Gore) was in simultaneous concerts held around the world to highlight the problem of global warming. Stars from Hollywood and the music industry joined hands in creating star-studded concerts that probably consumed more energy than a chemical plant does in a month.

My take on this entire situation: Global warming is a definite threat, but if the Hollywood nutjobs are allowed to define the solutions, you are going to end up with stupid, superficial solutions - Which is what is happening today.

Lets take a look at the solutions being recommended:

• energy efficient bulbs (that cost 10 times the usual)
• hybrid/flex-fuel cars
• pay extra on your electricity bill to ensure that the sources of your energy are "clean"

A few points:

Anytime you have to pay more for a service or product, you are automically consuming more resources to create the ability to pay for it.

For example, if you pay $1 for a regular bulb and in order to earn that $1, you and your affiliates (employer, spouse, suppliers, customers) used 1 unit of electricity (which is 85% dirty - from gas/oil/coal), you would consequently use 10 units of electricity to buy 1 $10 bulb.

Of course the bulb consumes less energy, but the energy needed to create the ability to purchase that bulb is higher (Unless a substantial portion of the country is already green).

Similarly, there is a feeling that if you drive a hybrid SUV, you are doing good things for the environment. I am going to call bull shit on this. Yes, it costs less to run the car, but what about the amount of energy to create/buy the car. If a small car weighs 750 kgs and an SUV weighs 1,500 kgs, you have consumed 750 kgs of extra steel/plastics which uses a huge amount of energy to produce.

And the worst fallacy is that if you pay a few dollars extra on your electricity bill, you have contributed to the environment. Rubbish! Certainly this might ensure that the source of your energy is clean (wind/wave/hydel/solar), but if that costs more, then by definition, your carbon foot-print is greater.

Wind, solar energy and other forms of "clean" energy are not clean in my mind, unless they are cheaper than other forms of energy. If you are spending more to use wind energy, then automatically the benefit of using wind is nullified (Bear in mind that the government is paying a lot more to provide you with wind energy through subsidies and tax rebates)

So, all of these easy ways to reduce pollution - energy efficient bulbs, alternate energy and hybrid cars are so seductively simple that they are dangerous - These are solutions that really dont help and make every huge home-owning, 10 car owning, private jet flying Hollywood star feel like they are the saviour of the environment.

So, what is my solution? It really needs an analysis of the true sources of large-scale energy consumption.

• Set up an index to measure the energy consumption for each large company, which they should publish on their products. This should be in energy used/unit of product. Use products that have a lower consumption of energy
• Try and live in a place that does not need a huge amount of heating or cooling. Dont live in Northern Canada or Las Vegas unless you have no option. Try and live in a place that has temperate weather
• Public transport
• Buy small, energy efficient cars
• Live in a smaller house
• Live closer to work
• Try to take direct flights

If any of you notice some errors in my logic, please let me know!