New article: Science in Advertisements

Thanks to the Mid Day people for the edits and the smart words. and the cute title:

It's a mad ad world

Prakash, my little friend, said to me proudly, 'My brother has Jaggu'. He was referring to a popular germ on TV that causes jaundice. Have TV commercials begun to outdo Science teachers in school, I wondered. 

Putting my couch-potato skills to good use, I park myself on the sofa, grab the remote and 'learn' that bacteria take the shape of wriggly worms that vanish with a good household cleaning agent! Led by a clever chieftain, the aforementioned bacteria execute a socially organized attack. A sod like me thought social group formation happened only among bees and ants!

Then, come the boosters. These six-pack abs-sporting superheroes are in everything, from shampoos to fuel. Strange and powerful beings, they supposedly add extra strength, extra power, extra energy, extra nutrition and extra protection to any product.  Where can I get a bottle of the booster itself, I wonder. I need to add it to my thesis to make my arguments extra forceful.

The chemicals, formulae and special agents in soaps, toothpastes and cleaners, advertised on TV, are so hardworking that they can put any bai worth the bartans she washes to shame. They shine, clean, polish, dissolve, protect, varnish, whiten, colour and lighten. They also, at no extra cost, make the neighbours jealous.
 
Lest I forget, they are 'active' and 'advanced', so they keep the user (sucker?) looking daisy-fresh all day long.
The most important technological advances in this century are for personal hygiene products. At least, that's what TV commercials tell us. Take, for instance, moisture retention. Creams, liquids and oils "lock" water in our skin or hair, reversing the rules of evaporation. Now, if we only had a cream to spread for rainwater retention in deserts!

I am looking forward to getting the spray that can turn people into chocolate. What a way to end world hunger! 

Some pointers regarding measurement and statistics on TV are also interesting. You might have heard of qualitative and quantitative assessment. There is also a special non-quantifiable quantity in TV ads. Often known by terms such as 'extra', 'more', 'better' and '99.9 per cent', this quantity can never be exactly measured except by special fairness or whiteness meters, or by the quantity of dust that sticks to a wall or by the amount of hair in an evil-looking comb, or by the glow on a pampered face.

I mean to write so much more on the Science lessons taught on TV, but I simply have to 'vanish' my bathroom stains with my super complex stain remover that is tough on dirt but soft on my hands. Did I mention that my super complex stain remover can also cleverly differentiate between the oil on my hands and the oil in the kitchen sink?!

Environmental philosophy is a young field that

 brings together this traditional nurturing of wisdom with a specific interest in the environment. Part of environmental philosophy is, therefore, exploring what  we know and justifiedly believe about the environment.

A part of my work is about what humans think about nature in India. Though my work is 

about traditional philosophies, I am interested in nature perspectives from people in India today. Please feel free to post your comments to this blog.

 

I begin with a passionate poster series to save the tiger that one of my friends showed me.

 Great conservation ads.

" The only place they'll survive is behind  bars. Save the tiger"

"Most of the few tigers left are human. Save the world's most favourite animal. Save the tiger."

By

Creative Agency - Circus

Circus Team - Vishwas Bharadwaj, Dayanand and Sandeep Rajan Do ask them permission if you want to use this as a poster. 

Image courtesy - Google Images.

"Hear the Roar. Save the Tiger"

My permanent PhD To do list: for past two years!

1. Read paper
2. Write paper
3. Meet Guide
4. Knit
5.  Class

TRY LOVE

 

 

As I look out at the rain tree outside my window, the wind blows hard and the tiny leaves are lifted from the branches and fall to the ground creating a shower of leaf rain. The leaves down know where they are going but set out, leave the brach and are ready to let go and be carried by the wind. The courage of the leaves to journey got me thinking about love. Yes courage for me is love. Very often we talk of love as if we know everything about it. Poetry, songs, cards, flowers all talk of love. Messages beam down from the skies and columns like this in print explain this profound emotion to us.

What then is love? Love is courage. It is another form of bravery; love is a soldier’s job description. Like courage, love springs from the irrational risk-taking part of our personality. Love like courage has risky outcomes. Love does not have exact predictable behavior patterns. Love is not like courage, it is courage. In fact love and courage are two faces of the same coin. To check if you are truly in love, check if you are courageous. If not it’s just an illusion, not real love. Being able to show that you are vulnerable is love.

