FireFlies 2010

Environmental activist Vandana Shiva spoke at the fireflies music festival, standing under a banyan tree where the musician's perform on Saturday/ Sunday. Here, is an exclusive transcript of her speech

Thank you fireflies. Thank you to the musicians and thank you to this amazing banyan tree. I think she has been standing here for about 300 years. She has probably listened to many local concerts. Millions of leaves of her's over her lifetime, has absorbed so much of our carbon-di-oxide that we exhale and convert it to oxygen so that we have life. We often forget that without the trees on this planet, human beings could not live. If you look at the seeds of this tree, there must be millions of them. The seeds hold within, millions of years of evolution-- of the past and the future. Everyone is ready to become another banyan tree and yet we think we are intelligent that we take the seed of a plant and turn it into a terminator seed so it will never ever grow again. Because then you will have to keep buying from the Monsantos of the world. That's what they want you to do with the BT brinjal and you all said no (encore from the audience).

There is another about the banyan-- not just the banyan tree, about everything green. About the Kabir song which says I look after my field. Every plant takes the suns energy. With one chlorophyll molecule and a process called photo syntheses keeps the cycle of life going..We thought we were smart when we dug up coal and made the steam engine run. We thought we were super smart when we started to drill for oil deeper. Look at all the automobiles that are here on the road. I have lived in Bangalore in 1979. It could cross the town in 15 minutes. Fifteen minutes flat. Today it took me three hours. How? That fossil fuel, the trees that are buried deep under are the heart of planet earth. Because we are burning up everyday, millions of years of fossilized carbon and captured sunlight. And there is no way the earth can recycle that. Whether it is pollution from directly burning dead carbon, fossilized carbon, or other green house gasses like nitrogen oxide from chemical fertilizers. People do not realize. Nitrogen oxide is 300 times more lethal in changing the climate than carbon-di-oxide...

The farmers are our 'annadatas.' Two hundred thousand farmers have had to commit suicide because they are trapped in debt. Are we going to be part of the justice? Are you going to join hands with the people to say you need food that is good for you, good for the planet and food that keeps the farmer alive.

We have been spending this evening of rhythm. Where does rhythm come from? The word ritha. What is ritha? Living the right way. Rithu-- cycles of the weather. Seasons in the right rhythm. If all our musicians were un-talented, they'd be banging on the drums and you'd be booing them. Right? But because they have a rhythm, you cheer them. There is rhythm in the way things work in this amazing universe, in this amazing planet. There is a music in the way the sun works, the way trees work and the way the different species work. We are bombarding on nature as if it was a drummer who did not know how to play drums. We humans have become so arrogant but so stupid, they keep chanting high tech to me when they bombarded me with toxic genes like BT brinjal. I call it stupid tech. That is not high tech. You guys might be doing high tech with software. Go ahead and do it. But don't let stupid tech be passed on as high tech. Burdening the planet with pollution is not high tech. Its stupidity. Copenhagen fell flat. You followed the news. You couldn't avoid it. Our country says we must mine more coal. The tribals of Jharkhand are saying we don't want more coal mines. They've shut down 65 mines. But in their name, we talk about our right to pollute. The United States talks about their right to pollute. The right to pollute, is no body's right. Nobody's right. Did she give us the permission to pollute (pointing to the banyan tree). No. It is time to live like real banyan trees who lived with humility. And here right in this gathering you have everything you need for the future. The beautiful water-- and we need more of that kind of water harvesting to deal with climate change. Maybe next years festivals should have trees and seeds distributed. And most importantly community which you are creating here. That's what we need.

Fireflies, a small farm about 30 kilometres from Bangalore on Saturday night, saw some three thousand people-- mostly city dwellers, crowd the place for a night of enchanting music. The ninth edition of the all night music festival saw many performances like Carnatic Classical "Bhaktiyana," directed by Meera Rajaram Pranesh, Jazz by HFT, soul fusion by Esperanto, Kabir music by Shabnam Viramani and team, Hulivesha directed by Mohan Das Kothari, alternative grunge by Lounge Piranha, Hindustani/ Jazz fusion by Jalshaghar, fusion by Prakash Sontakke group, Qawali by Bharat Sargam and group, Kerala folk by Vayali, Hip hop and rap by Low Rhyderz, and Banjo/ Acoustic guitar/ Fujara flute by Kyle McCloud and Hayley Sabella.

