My story Idea - Harper-Collins contest

This is how you can make two posts out of one idea! First you write a post outlining a story idea to Harper-Collins, then you post a link to the story idea in their page! Hooray! Anything that adds to the post-count on this blog is very welcome!

http://www.indiblogger.in/getpublished/idea/225

I actually do not understand why votes for the story idea should be a major decider for the acceptance of the idea. Votes on social media generally denote the popularity of the person and not of the content. And the popularity of the person does not automatically translate to better sales of content produced by him/her. Since, however, H-C has opted for this modus operandi I am trying to plug my idea for all it is worth - even with the left hand. So please click on this link and 'Like' it there.

Out of action

Now I will know how difficult it can be to live with only one usable hand. And when it is the left - which is not my normal hand - things can get very interesting indeed. Manipulating the mouse with the left hand was already a lesson. Your instincts about what is a right click and what is a left click fail you when you change hands.

Why this sudden venturing into these mystical realms? Simply because I have this unnatural capability to fall anywhere while doing nothing much. Today I tripped on the pavement, tried to break an electric pole and broke a bone in my right wrist - the radius - instead. Yippee! I have now had my first fracture and can proudly sport my arm in a sling! The shame of having lived 49 years without ever having had plaster of paris applied on me is now wiped out.

Never knew that the process involved a couple of nurses playing tug-of-war with your hand while the doctor did some esoteric operations on your hand and mummified it. At the end of it all, what I have is a hand that is temporarily hard enough to break bones - or so says the doc. Beware! Do not anger me in person for the next couple of months or I will make the doctor happy by sending more business his way.

The unfortunate part of all this is that my blog activities shall all be in limbo for the nonce. Typing each word, editing the typos and all is too boring - took me an hour to get this far. Further, for a man used to sleeping on his side, I expect a lot of sleepless nights and that is not going to be conducive to being the carefree self that you all know and love (I know! Allow me my self-delusions!)

Hoping to get back in action soon!

Until death do us part : My entry for the Get Published contest

When first we experience what we think of as love it is by and large a feeling. The only thought, if anything, that crosses our mind is “How wonderful life would be for me if (s)he is my spouse”. This romantic love is more an experience of feeling happy with even the daydreams of spending time with the loved one, one of taking pleasure in stealing surreptitious glances and secret smiles – not to mention the clichéd murmuring of sweet nothings in each other’s ears. A love that stays put at this stage if it turns to marriage is more likely to be heart-break for one if not for both.

When love matures, consideration for the other gains more importance. Now, in addition to thinking about how happy your love will make you, you also start taking pleasure in making your significant other happy. When love starts making you think in terms of actively taking pleasure in making the other happy – and not just as a means to an end – it is mature love.

Yet! There is a sort of love that is not given to the ordinary people to feel. When all the giving can only be a one-way street, due to external circumstances, and when the life that you end up leading is one of unremitting drudgery and deprivation, it takes a different order of love to transmute such a life into one of happiness because you are living with your love.

I came to know of such a woman in the recent past. A woman, whose husband was crippled within a year of an arranged marriage and whose parents urged her to divorce him and closed their doors on her because she would not. She not only stayed with him, nursing him and helping him try to earn a living but also disdained any description of her life as one of sacrifice.

That is the only real life story that makes me want to write about it. I do not know any of the characters personally and, thus, were I to write it the characters in my story may end up bearing no resemblance to the real life characters.

This is my entry for the HarperCollins–IndiBlogger Get Published contest, which is run with inputs from Yashodhara Lal andHarperCollins India.

Shopper! Stop!

Here we go again! Once again there comes a contest that I really have no reason to compete in but for that unfortunate promise that I made to myself about competing in every contest this year. If I only knew who it was that let Indiblogger know about that promise thereby ensuring that they brought in contest after contest that I cannot readily compete in, I would probably have become a murderer by now!

Paranoid fantasy, did you say? Just check out the list of contests that have been announced. You have a ‘Love Marriage or Arranged Marriage’ contest – just the topic that a 49 year old bachelor has always yearned to write about. Then, you kick in with a recipe contest – what I always dream of writing after having converted my kitchen into a disaster area for the day. And, now, comes the chance to play designer!

