Saturday, January 19, 2008

Energy: Electricity and Me

Since I was in my teens I had this penchant to switch off the lights that were not being used. If I see a room with no one, I go and turn off the lights. I remember, my uncle scolding me for this when I did the same at his place. He said, evenings is when Lakshmi (Goddess of Wealth) enters the house and you have to leave your whole house with lights on to welcome her. With that experience I stopped doing this when I am at someone else's place. Ofcourse I do it discreetly sometimes as it really bothers me.

When I was in my Engineering, if I saw a class room with fans and lights and no students - first thing I do is .... you know what it is. My friends would laugh at me. But I never stopped.

I remember having "scheduled" power cuts in my State. So every night from 8 PM to 9 PM for an hour there was no power. If only everyone understood the value of saving electricity we would not have these daily power cuts. But unfortunately, people don't think so and it's just a matter of awareness.

They get used to these power cuts and move on without thinking of doing anything to avoid this in future. What is their argument? Well, I will do it, but others will not. So what's the point if only I do this. So you need to create awareness in them hoping they would get it. And sure they will. We all are very understanding human beings. We just need to be given the right information. That's it.

But there was a good part for these scheduled power-cuts. That was the time we kids would gather outside and play. We would tell stories to each other, play games in moon light, count stars etc. It was so much fun. We talk about bonding in corporate world - it cannot get better than this when you are kids. I used to love it.

I hope I see a day when everyone around me is more into saving electricity. One of these days I will have a blog on Water and Me. But don't worry it's not the next one. I don't want to bore you all (wonder how many will read this).

Thursday, January 17, 2008

How much land does a man need?

I was reading Tolstoy's "Stories and Legends". It's an excellent book. I got it from Amazon recently. All the stories in this book are very enlightening. I want to share one of them with you now as it seems relevant to each and every one of us who is running after something.
This is a story of a peasant - Pahom - who is struggling to meet his means. He comes to know that an inn keeper is selling off her land for less and that his neighbour bought 50 acres of land. He gets envious. He manages to scrape half money to buy 20 acres and gets into an agreement to pay the rest 2 years later. Now when works his land his heart is filled with joy and he is well-contented. But now he has new problems with fellow peasants trespassing. He had given warnings, fined them. That caused retaliation and someone discreetly destroyed his fields. He filed complaint against Simon (whom he suspected), but nothing was proven.
One day a peasant passing by told him he came from a place where the Commune was giving 25 acres of land for every new person. So he moved to this new place, but soon he realised that it wasn't enough for him. He planned to buy some freehold land when some passer-by told him that there was lot of virgin-soil and all you have to do is please the Chiefs and you are given as much land as you want for pennies.
Now Pahom got greedy and he went to that place and gave expensive gifts and pleased the Chiefs. In return they promised to give him all the land "he can go around on his feet in a day" and the price is only one thousand rubles a day. The only conditions is he has to return to the spot he started before sun sets. So Pahom started off marking his way. But he was growing tired as the heat was getting intense. He saw Sun near the rim and this fear made him breathless and he started running. Sun was about to set and he rushed with all his remaining strength crying "All my labor has been in vain". He finally made it to the spot, fell forward and got hold off his hat from Chief's hand. "Ah, that's a fine fellow!", exclaimed the Chief. "He has gained much land". Pahom's servant came running and tried to raise him, but he saw blood was flowing from his mouth. Pahom was dead!
His servant picked him up, dug a grave long enough for Pahom and buried him. Six feet from his head to his heels was all he needed.

Very nice story, isn't it? For all of us who are running behind something all our lives and trying to accumulate wealth well beyond what we need. In some cases people cannot even claim proudly about their assets - we know why.

Go with what you need. Not what you want. You will be happy if you change your attitude.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Welcome to my thoughts

Hi everyone, I was just watching ‘We the People’ show on NDTV about blogging. I was considering blogging for a while now, but never got to it. But somehow while watching this show I got the motivation to get it started ‘Now’. So, here we go. This is my blog.

What is special about it? May be nothing for you. But definitely means a lot for me. This is the place I would like to address the things I love (or not), or things I would like to share with someone (or no one).

My first challenge was to choose the template. I read somewhere that black background is energy saving. So I am going with that. Hang on, can't find black template in the list. Surprised Google doesn't have one. Well, here we go. Let me use this for a while.

I will start with my passion for environment. I am very much into energy saving, being environmentally friendly, saving natural resources. I honestly hope I am doing my best in this. But sure I slip sometimes. Ok. Let me start working on my next blog - Environment.

Have fun people. Enjoy your life. Let your life flow like a river. Don’t stagnate. (I am a great fan of Jiddu Krishnamurty btw)

-- Priya