As the night progressed, the steady pace of traditional Carnatic music, soulful music by Esperanto and insightful Kabir couplets sung by Shabnam Viramani gave way to the heady pace of Hulivesha, delightful Qawali and racy Kerala folk. Many went mad with the beats and danced to the tunes of artists all night. Sunrise was greeted with feathery voice of Kyle McCloud and Hayley Sabella's Fujara magic

For many it was just another occasion to party all night and get hammered. But for some it was a complete musical experience-- warts and all.

PS: We designed the whole Ashram and surroundings.

Hang the dude

Anchor: Dude, you just survived the blast how do you feel?

Dude: I dunno, im high on smack. I'm just a road side beggar!

Anchor: Exclusive report! We have a beggar, on TV with us. Tell us about your experience. What do you think caused the blast? It could have been IEDs you know.

Dude: Oh yeah? Whats IED though? I guess its all that smack in my HEAD. I cant find my leg.

Anchor: He says its all HEAD(LY) who done it. Says this is the second leg of the operations. Exclusive report! Now tell us, are you with the CIA, the FBI, LeT, IB, RAW, IMuJi? Which organisation do you belong to?

Dude: Hic...hic..I dunno...All'o them I guess. [Puke] I'm all for world peace!

Anchor: Ha! A spy in disguise! Just like our poll results showed. He is a double, triple, quadruple, multiple agent! He is, and I quote, "all for blowing the world into pieces" Are you scared right now? Were you scared when it happened?

Dude: I dunno, maybe I was..no, I'm not..mary had a little lamb..twinkle twinkle little star..[Pukes] But thats not what I said.

Anchor: This is one classic example of post blast syndrome. He is actually scared but he thinks he is not. He says the right things but he thinks thats not what he said. Psycho analysts often term this as Trauma. But he might also be faking it. (SMS poll follows: Is he faking it or not?)

Anchor: Okay, now. Tell our viewers. How did you manage to give intelligence agencies a slip?

Dude: [Pukes again]...Intelligence?? What Intelligence? [Dude is now confused, and aware of his surroundings]

Anchor: In an outrageous act, the suicide attacker has just puked at our intelligence agencies. Next up, opinion poll. Should this dude be hanged or not? If you want justice sms HANG to 11248*

Anchor: [After a while] A whopping majority-- 1 per cent of our viewers think that he should be hanged. Hang him. Tomorrow evening, SMS/ E-mail pettition to the minister. Day after tomorrow noon: Candle light vigil.

* Sms charges apply.

Leftaaaaaaaaaaa Rightaaaaaaaaaa

I think that the majority of my friends would probably agree that a lot of addresses in India are notoriously difficult to locate. In Bangalore alone there must be hundreds of 1st Mains and 2nd Crosses, and probably a dozen or more 1oo Feet Roads. Even that wouldn't be so bad if the roads followed a logical and sequential progression, but they generally don't.

To take a hypothetical address, you might be looking for the 5th Cross [road] off the 3rd Main [road] and blithely counting the roads off as you go: 1st Cross, 2nd Cross, 3rd Cross, 4th Cross, 8th Cross. What! Where the Dickens have 5th, 6th and 7th Cross gone to? So you ask the nearest gaggle of auto drivers who all point in different directions, and then you give up on them and after much to-ing and fro-ing, discover that the road you want is on the other side of 3rd Main. You can see how frustrating that can be, can't you?

Little wonder then that most people in India always throw in a landmark as well. "Yes, we live at 5th Cross, 3rd H Main which is just behind the Sai Baba Temple." I'll come back to landmarks later.

Now though, I read in this morning's papers that all this fuss and bother about finding addresses could soon be a thing of the past. In Bangalore there's a new service called MYHOME which enables you to register your address details (and landmarks) so that when your friends are looking for you, they text MYHOME with your address and get your directions sent back to them as a text message. Clever isn't it?

Well no, actually. I personally can't see what advantage MYHOME has over the tradional method of just picking up the phone and shouting at your friend, "Hey Sanjay, where the hell is 4th Cross?" And then Sanjay, if he's a south Indian, will say:

"5th Main-aaaaaa. Left-aaaaaaa, rrrright-aaaaaaa. Left-aaaaaaa, left again-aaaaaaa, just aarposite the Infant Jesus Mutton Chiken staaaaal."

And I suppose that's exactly what you'd have to type into your phone: all that left-aaaaa, right-aaaa business until your A key is fairly worn out. As for landmarks, giving a landmark is all well and good if the description pertaining to it is accurate. But in India, "behind" can mean immediately behind, or two streets behind, or half a mile behind; whilst "aarposite" is never opposite, but generally five hundred yards up the road tucked behind a shopping mall or temple. We always tell people we live behind our particular landmark, when actually it would be more honest to say, "You know that new office building at the end of 80 Feet Road? Well we're miles away from that..."