Love is not desire .Love is the courage to let the other person be, Love is the courage to let the other person go, love is the courage to let the other see you for what you are, love is the courage to stand up and seek a God that you have no guarantee of finding, love is the trust that she will find you, if you search without guarantee of finding.

 

“Come,” I said to myself, “let me be courageous, let me try love! Let me risk floating away where the wind carries me.”

 

 

a picture is worth a thousand words

AECS layout , Sanjaynagar this year!

Because sometimes its important for Blogs to become Newspapers!

Goanet] The reason for locking up Cheryl... Hartman de Souza Sun, 12 Oct 2008 01:18:07 -0700 *Why they put four women in the jug…* Yesterday afternoon at around three in the afternoon, in Maina, Quepem, forty-six year old Cheryl D'Souza, her nine-year old daughter Aki, her mother Dora, aged eighty-four, and two women from their household, Rita and Shashikala, were manhandled by the police (after they had been attacked by goons from the mining company) and put in a cell at Quepem police station. Before one reads political ambitions in Cheryl's actions, her own take is that it was a *last ditch* resort, a necessary bit of theatre to focus attention on the ironies of this whole scam they call 'mining' in Goa. She was joined by Father Mathias from Sulcorna, and Rama Velip and some others from Collomb, both villages under threat from mining operations and who had pledged their unstinting resolve to stand by her side. The Goans were joined by Kurush Canteenwala, a filmmaker from Mumbai, who caught the bus the evening before to join them in their protest on Saturday morning. In June, he had already visited Maina and Collomb and north Goa, shooting his short, but blistering documentary on mining, titled 'Goa, Going, Gone', busy doing the rounds. At the last meeting of the anti-mining committee she attended in Panjim, Cheryl was told in no uncertain terms by Dr. Claude Alvares, who ought to know, given his unstinting resolve in the matter, that she could expect no recourse from the courts and had to, perforce, take the fight to the streets. The mining's started again, she told the committee, I see the trucks getting ready, and they're lining up on the road outside the mine. You stop them, is the message she got, don't take it lying down…which is exactly what she did. At Cheryl's request, Saby Rodrigues joined her to show solidarity and support. I don't have the exact numbers sitting here in Paud… I get the basis of this account from Cheryl over phone last night, from the hospital. They were taken there after languishing in a cell while the goons and police paced outside working out how best to work things out so that the mining continues from Monday morning. Cheryl tells me they've bashed both the cars… CNN IBN, NDTV 24/7, even BBC were informed about the illegal mining operations in Quepem in late May and right through the monsoons, but also sighed off, saying they had already done a 'story' on it.. Cheryl's joked about this before, saying, that it needed her head to be broken before they think it's 'news'. Her protest was intended to be dramatic; she would block the road in front of the mine with the cars and chain Aki, Dora, Rita Shashikala and herself to them. The men would stand to the side and offer support. It did not pan out that smoothly. From nine in the morning their protest had the mining company abuzz, with managers and drivers in a tizzy. By late evening, goons led by a young political aspirant, perhaps even a staunch ally of the Chief Minister for all one knows, attacked the male supporters standing by. Cheryl's driver, Kasim, was beaten up; twenty men pounced on the young, tough Goan (with experience in Iraq) Cheryl hired to protect her family. Saby's camera was smashed. Kurush had his glasses broken, and was kicked several times while he was on the ground. Cheryl tells me she unlocked the chain and went to stop the goons. She was abused in the vilest language, the goons and their leader telling her exactly what they would like to do to her to show her who's the boss. The police inspector and his posse arrived and stood by while all this was happening, tapping his baton on his palm and staring at Cheryl. To Cheryl's great misfortune, CNN IBN and NDTV 24/7 may still feel shedoesn't make it to the news at 9, but her actions may just highlight the political skulduggery at work, and give people the chance to bring Goa back to the rails with honest politicians. Last night, villagers from Benaulim hit by the corrupt practices of builders showed up outside the police station, and today at 6 in the evening I'm told there's a meeting in Margao to plan out where to go. When one says Cheryl's was a last ditch battle, this is true. It was Digamber Kamat himself who said there would be a *blanket ban* on mining until his cabinet's Draft Mineral Policy (DMP) was properly discussed. He said this at his house when he met some 25 people from mine-affected areas at his house the day before the DMP was made public. He said this in response to a statement that the mining operations in Quepem were illegal and in front of noted activists like Dr. Claude Alvares, Ramesh Gauns, Saby Rodrigues and many