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.