I have always had a thing against designers. They seem to be a particularly lazy lot given to taking the easy way out. I mean what is so difficult about designing clothing that makes a John Abraham or an Arjun Rampal look good? Those guys probably look good in the buff anyway and it would take concerted creative effort by a designer to make them look ugly. Now if any designer had designed clothing for me that would make girls drool all over me that would be worth lauding. Where is the designer who takes on such a challenge? Lazy set of sods, as I said! (By the way, will someone let me know why saliva is welcome when drooled on you and detestable when spat? Just asking!)

Without a designer, I would probably do better. My friends do not agree, however. I am not color-blind but my friends delight in saying that it cannot be proved by the clothes I wear. I mean, come on, what is unattractive about electric green trousers and a flame-red shirt? The shirt is even decorated with bright blue forget-me-nots and everyone likes flowers, don’t they? I am sure that my friends are only indulging in their usual pastime of pulling my leg – but who knows whether they are actually reflecting popular taste or not?

Enough maundering! Time to get ahead with the task at hand. Ensemble? Hmmm! Do I go in for the usual three piece suit that was the height of sophisticated dressing of my generation? One problem there, however! I have always felt that it was a pity that the man who first invented the tie was not strangled at birth. Due to this lamentable oversight by his parents, he survived to invent that abomination thereby causing millions of men to strangle themselves with it every day.

About the only sort of ensemble that I can really take an interest in would be something to wear on a trek – considering that it is the only activity for which I feel the need to dress up for specifically. Everywhere else I can manage with the same ensemble that I use for treks.

Let us go from tip to toe on this. The first thing is a cap. Not, as the evil-minded would say, because it hides the fact that I am almost completely bald. On a trek, it does become necessary to save the head from the scorching sun particularly when there is a regrettable lack of insulation for it on top. So, here is the first item on the ensemble.

Next the sunglasses for the eyes! My eyes are magnetic eyes, all right! The problem is that they seem to be of the wrong polarity – instead of attracting they seem to have very strong repulsive powers. That, however, is not why I need them covered. Trekking involves walking in the sun, more often than not, and it is better to shade the eyes instead of getting a headache by squinting all the way.

Why are T-shirts with pockets so rare? If only these people had the experience of trying to pull out a hanky from the pockets of the tracks on a trek and have the mobile taking the shortcut down the mountainside, they would know how useful a pocket can be on the T-shirt. Anyway, this is my selection of a T-shirt – could not get rid of the man in it!

Never underestimate the importance of undergarments. Particularly on treks in the Himalayas where you probably will live in the same pair for days on end – unless you actually like undressing and re-dressing when it is freezing cold. Fail in your choice and you will find what rashes in the wrong places can do to you when you have to keep walking in them.

Ah! The over-garments over the under-garments! Must be obvious by now! Tracks, of course! Since I do not believe in different garments for different occasions I prefer tracks that can fool you into thinking that they are formal wear – unless you choose to concentrate on them. If you do, you are welcome to your discoveries!

Actually, you can get away with any choice for the rest. But comes to socks, you better have them cotton and fresh. Worse than rashes in unmentionable places are blisters on the feet. Unless, of course, you have mastered the art of walking on your hands!

Shoes are as important as socks in avoiding blisters. The grip on the soles is also of relevance unless you actually like slipping off rocks and descending faster than it is comfortable to contemplate. The best trekking shoes come with Vibram soles and Goretex inners – but, then, since my life is not worth as much as such shoes are I make do with the normal running shoes.

Now that completes the ensemble. What the well-dressed trekker is wearing this festive season in the Himalayas! Now, if only my friends will agree with my tastes!

Losing arguments

One seldom loses arguments with other men. When we were boys together, if you thought you were about to lose an argument you started a bout of fisticuffs to clinch the argument and, even if you lose, you only lost a fight not the argument. Once you grew up to be men and fisticuffs started acquiring legal consequences, arguments became yelling matches and both participants (if there were only two) departed the scene with the firm conviction that their calm reasoning had won the argument for them.

With women, however, it is an altogether different story. My first realization of this difference happened when I got into an argument with my sister. After the customary opening exchanges of the more-or-less courteous variety, the argument rose to the intellectual heights of vituperation. I used all the imagination at my command to shower the choicest of abuses at her only to have her return “You only!” to me. (Now this pithy phrase meant “All that you say are applicable only to you and not to me” and why it is not a part of regular English is still a mystery to me!)

Needless to say, I was infuriated that my own able discourse had been turned so deftly against me and I soared into heights of abuse that I had hitherto not touched - only to find the same “You only” reflecting all of that back at me. After that point, the argument soared to the rarefied intellectual plane of an exchange of You-onlys between the two of us. Since my sister said the last ‘You only’, I have to admit that I was bested in that argument.