others. A few months back, during the rains, one of the mining companies (owned by a minister in the government no less) cut down about forty trees in the area adjacent to her land. Cheryl and her lawyer immediately filed complaints. The matter was hushed up, in spite of investigations carried out by forestry officials. What to do, one honest official told her, all the fellows in the south have been bought. For the last fourteen years Cheryl D'Souza and her late husband, Tony, developed their property to be a viable and profitable farm. When they bought it, borrowing to do so, they got it dirt-cheap. When they first tested soil on their land, they were told it's rich in iron, they could be millionaires. They laughed and built their house over the richest lode. Both actively worked closely with honest forest official Archana Singh to stop illegal felling of trees, mining of river stones, and illegal poaching. Cheryl slaved in marketing to pay back the loans and bring home the bacon,while Tony worked on the land with help from the agricultural department. Cheryl has been under threat ever since Tony passed away in a tragic accident. Because Tony was tough, no one dared to talk about mining. For the last year, the mining has come closer and even closer. A wise man said recently that "Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner". What's happening in Quepem right now, in villages from Kawrem, Maina, Collomb and all the way south to Sulcorna, makes those words come back. What we have here a large mine-owner contracting out his dirty work to other mining companies, who, in turn, contract this dirty work out to a few other dirty, fly-by-night mining operations of the base sort. These abovementioned wolves, aided by truck-drivers who've taken loans from them, are intent on destroying the environment. There is nothing less than that in their minds. I can write about the majesty of a spring in Maina till the cows come home, they will rip the water from the ground. They want to do to Quepem (*in spite of what the draft Regional Plan pronounces for it*) what has already been done in the poisoned minefields in north Goa, or what they will soon do around the coastal plateau where the bauxite is. There are a few other farms in the area too, one a major sugar-cane grower, but these have reasons to sell. The wolves come closer then…around her farm,the minister in question has already moved excavators in, ready to dig up land that has hitherto been used to farm sugarcane. The land owner sold out, in the process cheating the widowed wife of his brother out of her share. Cheryl herself was offered an astronomical sum to sell her property. She laughed and said how it was enough to pack up everything, including the house and dogs, and just move to New Zealand. Then lighting a cigarette,saying, yes, but I'd never be able to look at myself in the mirror again.Tony was cremated on the land two years and some back. He loved this damn place, I hated it, full of snakes and all sorts of creepy crawly things, give me a damn flat in Margao any day is what she used to say. Tony was the environmentalist dabbling with organic techniques, she was happy either reading or watching TV when not working. Then, after Tony died, she changed her mind about the place. It grew on me she says, I thought of doing something in Tony's memory. She figured out there were so many young children in the villages, what it really needed was a good school. That's what he said too, Cheryl says. Before she could think that idea through though, two huge hills disappeared in less than eight months. Overnight, she re-educated herself on the environment. Four days before she chained herself and immediate household to the cars,she sought an audience with the chief minister, telling him what a minister in his government was about to do. He told Cheryl his hands were tied, hewas helpless… Hartman de Souza teaches theatre arts at the Mahindra United World College in Paud, Maharashtra. [Goanet] The reason for locking up Cheryl... Hartman de Souz

Nanna waste or naane waste?

Don’t wish for more!

A furious argument in the Yoga class I was teaching last week left me worried. The moot point was this: is ‘contentment’ (Santushti) appropriate for the modern world? The young student argued that if it were not for discontent there would be no progress, no invention and no achievement. Popular television ads urge us to want more, not be content, not settle for less, and get more! When I was speaking to ten year olds in a school and told them we are running out of water to drink, a serious looking child told me, “Don’t worry madam, we can always drink Coke or Pepsi.” In the race to fill our hunger and thirst with more we forget when we fill something up in a bottle it has to disappear from somewhere else – a river or spring or a water source. In a rampage of consuming things that are better, newer and then throwing away the old, we often forget that resources on this earth are limited. One day we will run out of petrol and of metals in mines. We will even run out of trees to cut for paper. Every TV, mobile and car, or anything we consume has eaten away a bit of the earth, a bit of air, some minerals, some petrol, lots of water, some wildlife and their habitat.

