Next India

I spent the last week in Gurgaon staying at a well known complex on the Golden Mile dotted will malls & swank buildings with Metro defining the sky line. It is an impressive sight, rare in India & supposedly aspirational to small town India where I reside. Is this visionary sight a delight only for the eye? What about sounds, smells, taste & touch?
No one shall argue that the Golden Mile is a perennial noise bomb – those who missed this probably never rolled down their auto windows or found a direct route from homes to glass encased malls & offices – where the option of opening a window – has long disappeared.
One can smell almost everything & vaguely misses what may be termed as aroma of ‘crisp & clean’. I wondered if the Adidas adorned joggers partaking Perrier or RO at least were aware of increased intake of a mix that came bundled with lots more than the intended O2.
The respirational filter worked overtime precipitating on the palate a thick coating that called for frequent use of a tongue scraper if one wished to experience tastes that are subtle. No wonder that the most favored cuisines are the ones with the strong flavors viz. Chinese, Italian, Mexican, Thai & such besides Indian – but not French as it will be hard to detect taste with a tongue that has an additional layer being continuously replenished with the act of breathing.
As most may be aware a lobster is lulled to sleep & eventual demise by slowly increasing the temperature of water in the cauldron in which it is placed. I wonder whether we in these cities are similarly being seduced by glitz & glamour that dazzles & titillates on the outside but leads to slow death.
Death is inevitable in both big & small towns but there is increasing confirmation of loss of fertility & libido – the essence of life force – & the suspect culprit is urban lifestyle.
Fact is that none of the major metros of India were built by Indians. Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, Delhi – had British, Portuguese, Mughal architects. Chandigarh – the first post independence city was envisioned by French & has inspired imitations all over India. Gurgaon is entirely indigenous – as are Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, South Delhi, Navi Mumbai, etc. Irony is also in names. While we Indianised the names of the cities created by invaders, almost all new complexes developed have Anglicized names. It is all part of an aspirational package. ‘We have arrived’ syndrome.
It is true that there is no place to go. The residents of Mumbai & NCR may have endless debates on which city is better but the cold hard fact is that both are increasing unfit for human habitation. Calcutta exists to provide nostalgia to its migrants elsewhere & Bangalore is gored already.
Don’t we all wish for a resurrection of a Howard Roarke, should he come by where is the clean slate that we could provide him to draw & build a new Metropolis?
Meanwhile, there is dignity in being a mainland lobster – or so we must tell ourselves.

Mumtaz Mahal, the muse of Taj Mahal, died while giving birth to her 14th child at an age of 38. She was born in privilege, got married at the age of 19, had a very loving & caring husband who was also a very rich king & provided her with all the comforts & security.
We, the humans, are borne of Mother Earth…We the Indians, of Mother India.
Mother Mumtaz with the best nurturing possible bore 14 offspring in 19 years. If she had at her disposal the modern medicine, arguably she may have continued bearing even more children. Nonetheless, even if her health permitted, she would have to stop at menopause, the end of her fertility. There was indeed a limit to number of children that she could bear.
This is true for all mothers, including Mother Earth & Mother India.
And what about nurturing of the offspring? Wealthiest of modern mothers, with all the help from the family & domestic staff can produce as many as 30 children as the age of fertility has stretched on both the minimum & maximum end. Also the lifespans have increased significantly.
But with education & awareness, the emphasis is on quality of life not merely quantity. So they probably mother 2-3 children.
In other words, though the carrying capacity for reproduction has increased, the intelligence dictates limited offspring to ensure that the child is raised healthy, loving, creative & productive.
In agrarian economy, more were indeed merrier, industrialization & urbanization has reversed that axiom.
Today, the health of Mother Earth is at stake. Besides humans, it supports millions of other species. Yet it is finite, its resources are limited. It is not growing. Barely 12% of Earth is suitable for human habitat. And 7 billion of us occupy that. How many more can fit in? Is there room?
All that we consume is produce of earth. It is not just food. It is also air, water & energy. It is also materials that we must extract from innards of earth to build shelters & construct infrastructure that is not an option but a necessity for ‘progress’ – as we understand the term.