Let me not give you the impression that I had had very infrequent arguments with women. I am only touching upon the highlights here rather than engaging in a long litany of my woes while so arguing.

The next highlight was during the wedding of one of my cousins. One male cousin landed in Bangalore from Chennai and, while disembarking, he left behind a suitcase in the taxi which disappeared with commendable speed. The same day, we went to pick up another cousin and, as luck would have it, one of his bags stayed back in the auto-rickshaw, which also vanished with alacrity. The women were all over us. “It was only today morning when Shyam lost his suitcase. Did that not teach you to be more careful?”

Came the night and three of the women came along in an auto and – you knew it – they lost a suitcase to the auto as well. Now was our chance. Before we could even get started, the women said, “Even Shyam and you lost your luggage! So what is the big deal now?” What should have been a cautionary tale to us turns into a precedent to them! Do you really think we won that argument after that start?

The one time I really thought I had the argument won – and history made – I found out how nimble women’s brains could be. When my antagonist came to the conclusion that she was on a losing wicket on that issue, I suddenly found that the argument had shifted to a discussion of my shortcomings in an episode in the previous week. By the time that argument was done, I was left with a very strong impression that I had spent all my life waking up every day in the morning with the single ambition of making her life miserable and tossing and turning in bed bemoaning every day when I had passed up such an opportunity. Needless to say, she won that argument in a canter leaving me crawling like a worm in her dust.

I have heard of this myth that all the reasoned arguments of men are dissolved to nonexistence in a flood of tears. I have no personal experience of it. Whether it is because it is only a myth or whether it is because – as my friends say – women consider me small fry and disdain to use the most powerful weapons in their armory, I do not know!

The one thing life has taught me was that the best way to cut short an argument with a woman is to admit you are in the wrong. This, I thought, was a sure-fire recipe for success – till the day when the woman I was arguing with ended up haranguing me till I was forced to admit that I was not in the wrong after all!

Women will always be unfathomable to me!

Nokia Apptasting meet

There is a difference between an event organized for companies or for the general public and an event organized for bloggers. A significant difference which, when ignored, makes a mess of the intention of the organizers. Unfortunately, the Nokia Apptasting meet was organized without any cognizance of that difference and, thus, turned out to be a disappointment for bloggers like me.

The audience for a meet organized for a company knows each other and probably is only too happy to ignore the others around and concentrate on the stage. In an event organized for the public the audience may not know each other and could not care less if they never got to know each other. Thus, in either case, it is all right for the event to be organized with the entire period of the event being devoted to what is going on stage.

The same, however, cannot be held true of an event organized for bloggers. Bloggers know each other only through their blogs and get to spend little if any time in the company of each other. Thus, they are interested in spending more time with the bloggers they know, in meeting new bloggers and in introducing their blogs to new bloggers. Any event that fails to understand this essential need of bloggers is bound to be less than a success.

The very fact that any such event is called a 'Bloggers Meet' means to the bloggers that they will get to meet each other. If the idea were only to get the bloggers to meet Nokia Apps - wine, food, prizes and T-shirts notwithstanding - one would have found a very sparse attendance of bloggers. Any sponsor needs to understand that most bloggers will not spare the time and the trouble to come over to a meet merely because they are being wined and dined - most of them probably get enough occasions to be wined and dined in the course of their regular routine. The single most important attraction for bloggers to attend a blogger's meet is to meet other bloggers - and any interest of the sponsors can only be served if it is worked around satisfying that need.

The Nokia APPtasting meet failed totally to take into account this need. There was not a single minute of time allowed to the bloggers to interact with each other, other than by ignoring what the organizers were doing on stage. In the event, polite people though we normally are, most of us ended up ignoring what was going on stage totally. Considering that the dinner time was the only time available for interactions and considering that the meet ran late into the night, it was not possible to actually get to know new people at all  - other than those at your table - since people were in a hurry to get home.

Further, what was considered as an audience interactive part of the program was also less than captivating because the same ignorance was evident in the construct of the program. Since every blogger knows only a few other bloggers, having contests with a handful of participants is unlikely to have the audience on the edge of their seats praying for any one of them to win. When you are indifferent to the success or failure of any given participant, you are unlikely to be too interested in the proceedings. The Surf people showed better judgment when they made four teams - since when a participant from each of the teams was contesting, the rest of them were all agog about who was going to win.