             Earth worms in my compost bin eat the soil and my kitchen waste and leave behind fertile compost. But as a human in my entire life I consume stuff and will leave behind one kilo for rubbish for each day of my life. That’s around 300 kgs every year for all of my life of 70 years! This is just normal household waste. Add to it all the bottles, tetra packs, plastic packets, disposable cups and other things I throw in the dustbin in my office and during holidays. And not to forget all the e-waste (Cds, Computers mobile chargers and the e-duniya stuff) that poisons the earth! I am less useful to the earth than a worm that is may be one thousandth my size.

            It’s easy to pretend that as a human being I am free to do what I want but actually I am doing what the TV ads want. What they want is for us to be dumb and buy “energy boosters” and “super” and “better technology” stuff. I have no will to refuse to buy.  I have caught the discontent viral fever. If all of us don’t think and act soon, we will be left with a shell of a planet, gasping for all things that make it living, all things that make it verdant. We are already running out of water. Soon we will run out of food and oxygen right in our lifetime. 62.4 per cent of the total waste generated in India is produced by the 23 metro cities alone. So what can we do? Go on a diet control in all areas of life.  Buy for your needs not your wants. This is what santushti means.  It’s a simple age-old value to take on - be content! Be content with local food, be happy with fewer things, recycle and reuse things. Progress is important no doubt but progress towards what? We need to sacrifice quantity for quality. That I think is a sensible trade off that even the hardest skeptics will agree. For those of who are still wondering, it makes sound economic sense. You will end up saving more!

Chain-mail that is going around and Hilarious!

Top Rajnikant Facts Published ( Even Fans will enjoy this!)

* There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of creatures Rajnikant has allowed to live.

* Rajnikant can slam a revolving door.

* Newton's Third Law is wrong: Although it states that for each action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, there is no force equal in reaction to a Rajnikant turnaround kick.

* Rajnikant doesn't bowl strikes, he just knocks down one pin and the other nine faint.

* If you Google search "Rajnikant getting kicked" you will generate zero results. It just doesn't happen.

absolutely, a gem

From classmate with a computer caused repetitive stress injury in her wrist!

Me: why don't you stop using the computer so much?
She: I am almost afraid to, you know; if I stop using the computer, I may just start doing something dangerous like - thinking!

Phscizodia Strikes again

watch out!

The Symptoms include oscillating between thinking that "I have too much Data" or "I have too little data."
Indira

Midday article #3

Pedestrian Privilege

It was 9 am on a weekday and here I was in Eugene, in the US state of Oregon, crossing a road. The manicured lawns were green carpets broken only by well maintained tree spaces. The neat pavements made walking a pleasure and I had been walking for many kilometers without feeling tired. Then as I came to the intersection of two roads without traffic lights, I stopped. As a good urban resident, I looked right and left and around and saw a car approaching in the distance and stopped. As the car neared the crossroads, I began to look around at the interesting houses and gardens around me. The car, an SUV, halted at the intersection. The driver rolled his window down and waved a hand at me. “Hey Lady,” he said, “Are you going to cross or not?” Totally culture shocked, I went across the road feeling like a VIP. Still in a kind of a daze I admit that I sort of hopped past quickly and the driver smiled. I thought that the driver must be one of those rare polite people. A few minutes later, I reached a busy intersection and was waiting for the “walk” sign in the pedestrian crossing. The signal was go for traffic and stop for pedestrians. A set of three cars came whizzing by. Then the moment I was joined by another pedestrian, they halted. The other walker confidently stepped out and so did I. Habituated to cars speeding up when they see a pedestrian in Bangalore, I hurried across nervously. The University student who crossed after me smiled at me and I just asked him, “Why did those cars stop for us? Wasn’t it their turn to go?” “Oh,” he replied, “In Eugene, runners, walkers and cyclists are privileged over cars!”
As I continued to saunter on the sidewalk towards the book store, I experienced the dignity of being a pedestrian. A person who has the space to walk, to cross the road and whose path is paved with level sidewalks is privileged. In the greater economy of the good earth, the walker is a low consumer of resources, a nonpolluter, not an obstruction to traffic!
In my own country, in my own Bengaluru, shady avenues and pavements are being destroyed to make way for cars or optic cables. There are no pedestrian crossings on many main roads for long distances. Improbable pavements with holes and scarred by developmental works suddenly vanish and appear at regular intervals. Even on the famous MG road! There, I know, I will pine for this dignity of walking the urban streets on a pavement. Not yet, as I am still in Eugene as I write this down. I will walk. That’s my privilege in this foreign country.

