The upside-down house

Whenever I read Amitav Ghosh I cannot just stop at that. When I was reading The Shadow Lines it took me 15 years back in time to the time when I was a little child. I remembered having a recurring dream. We stayed in Chandigarh the capital of Punjab and Haryana, 5 hours from New Delhi. My cousins and grandparents lived in Delhi and the best part of my summers was to visit my cousins in Delhi. I always looked forward to going to Delhi. This was before we had a car so we would go by train. In my dream I would see me with my family boarding the train. The train looked morose for some reason and I wouldn't feel too excited which were curious aberrations. And then it would happen , every time, every night and I would wake up startled staring out at the dark sky visible from the balcony. As we would be sitting in the train someone would place a packet under my seat and immediately leave. The dream ended there or maybe it didn't. But what woke me up was not what followed but the fear of what would follow. These were the late 1980s and the Sikh movement in Punjab was pretty much alive. Chandigarh was more or less the safest place in the whole Punjab. A city of the educated and the retired had little part to play in the revolution. From where I became a victim of the dream was initially hard to trace but it came back slowly. My paternal grandparents live in this place called Gurdaspur which lies in the heart of Punjab. We would hardly go there. We feared what might happen to us on the way or that is what I thought was the reason. That may have materialized in the form of the dream. The dream lasted for a week. It is ironical how I finally got rid of the dream. My mom told me how nothing could hurt us, how we would remain unscathed because God would protect us and somehow her words instilled such faith in me that I never had that dream again. The irony is that how the faith that had made me feel protected against my worst fears had translated into something that had been the cause of those fears in the first place.

The journey I decided to embark upon after reading "An Egyptian in Baghdad" from the collection of prose pieces titled "The Imam and the Indian" was of a slightly different nature . I was on virtual trip to Egypt and the middle east. My fascination with the upside-down house continues. I want to see the other side of the world . As a child I was fascinated by Lonely Planet and wanted to tread the unknown and the mysterious. Do I expect things to be upside-down there? I don't know. Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Amman, Israel, Iraq, Iran and Kuwait. Their destinies entangled more by geography than history. I remember a very candid remark made by Atal Behari Vajpayee, he said "We can change history but we cannot change geography." I remember how, I, as a student had received the Arab-Israel conflict. It was befuddling as it would be to a dreamy 14 year old because I couldn't understand why all the fuss for a piece of land. But even more surprising was how we read that part of history like chapters from a story book. The six days war and Yasser Arafat were like events and characters from an epic. Too far too medieval.

Let me first start with what the prose says about Egypt, Iraq, Saudi, Jordon, Kuwait and Iran.

An epitaph (After the Requiem for the dream?)
This article died in it's cradle after the author checked a mail that doomed her to stay away from the mysterious for perhaps another six years and maybe for life. Let's just hope Maupassant was wrong. Let's just hope the cynic within me doesn't have the last laugh. Let's just hope life ain't all that singular and some loop somewhere will bring me back to this article.

In the Shadows

"Everything is upside-down in their country" The Indian and the Imam
"..eager to absorb what they can of the magic of the spectacle of two straight lines intersecting." Four Corners

The good, the bad and the beautiful

"Men who are dandies and women who are darlings rule the world, atleast they should do so." Oscar Wilde, The Model Millionaire
I read this short story some 8 years back but this particular idea stayed with me. Not as a concept to be pondered upon but rather as a very straightforward bold statement about how the world order should be. Well we read things and they are pushed into certain rarely accessed corners of our memory. I had a eureka moment today though. The truth of this statement chose to reveal itself before me today as I was unobtrusively walking down the road leading from the departmental academic area to hostel-10. Life is a series of nothings I read somewhere. But every now and then you let yourself believe that you are a part of something important. You feel passion and zeal and a motivation to excel. That is when you are deeply engrossed in your thoughts driven by purpose. I was in a similar state of mind, thinking hard about my project problem. The results I was getting were not as expected. I was thinking. I looked up. One amazing thing about this place is that it never fails to bring a smile to your face and a moment of calm to your wavering mindwhenever you give it a chance. I saw the resplendent pinks and oranges and purples against the vast amber expanse of the sky and the dark green of leaves piece-by-piece as if someone had patiently painted them with careful brush strokes. I said to myself. - I love this place. I love it for its sheer beauty. Even if I had no memories associated with it I would have loved it still. And I understood why beauty can be so moving. While we believe that our decisions are based on how we define good and bad, it may be the beautiful that inspires us.

A more formal entry on the Total Summer School, 2007, Paris

My four years of toil as a student of Chemical Engineering at IIT Bombay bore fruit when I was selected to attend the Total Summer School in Paris. An international student conference designed to bring together 100 students representing over 25 nations and as many cultures was more than an opportunity. It was a door to the world that lay outside my reach, my language and my beliefs. The mix of students was eclectic. I met a journalist from Germany, a physicist from the US, a student of Geology from Nigeria, a Civil Engineer from MIT, a law student from my own country and characters as weird as those in a Jim Carry starrer. Interacting with students from all over the world made me realize that the young from across nations, cultures and races dream of a better future and there lies the hope for a better tomorrow.