If you do not satisfy your audience you do not convey your message. Which is why advertisements are interspersed between other programs that is of interest to the audience. This event, unfortunately, seemed to be based on the idea that you could rivet the audience with a continuous stream of advertisements. Needless to say, the audience was less than amused.

The sponsors need to ask themselves whether they are interested in hogging all the air time or giving out their message in a fourth of the time but to a far more receptive audience.

P.S: Forgot to mention the one bright spot! The dinner was excellent.

The Bankster – A Review

The first time I review a book for a Book review program, it happens to be one - 'The Bankster' by Ravi Subramanian - by an alumnus of my own alma mater – IIM-Bangalore! Not surprisingly, the author has set his book in an environment that he is familiar with – the Banking industry.

The back cover of the book gives the impression of an international thriller. To me, however, the book is more in the mould of a whodunit, although it is a whodunit that uncovers a conspiracy instead of individual acts of crime. A thriller gives you the impression of a persistent tension through the book with the hero lurching from danger to danger as he uncovers and foils a conspiracy. A whodunit, on the other hand, is an investigative process that leads to the conspiracy being uncovered and danger, if at all, is largely suffered by other people than the main protagonist. Add to this the fact that the main protagonist – as indicated in the blurb – does not even make an appearance till half the book is done, one can understand my point about the book being more a whodunit than a thriller.

As a whodunit, the book works very well indeed. It is an eminently readable book and the banking information that is required to move the story along is painlessly imparted to the reader. The story moves from Angola to Kerala to Mumbai to Vienna in seamless fashion. The incidents and narration are crafted well enough to keep the reader glued to the book.  The basic plot is interesting enough and has a sufficient sprinkling of real life incidents to give the reader a feeling that this is the sort of thing that could be happening in his world. That sense of reality makes it all the more possible for the reader to relate to the book.

The basic story is about a series of deaths of employees of a bank coupled to a set of suspect banking transactions. The initial deaths seem to be either accidents or suicides. What gives the reader a sense of something wrong and of a conspiracy is the prologue about an illicit diamond deal in Angola. A budding protest against a nuclear plant in Kerala appears to be out of context but is brilliantly linked at the end.

There are a few glitches, however. The author has given space to characters that actually play no part in the story. When characters are named and their thought processes explored at the beginning of a book one expects to see them play a part in the story. Also, with the necessarily large cast of characters that the author needed for the story, it would have been better to dispense with detailing of unnecessary characters.

I, unfortunately, am an English purist. The fact that Hindi words are used in dialogues and Indian English is used when characters speak is understandable – though it may have been better to italicize the Hindi words and limit them to merely giving the flavor rather than over-using them. The author, however, has a strong flavor of Indian English in his narration as well. Usage like ‘..in the lobby itself’ is an outcome of literal translation of phrases from Indian languages and in general use in India. To the purist, however, such usage jars and, probably, the author may face difficulty in finding a non-Indian audience.

There are a few editorial glitches as well. The ACP of page 156 becomes a DGP at the end of page 158, for example. Not a major flaw but in a professionally produced book even this should not have been there.

These are, however, minor blemishes in an otherwise eminently readable book. I would recommend that readers approach this book as a whodunit rather than as a thriller.

Ravi Subramanian's presence on website(s) and social networks

• Website: http://www.ravisubramanian.in/index.asp
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Authorravisubramanian
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/SubramanianRavi
• Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/authorravisubramanian
• Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/AuthorRavi

This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com . Participate now to get free books!

Even Angels will fall

Bath done, toweling done, combing hair an irrelevancy for long! Time to use the deodorant – the new one that I had lovingly bought! I took out the new can, caressed it and sprayed a bit of it under my arms.

There was a whooshing noise – far louder than the can ought to have made – a thump, a mini-explosion and an angel landed in a shower of broken tiles, bricks and plaster.

“Aaaah!” I yelled looking up at the angel-shaped hole in the ceiling. “Look what you have done. Now, who is going to repair that?”

She eyed me with inchoate desire. “Do you have no romance in your soul?”

“Romance? You mean the thing that the child with wings and a bow keeps sowing?” A sudden thought struck me. “Is he around too? Now what has he broken?”

"He only breaks hearts!"

"That's all right, then"

“Look at me”, she said. I looked. She had a languorous look on her beautiful face. When she slowly and lasciviously licked her lips with the tip of her tongue, I gave in.