Miday Article 2: on the Tiger ( unedited)

The tiger and its tale

Every time I am faced with a problem with something in life I know that some flattery, money or request or some form of bargain can solve my problem. There are agents and agencies that will get me a passport, a job or supply me with ground water to fill my sump. We get by everyday with compromise and bribery. I realized that we also get by with campaigns and petitions, awareness programs and articles about human responsibility to larger problems in our world.
When I was a teen I signed petitions for the project tiger and covered my room with posters that loudly proclaimed” save the tiger.” I see this scenario repeating today. Following reports of the tiger task force, the nation is in a frenzy of activity to protect the tiger. Children being interviewed on a popular T.V channel said, “The tiger is endangered we must save it.” How? Unfortunately Nature cannot read these articles or participate in campaigns.
Every conversation I listen to around me is bent on proving that development is important and how we can “manage” nature and create a world where the tribal and the tiger can live together. We want roads, infrastructure, tools, cars and machines and we also want the tigers in abundance. The question is not about the tribal or the tiger. It is also not about the poacher, or the hunter who is made into a villain in the whole discourse of the disappearing tiger. It is about the attitude of the human beings now who under the guise of being “Pro-development” believe that a signature absolves them of their responsibility to the tiger, while their urban lifestyles suck the life out of forests which are the tigers’ home and territory.
Companies and the government which engage in contradictory policies and eco-wash type of tokenism are as much to blame. While media attention is lead to focus on tigers being shot or killed by gangs of organized poachers, the forests are being thinned. The problem is not that there are not enough tigers, but the problem is that certain kinds of human beings are disappearing – those human beings that believed in being content and using minimal resources. The vanishing tiger is but a symptom of a larger malady – that of the modern human condition. “Don’t be content” says every advertisement that recommends we consume more and more.
Unfortunately the natural world cannot understand the grand vision and mission statements of the campaigns that support nature, nor can the tiger. We must realize that we cannot also bribe nature with action-less petitions and green-washed speeches. Nature in the form of forests, animals and water bodies is real and it needs real commitments. These commitments must start with individual and community responsibility to the environment. Start right with our lifestyles. Right now, today!

Midday article1

Published in Midday:
Karma credit cards and karma limits.

I stood outside the gate, looking at the burst water pipe discharging water in a stream on the road. My neighbour said “It is all our karma! There is so much water in front of us yet there is not a drop in the house. I must have denied water to someone at some time.” As I walked back indoors, I tried to reason out the idea that karma is a sort of ‘Newtonian Karma’ (physicists please excuse this phrase). In other words some action done in some unknown past comes back exactly in the same way to torment you in the present. The karmic calculations are really difficult and it leaves us victims with no choice in the matter. In my reading of many scriptures I didn’t exactly come across this notion of action and reaction.
What then is Karma? I understand Karma like a credit card account. Each one of who gets a customised Karma credit card. Part of the card customisation is also the body you have. When your credit card is cancelled you die, reapply, and change your card. Your credits are transferred to the new card in your next life. You can upgrade or downgrade your card by your actions.
Everyone comes with a credit limit or karma limit on their Karma card. Just like the credit card, it is a very personal thing. Just as in case of a credit card outward appearances cannot reveal your credit status so judgments about bad karma and retribution cannot be made. Naive judgments about others deserving certain karma are senseless. The principle of karma can be instead used to look at the interplay between what we want and what we have. It informs the idea of contentment in our everyday life.
When your desire exceeds what your KC limit allows, you suffer as you will not get what you want. This is “bad karma”. If you desire things within your limit then it is possible to have great pleasure. Popularly this would be “good karma”. If you do not use your card at all you may said to be liberated. You can run bad debts (be unethical), pay high interest rates (pain) or some times by dramatic events change your card.
The final thought I had was of offers that perhaps have been included in the Karma credit card. Sharing love is a definitely a cash back offer and letting others use your card reduces interest rates. We also have add-on cards with the close people in our life and finally perhaps the divine can increase the credit limit at her discretion.

