Spending Money Like Water

I grew up in a traditional Chennai Suburb, during a time when every house had a well in the back and a front yard to put kolam (Rangoli).  Before the times when motor used to pump water to the tank in the terrace or water tankers or municipal water supply.  Water crisis in Chennai meant the water table has gone down to 40 feet.  Paalaru Thanni was a distant dream my dad used to have.

My mother's idea of training  (or torture) us was to make us cup water with our bare hands from the back yard, cross the entire house and take it to the front of the house and give it to the tulsi plant.  You are judged based on how much water you actually managed to take to the front.  For every droplet that fell on the way, you will get a taunt

"ஓட்டை கை " - ottai kai - hand with holes
"பணம் தண்ணியா போகும்டி " - panam thanniyai pogum di - money will go away like water

Honestly that was torture,  she would have made a good military commander. But those statements ingrained in my brain for good.

Today as I observe around me, I see the truth in my mother's wise statements.  How one spends the water does predict how the money is going to be spent, on useful things or wasteful expenditure.  In fact, I have seen that even if one is not into extravagance, expenses have a way of creeping in.

Today water get supplied to our houses, water flows from taps and rain showers, at full force. We have forgotten where this water comes from, its value and spend it as if there is no tomorrow.  Its a sign of affluence.  Any suggestion of water saving or usage restrictions meet with great resistance.

We have dug a 1000 feet to get to any water that we can, even fossilized ones, and finished those too, that too in Bangalore.  With damaged environment, encroached lake beds, destroyed catchment basins, climate change, we see unpredictable weather.  When monsoon is in full swing, one area is flooded and other gets no rain, both places have no water for consumption.  Water has become money.

Now let me ask you "How do you spend your water (/money)?"

Haldi-Kumkum update - Hope is On

Hope is On

Last year after Varamahalakshmi festival, I wrote the blog  The Haldi-Kumkum Disaster.  One year on, I am writing this blog to give update.

This year after visiting 10 households, my waste toll is as follows

• 3 disposable bags (one telling me that she is just finishing the leftover stock from previous year)
• 4 haldi-kumkum packets (one obviously reused 👍)
• 1 blouse piece
• 1 set of bangles (got 2 sets, but one of them I got to choose the colour and size I needed).

This is less than one-third of my last year's toll.  Its a great feeling receiving my channa in a reusable dabba, my sundal in a beautiful reusable bottle, coconut with haldi-kumkum tikka and reusable fridge bags made of natural materials.  Very few plastic/aluminium disposables used for prasadam also.  And thank you for making me eat with my hands too.  Once again, it felt really great.

Thank you all for making the effort.  Hope is on, that this will also make everyone will re-look at their daily lives too, to see what can be reduced/avoided.   Next year hoping for to see even less of a waste.

Festivals are just yardsticks with which we can measure our attitude towards earth and life everyday.  Hope is on, that we are changing for the better.   

Serendipity - Give chance a chance

We humans try to control and plan our future.  We tend to focus on what didn't go per plan, worry about the same and be unhappy.  Reasons to worry and be unhappy are endless, career, finances, house, kids education, their marriage, their kids, do they care of us and so on.  Things do not always go as per our plans, but something not planned may not be always bad.  If you keep adapting to whats happening, something nice may still happen.  Serendipity is just around the corner, the world is made for us to be happy. 

Realized that today when I was trying to use the camera my husband gifted me.

Munias (spice finches) had nested in my terrace.  I noticed that they babies had fledged.  When this happens a beautiful drama unfolds, where you can see watchful parents trying to teach their little fledglings on the ways of life.  So I took my camera and waited to capture the beautiful story.  Unfortunately, they were so deep in the bushes that I could barely capture anything except some random shots and then all of a sudden they just flew away.   Instead of giving up the shoot, I decided to focus on the only animal around, a squirrel, after all, I am already standing on a stool, looking over a ledge, with camera in full zoom.   And then I managed to get this..

Serendipity

Not by plan but by chance, because the second squirrel came into the frame as I was focused on the first one.  Serendipity - the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way

Lots of reasons to believe the chance events also lead to happy outcomes, provided you give chance a chance.  So what are you focused on?

PS: If you are wondering, the next morning I captured some extremely beautiful shots of the fledglings..

The Haldi-Kumkum Disaster

How “convenience” is killing the “Nature”

Haldi Kumkum or inviting women and girls for tamboolam happens during several occasions each year.  These are times of celebrating womenhood, give good wishes to each other for a good and happy life and show that life can be party while remembering the goddess.  These are fun times where you dress up, meet other ladies and get the tamboolam bags.  But when I come back home and see what I have brought home, I realize that most of it just goes to recycle bin or dry waste.  Then why did I bring them at all?!!    The age of convenience has become an age of unnecessary consumption and killing earth.  I wonder, when this change occurred!!  I suppose most of us have been taken by surprise or probably have not even realized the change.