“Oh! All Right! If that is what you want!”

I stepped towards her and a piece of glass pricked my foot.

“Jeez! Don’t tell me you broke through that Solar heater too?” I whined.

“Come to me!” she pleaded yearningly.

I took a couple of steps towards her and a drip of water hit the nape of my neck.

“My God! You have ruined all the piping. Do you know how difficult it is to get a plumber? What am I going to do with my water supply all gone?”

She stamped her foot in frustration. Apparently things were not quite going the way she had anticipated though I really could not make out what she did expect my reaction to be.

“Can’t you take your mind of all these silly matters and pay attention to me?”

“Listen lady! It may seem silly to you – you probably don’t even have to pee – but let me tell you things can get pretty messy if my toilets do not flush!”

Even Angels can look ugly in a rage. Yet there was still desire smoldering in her eyes. I was surprised. Hitherto, girls had always found me appealing only from a distance going by the fact that they always hastened to put as much distance as possible from me the moment I hove to on the horizon. Here was this angel chasing me as though I was the epitome of her erotic dreams.

“Say, listen? How come you picked on me?”

She looked at the deodorant can in my hands meaningfully.

“Ah! So that is it! Why didn’t you say so before? Here! Take it and go. And, please, use it at a safe distance from my house. One hole in the ceiling is enough!”

She gave a snort of disgust, snatched the can from my hands and whooshed away. Did she say, “More pleasure can be had from the can than from you” as she left? I could not be sure.

I sat in my bed amidst the ruins and buried my face in my hands. That sure was the most expensive can of deodorant that I had ever bought!

Illusions about Blogging

There is the real world and there is the world as we see it. The wider the variation between the two the more lost to sanity is the concerned person. Everyone is less than completely sane, as far as I know, but if I am typical of a blogger then bloggers are less sane than the rest of the world.

The idea that I am typical of any group of people is risible to most people who know me. In fact, all I have to do is to call myself typical of a group of people to make that group rise up in wrath and commit mayhem on my body. “We may be mad but, boy, as mad as you? Yetch!!” is the war cry!

So, take this piece to mean only my illusions about blogging. Mine may be a miserable life but I still love it and would not want it cut short in its prime…errr…a shade past its prime, if you insist!

I have already talked of the fact that one of my illusions is already gone. I expected the brilliance of my writing genius to shine like a sun and draw readers like moths to a fire. Now I have come to realize that, even if the Internet is transparent, the boundaries of a blog are opaque to the light of my genius and, thus, one needs to go out and invite people into your blog first. Bloggers and Blog readers are, by and large, a shy lot and disdain walking into someone’s blog uninvited!

It is nevertheless a fact that other illusions still persist. I am still under the illusion that one who comes to my blog stays there because he is enthralled and not because he only wants me to return the favor. Like Yudhishtir is supposed to have said in the Yakshaprashnam, “The biggest wonder of the world is that even though men see others dying around them every day, they comport themselves as though they are immortal”, one could say of Bloggers, ‘Even though they see people visit blogs merely because they expect visits in return, they think that their own blogs are visited to be read and enjoyed”. To be fair to my readers I must say that all of them come to read and enjoy my writing. If you think it is an illusion, so be it, I do not want to know of it!

To let you know how far gone I am in this illusion, I even think that they would like to read more of me if only it were more conveniently presented. I have backed that illusion with action (and, if only you knew how much I hated work, you would realize how strong my illusion is). I have ended up indexing my blog and the tabs that you see on top of my blog page will take you to the list of pieces I have written under various categories – and each item on those lists will take you to the concerned piece when clicked upon!

And, I do not want to know how distant the world I see is from the real world!

Celebrations

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 33; the thirty-third edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton. The theme for the month is 'Celebrations'

Celebrations! Now what does one celebrate? Either an achievement or a festival – which is, by and large, a celebration of the achievements of a mythological character.

I have always been keen on celebrating my achievements. The problem is that you cannot celebrate all by yourself. The moment I call upon someone else to join the celebrations he keeps raising nitpicking objections. I mean, come on, can you not just join the festivities without asking stupid questions about whether I had achieved anything worth celebrating? Hang it all, if I think it is worth celebrating the fact that I woke up a full five minutes before my normal time, what is your problem?