VISA

With people around me proclaiming gloom and saying everything can go wrong at the Visa place, my friend tells me that I will get througfh becoz I am cool. Didnt know that that was the main criteria. If thats so should I get some cool outfit or what?

Jokes apart, most of PhD is spent waiting for Ideas and when they come, thy can flood you down to a typing machine. So despite efforts I dont blog regularly.

Its annoying to work in summer. My brain trained for summer vacations, switches itself off in the mid may and comes back on after june. Years of school and then working for a grad school have done the embeded rest system. Its 4pm and I am yawning!
And all the time I am telling myself, you should be writing your paper!
so bye blog
see you soon

The tiger and its tale

This article has been published in Miday , Bangalore in the opinion column.


Every time I am faced with a problem with something in life I know that some flattery, money or request or some form of bargain can solve my problem. There are agents and agencies that will get me a passport, a job or supply me with ground water to fill my sump. We get by everyday with compromise and bribery. I realized that we also get by with campaigns and petitions, awareness programs and articles about human responsibility to larger problems in our world.
When I was a teen I signed petitions for the project tiger and covered my room with posters that loudly proclaimed” save the tiger.” I see this scenario repeating today. Following reports of the tiger task force, the nation is in a frenzy of activity to protect the tiger. Children being interviewed on a popular T.V channel said, “The tiger is endangered we must save it.” How? Unfortunately Nature cannot read these articles or participate in campaigns.
Every conversation I listen to around me is bent on proving that development is important and how we can “manage” nature and create a world where the tribal and the tiger can live together. We want roads, infrastructure, tools, cars and machines and we also want the tigers in abundance. The question is not about the tribal or the tiger. It is also not about the poacher, or the hunter who is made into a villain in the whole discourse of the disappearing tiger. It is about the attitude of the human beings now who under the guise of being “Pro-development” believe that a signature absolves them of their responsibility to the tiger, while their urban lifestyles suck the life out of forests which are the tigers’ home and territory.
Companies and the government which engage in contradictory policies and eco-wash type of tokenism are as much to blame. While media attention is lead to focus on tigers being shot or killed by gangs of organized poachers, the forests are being thinned. The problem is not that there are not enough tigers, but the problem is that certain kinds of human beings are disappearing – those human beings that believed in being content and using minimal resources. The vanishing tiger is but a symptom of a larger malady – that of the modern human condition. “Don’t be content” says every advertisement that recommends we consume more and more.
Unfortunately the natural world cannot understand the grand vision and mission statements of the campaigns that support nature, nor can the tiger. We must realize that we cannot also bribe nature with action-less petitions and green-washed speeches. Nature in the form of forests, animals and water bodies is real and it needs real commitments. These commitments must start with individual and community responsibility to the environment. Start right with our lifestyles. Right now, today!

No word limits

I suddenly got that I dont have to write paragraphs and pargraphs of 8000 words in a blog. Just a few lines will do.
Hats off to my fellow women students with babies who can still do a phd with a two year old's tantrums. I went for a sleepover with my friend and watched "bow barracks forever." Good movie, though it would have helped others if the BEngali words in the movie had subtittles. Most of the movie is english and is about an old building in Calcutta occupied by Anglo Indian community.
Have halted knitting and taken to cross stitch. Fickle in everything except my Phd Topic.I doggedly am writing a page a day.

What the DRs say

This will just carry pearls of wisdom I hear from my Phd friends at my college.
we are doctoral students and one of my profs called us DRs.
So the blog name.

It been a while

I will blog once a month.