  

Thamboolam before the era of packaging

Thamboolam in the era of packaging

Even for those of us who are religious in recycling, some of the packaging are so small that it is not even practical to separate the materials to recycle them.

 Haldi-kumkum and beetle nut come in these tiny packets.  Sometimes haldi and kumkum are not really haldi and kumkum but coloured powder that can cause severe reactions.  Moreover most people don't use these.  Why give them at all?   Haldi kumkum can be offered from a bowl, why give to go.  For those few who are particular about this, take a little the effort to pack kumkum in used papers and use dried whole haldi instead.  Beetle nuts are available without packing, where half or whole nuts can be purchased with zero environmental impact. Those who don’t use can just compost.

The return gifts are not needed as most people don't use them.  Especially the blouse pieces which come in their individual plastic wrapping that no one uses in the age of designer blouses.  If you do want to give, a reusable box, a bag or a plant that will be better appreciated.

The glass bangles, who wears them anyway.  After all they don't match any of the dresses that we have and most times they are either too big or too small.  I remember, my mom used to keep multiple sizes and colours in a pile and let the women choose themselves.  Now a days, for convenience, they are prepacked into little carry bags.  Now that means when it’s brought home, highly likely, they are of no use.  

And finally carry bags.  Why can't we just ask the women to bring reusable carry bags like the shops?  Why give those single use plastic or polyurethane bags?  If you do want to give the convenience, then give a bag that can be reused for veggie shopping or pack in old newspapers.  Just a bit of effort from our sides will make a big difference.       

Reused packaging

We have one earth.  So, while keeping the spirit of festivities alive and kicking, let us not kick ourselves out of it!

Kids: The experts

Every morning I walk with my daughter to her bus stop.  Its just outside the complex and she is old enough to go by herself.  But this is the time where we catch up with each other as friends and she gives me interesting tit-bits.

Today's news: My daughter's school removed mirrors from the girls' restrooms in the 12th grade wing. Reason: Girls are spending too much time looking at themselves and applying make up. I told, may be they should just add more mirrors, that way the girls will get bored of seeing themselves.

My daughter responded, "Amma, you don't understand. Looking at yourself in the mirror is like touching your own hair.  You never get bored.  It just becomes a habit.  Even if you shave off the hair, you will continue to scratch your scalp".

I was just dumbfounded.  Never thought of it that way and the feeling, "oh! my goodness, my little one has grown up"

Break the boundary

Yesterday someone forwarded a video on Whatsapp, with a message "we need to be aware and conscious of our actions...".  A very well intentioned message indeed.

The video depicted a kannadiga reading a Kannada newspaper sitting on a bench.  Slowly several people join him, a Telugu person, a Tamil, a Hindi speaking person. He shares the space and the paper with these people. Finally a Malayalam speaking person tries to adjust, resulting in the Kannadiga person loosing his seat and the rest of them not caring and moving on with their activities. The kannadiga guy wonder what will they do to Karnataka.

Now this could have been any scenario.  This kannadiga could have been replaced with anybody:
A Marathi in Mumbai facing a deluge of Gujaratis, Tamil, Biharis and what not
A Bengali facing deluge of refugees from Bangladesh
Europeans facing their refugee crisis
A person in USA facing the immigrant workers
A mother in law sharing the home with a new daughter in law
The list is endless...

What this video has done is, nothing but,feeding the inherent fears in people. If one is really interested in the welfare of the society, then they could have given a positive feedback where one of the newcomers gives back the seat to the Kannadiga or the Kannadiga being more graceful and accept people by being part of the group.  Instead this video makes everyone look like intruders to a Kannadiga who would watch this video. The Kannadiga here represent everyone who is facing this deluge scenario. But unfortunately this video does exactly the opposite and just increases the divide.  How is it different from the one sided views presented by the news channels for TRP? May be park is made with the tax money from the migrant workers, who knows.

We belong to a country where the moguls, foreigners at that time, ruled the entire country at some point, the Maratha Bhonsles ruled Tanjore in today's Tamil Nadu,the Maratha Gaekwads ruled Gujarathi Vadodara.  The state boundaries are drawn for sake of better management, not for dividing people by language.

Several years back when I decided to move back to India, my company decided to move the project I was on to India too. So 3 more people were hired locally. So our four member team included one Kannadiga , one Telugu , one Tamil and one odiya. One day the Kannadiga guy commented on outsiders taking their job. I quickly asked him "which job?". After all, the job he was working on , was supposed to go to France, but moved to Bangalore because of my wish to move to Bangalore.

It is important to realize that it is not you vs. me, but you and me (we). It doesn't matter whether the boundary is city, state, language, country, caste, religion or race.  Our minds are too naive to understand the complex relationships in nature and how we depend on each other.


"Panchhi nadiya pawan ke jhonke, koi sarhad na inhe roke... 
Sarhad insano ke liye hain, socho tumne aur maine kya paya insan hoke"

Birds, rivers, gusts of wind

No border inhibits them

Borders are for people

Think about it, what have you and I