We stayed in an 18^th century abbey transformed into a comfortable 4 star hotel at Vaux de Cerney, a few miles from the main city. The conference commenced with students from different countries giving presentations on their countries and cultures. From the overtly stern Russians to the plain frank Londoners, to the simple but proud Chinese and the cheery Africans, we saw colorful mosaic of people, cuisines, music, arts, cultures and characters through those presentations.

A typical day at the conference entailed lectures, Q&A sessions, group discussions and presentations from 8 in the morning to 7 in the evening. Students used the breaks for meals and snacks to unwind and became overly chatty eager to meet as many people and know as much about their life and culture. Discussions over meals ranged from the Arab-Palestinian conflict to the status of women in Germany and India, to the expectations from the new French President to Beatles, Kashmir, French value system, cultural differences, life, relationships, the first woman president of India, movies, books, dream jobs, music, cricket, Bollywood, the popularity of ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’ and ‘Mahabharata’ in Indonesia and everything else under the sun. It was like the most enriching experiences had been condensed to fit into a period of 7 days. Some of the experiences that stand out were singing a song (barring happy birthday and merry Christmas numbers) by multi-lingual, multi-cultural teams during a scavenger hunt, a match of football which started off with massive confusion over whether we were playing soccer or football, seeing Monalisa at Louvre, a river cruise at Seine and the final day when everyone was teary-eyed yet smiling, cherishing every moment spent during the week. I strongly felt that music and sports are the two things that truly transcend all barriers and bring people together.

An entire day during the week was spent at the Total Head Office at La Defense in Paris. La Defence is the business district of Paris and has been developed on the outskirts of the city in an attempt to preserve the vintage picturesque look of the city. We got an opportunity to meet and interact with Mr. Christrophe de Margerie, the CEO of Total. His candor and jovial nature impressed one and all. Our cultural excursions included guided tours of the gardens of Versailles, the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre Museum.

For almost an entire week we listened and discussed various issues of international importance. I was amazed by my own ability to do so. The limelight on India and China was overwhelming. We saw how the “developed” had shunned the title “developing” and re-christened us “emerging”. Our growing significance in the global scenario was being recognized by experts from everywhere. From peak oil to bio-fuels to the nationalization of oilfields in Africa we traced the intricate web of pipelines weaved all over the globe to deliver the liquid gold we purchase at the petrol station.

The conference covered various aspects of the energy crisis and discussed different plausible solutions. We realized the enormity of the energy crisis which is staring us right in the face. Many believe that we are sitting on the peak and slowly sliding towards the rock bottom of oil production. Soon coal production will peak. The demands of the billions from the emerging economies are soaring. The key would lie not only in increasing the efficiency of recovery and utilization of the conventional fuels but also in developing technology for non-conventional oils and alternative fuels.

IEA reports suggest a 20 fold increase in nuclear energy in the world energy mix in 2100. 60% of the energy required for ground transportation is predicted to come from nuclear energy. At the Total Summer School many experts believed that the solution lies in nuclear energy.

Proponents of the hydrogen economy suggest that hydrogen holds the key to ongoing energy demands. However, certain physical parameters will always limit the use of hydrogen as an energy vector to specific niche applications.

Biofuels and other forms of renewable energy aim to be carbon neutral or even carbon negative. If the land was previously a (tropical rain-) forest, the carbon absorption of this forest should be deducted from the greenhouse gas savings. This implies that the net effect of burning bio-fuels is an increase in greenhouse gasses.

Oil giants are today spending millions on research to find solutions to the energy crisis. $122/barrel is the commodity price of oil today. The $100/barrel mark has already been broken. Many alternate sources can now compete with petrol. This should be an impetus for more concerted and drastic measures to make alternate sources more viable.

The conference ended on a note of deep concern. There seems to be a catch in every solution. Combine that with political conspiracies, hegemonic tendencies of certain nations and oil giants, geopolitical tensions and you have the most daunting challenge of the 21^st century. The word “energy” incidentally equates with the Greek word for “challenge.” We must accept the challenge. We must come together. We have no other option but to win this war against time and against our own tendency to abuse nature and its resources.

The Total Summer School was an enlightening experience. It was the experience of a lifetime. It brings back memories of eager faces of disparate colors and features passionately discussing global issues, Monalisa’s enchanting smile at the Louvre and the liberating sight of the shimmering Eiffel Tower from a boat on the river Seine.

Merci Total.

Sai Pooja Mahajan

Fifth year Student

Chemical Engg, IITB