With such unjust people around me this entire idea of celebrating my achievements had to be put in cold storage. I never seemed able to satisfy them with my achievements – they pooh-pooh eating 24 idlis at one sitting; sneer at sleeping the clock round and wax sarcastic about going a month without brushing my teeth. Such a bunch of hard-to-please people I had never expected. What they seemed to consider achievements were so far beyond my capabilities that I could not even dream of them credibly. I mean think of me topping the JEE or coming first in the CBSE – even in my school? Does not your mind boggle? Mine boggled so much that I felt dizzy for days.

Festive celebrations, on the other hand, were wonderful. Diwali, in particular, holds a special place in my heart. After all, other than my school uniform, the only fresh pair of clothing I ever got was for Diwali. It normally came in very handy because the previous pair was just about to disintegrate into its component threads. My mother normally used to ask me whether my skin was made of razor blades (Come to think of it, do you think I missed out on a convincing achievement to celebrate?) It was probably the fact that fresh clothing swam into my ken so rarely that they seemed far more magnificent than they really were. I really cannot get that rush of pleasure when I walk out to buy yet another T-shirt!

The other wonderful thing about Diwali was that my mom usually had the clear intent of making four types of sweets and the customary mixture. The month before Diwali was filled with arguments about what those four would be. After the menu was frozen, my mom would swing into the act making all of them. I really do not know if kids of today can work up the same enthusiasm about arguing for what sweets to buy from the local sweet shop. Most probably they settle for ‘Celebrations’ from the chocolate platter and let it go at that!

Now that I am a bachelor and live alone, festivals get celebrated by me only when someone who is celebrating it calls me in as a guest – and, to be fair to my cousins, they call me in invariably. The one time I decided to make the savories and celebrate a festival – Pongal, as it turned out – I do not remember enjoying it much. It needs a special type of character to rejoice in mopping up the kitchen all day and scraping what looked like a charcoal mine off the bottom of the pressure cooker and I, as I have often said, am not that special a character.

Now if I choose to celebrate by myself I go for ‘Celebrations’ too! Thank God, the need to do so has not arisen often!

The fellow Blog-a-Tonics who took part in this Blog-a-Ton and links to their respective posts can be checked here. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton. Introduced By: The Fool, Participation Count: 07

This ‘Green’ thing

I must admit that I really do not understand this Green thing. It may seem like one small item in the vast sea of my ignorance and I would have been content to live without knowing about it but for the fact that it keeps intruding in my daily life.

Time was when I used to go to the mall pick up what I wanted and when I checked out they used to silently pack it in plastic bags and send me on my way. Now, all of a sudden, they ask me if I want carry bags and charge me for it. Seek the reasons and they claim that they have gone Green. Can anyone tell me why packing each type of vegetable and fruit in separate plastic bags is more green than getting carry-bags to take them home? Or why paying a couple of bucks for the carry bag makes their usage Greener than taking them away for free? Is it that they seriously think that someone paying a couple of thousand bucks for his purchases will balk at paying a couple of bucks for the carry-bag and, thus, bring along his own bag?

If there was any serious intent to go green, they would put in place a system where they weigh vegetables and fruits without needing them packed in plastic – and would sell jute bags at the counter instead of plastic carry-bags. But, then, since when has any business failed to use any and every interest of Society to add to its own revenues? Like that mobile manufacturer who wanted you to dump your old mobiles in their showrooms for free  in order to, what else, go Green when your local shop was willing to pay a hundred bucks in order to be able to scavenge the phone for parts.

Why do we feel that we are being Green when we eschew plastic bags while we can, without qualm, dump a six month old serviceable mobile for the latest model with a few more features which we will seldom, if ever, use? Do we think mobiles are made of bio-degradable substances and no energy goes into making them? And, of course, when we gorge on packed potato chips and aerated drinks the only problem is with people who talk of empty calories – the plastic in which the one is packed and the other is bottled just cannot to be talked of in the same breath as plastic carry-bags!

The previous generation, of course, were totally uncaring about the environment! We can feel superior about how Green we are while taking the elevator down to the ground floor, driving our SUV a couple of kilometers to the gym in order to exercise on the stepper and the treadmill while those non-environmentally minded folks go walking. How little they cared about the environment when they bought those marbles and wooden tops for their children while we raise our own on plastic toys to video games.

Looks to me like all that Green means is to follow what you think is the fashion of today. As long as it does not affect my day-to-day life and comforts I shall be Green. Not much different from the past and shall not be too different in the future. The only thing that has been added is a ‘Holier than thou’ attitude!