Hindu Temple (aarposite 7th L Main, 3rd Cross) courtesy of TripAdvisor.

Cell Phone Adventures

So I met up with an old friend, Serin at Eva Mall for lunch on Tuesday, and I guess I had left my phone sitting on a bench. I didn’t notice that my phone was missing untill later that evening. I tried calling it a few times, but nobody answered. So I just figured it was long gone, and added it to the long mental list of things that I have either lost or gotten stolen: cell phones, ipods, credit cards, etc. I pretty much resigned myself to life without a cell phone, and was already starting to get comfortable with the minimalist lifestyle change.

So then last night I got a call from Parvathy, saying that some man called her from my phone and was holding onto it for me. I called her right back and got more info. She said the guy’s name was Bhaskhar and sounded kind of gruff on the phone. I asked her exactly what did he say? I guess he was like “Hi. I have a phone.” And 'Paro' was like “WHAT?” -- all confused. Then he was silent for a few seconds, and then repeated himself: “Hi. I have a phone.” Her impersonation of Bhaskhar was awesome. I cannot imagine how he was finally able to convey this confusing situation to her, but somehow she was able to get his home phone number and gave it to me.

So this morning, I called the home phone number and my own cell phone number, but no answer. I got to work and tried calling a few more times; no answer. I tried again — this time when I called my cell phone, somebody answered but didn’t say anything and just hung up. I called right back and the same thing happened. I wanted to say “Bhaskhar! Is that you?! I know you’re there...” Finally the third time around, he answered with a tentative “Hello?”

We arranged to meet outside Garuda Mall around noon.When i arrived at Garuda, I kept staring at random men who might look like a “Bhaskhar.” In college I knew a guy named 'Bhasi', so basically I was looking for somebody that looked just like Bhasi. Finally I saw a guy leaning against the wall across from Garuda. He was slightly overweight, wearing jeans and a jean jacket (or jean vest? Can’t remember...I just remember there was a lot of faded denim going on).Not really what I expected. “Are you Bhaskhar?” I said. He was very kind and handed the phone over to me. I offered him Rs.1000 and he took it hesitantly. “You don’t have to do this,” he said a couple times. I have to admit, even though I was grateful to him for not stealing my thousands worth phone, I was also very cautious and felt a little weird about it all. Anyway, all this to say that I guess there are really honest people out there in the world, and I’m grateful that I got my phone back. Thank You Paro & Bhaskar.. Hate you Serin!!

Ripped from Neha Nair's blog.

This is excuslively dedicated to me, Thought of sharing this...

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Few lessons learnt

Having a positive attitude helps a lot in overcoming stress, unwanted rumours/gossips about one self, tension ,etc. Over time I have met loads of people in my life where some have been extremely generous to me and some shrewd. But I have always felt that God does it on purpose so that we understand the value of relationships be it for the worse or otherwise. Anyhow, I wanted to write few quotes which came across my mind when I had to face such people/situations. Most of them have taught me a lesson in a good way and I would like to dedicate this post to them for opening my eyes!

I have decided to blog at least once a month on such quotes that enlightened my sense at such unexpected situations. Here we go ...

The reason why people talk behind your back is because you are ahead of them.


If you live to please others, no one will love you. What you get is only appreciation.


Make your anger so expensive that no one can afford it.



Feel free to share your favourite quotes too.. till then Ciao!

The king of good times vs a really old monk

"Drink beer, save water." This is one of those one liners I often find on T shirts worn by the yuppies in the city. My sadistic self can not let it pass. Hence this post. Most of you might already know that to make a litre of beer, the beer manufacturer uses 4.5- 15 liters of water. The water goes into washing used beer bottles, cleaning, and processing. So even if you would like to believe/ flaunt otherwise, you are NOT saving water when you are drinking beer. You are WASTING a lot of water. Ha, some relief. Nothing against beer here.


PS: Beer addicts do not despair. Here is some inside information for you: United Breweries (Mallya's company) is going to launch Kingfisher Red (already launched in Punjab) in South India this monsoon. Its an all season beer. Meaning-- it can be consumed without chilling. Meaning-- winter, spring, summer or monsoons, you will have beer which does not taste bad if served "not chilled". Which means, beer lovers will now be drinking 365 days a year, on the road, on the roof, on hilltops and in remote villages where there is no electricity or money. Now I know why the King of Good Times (Mallya) bought the old monk's (Gandhi's) slippers and glasses. He is literally a Gandhian! Like the mobile phone operators are. They are all Gandhians who believe India is in villages. Eureka!

PPS: I hope you all know what Gandhiji's views on drinking were.