The other species on Earth must follow Darwinian dictate of ‘natural selection & survival of the fittest’ thereby ensuring that only the strongest reproduce. In humans, it is quiet the reverse. It is our weakest who propagate the most. The phenomenon is explained by anthropological theory of ‘culture of hopelessness’.
As we move towards projected human population of 9 billion, the question that begs an answer is: can Mother Earth replenish itself & renew its resources at a rate faster than the rate at which those resources are being voraciously consumed by us humans?
It is not merely a supply-side problem. Earth also must process human excreta. Not merely the shit & urine but the pollution – the excreta of human activity. Earth has been doing so successfully for ages. Does it have the capacity to continue to do so? Even as the energy & bio needs increase exponentially? For 8 billion, for 9 billion…..what is that maximum number of human beings that Earth can support?
Many studies have tried to answer this question. Needless to say, that they are all theoretical. But we must pay heed. The only other way of finding out would be like Mumtaz Mahal. Her limit was found by her death. We cannot let Earth die. We have no other planet that will take us. Or that we can get to. Not as yet, anyway.
The best estimate is about 4.5 billion people. We are fast approaching twice that number. It is time to pause & ponder the big picture.
It is unfortunate though, possibly an irreversible fact that we humans have divided one planet into many territories. For us that territory is India. We are destined to be the most populous nation, as of now, that is an unalterable fact. No one but only us Indians can attempt to alter that. We are blessed with a land that’s highly arable & fertile, so very conducive to human habitation. That’s why such a diverse slice of humanity chose to settle here. People from all over the world kept coming to India. It was the California of yore. Still is in some ways.
But just like much loved Mother Mumtaz, Mother India has a limit to how many it can accommodate & nourish. Even after all the slicing & plundering, we are still the seventh largest country by size. However, the first largest is six times larger & even the sixth largest is more than twice as large as us.
Fact is Mother India with barely 2% of Earth’s surface shall support nearly 20% of Earth’s humanity. That’s commendable. But is it sustainable?
We take solace in knowing that “There is enough for everyone’s needs but not enough for everyone’s greed”. Perhaps, our spirituality evolved from this accommodative nature. We share by lessening our own needs & surely denounce greed. That was so. Today greed is unleashed & needs are on the rise. Fewer & fewer opt to live simply & frugally. Imagine if the rest of inhabitable Earth would be similarly populated to India – the world population then would be 200 billion & surely even the primal needs of each one would be impossible to meet.
Migration can evenly spread the population around the world especially when there are parts of the world where the populations are declining. However, at the current rates, less than 0.5 billion shall attempt migration across the world even when the total population reaches 9 billion. And the barriers to migrate to the parts of the world where more people can fit in without causing ecological strains, are on the rise.
USA has one third the population of India & three times our size. If lifestyles were to correlate to the per capita Earth only then a very simple corollary would be that India’s population ought to be one ninth to attain parity. Over the years we have mastered the efficient use of resources. Indians are by far the most pragmatic & know how to get the maximum bang for the buck. We recycle, reuse & waste not easily. USA, on the other hand, wastes excessively. Americans need lots more personal ‘space’s, we have evolved fine art of co-existence.
So factoring in a four fold frugality, India can support 600 million plus to attain the middle class existence for all under the care of Mother Earth.
Actually, population studies indeed estimate 650 million as sustainable population for India.
We shall soon be twice as many. All of us are keenly aware that we are bursting on our seams. Our land, air, water, energy, mining resources, infrastructure etc. are under severe stress. Our rivers are dying, large stretches are already dead. We merely revered our rivers, called them holy and attributed to them magical powers of rejuvenation. And simply dumped all waste of human activity into them. As if they were carrying all that excreta to another planet. We never understood that even the greatest of rivers have a limited, finite carrying capacity. Reverence is no substitute for discharge of responsible conduct.
The simple fact is that we are far too many. The resultant toxicity is fast spreading. The ecosystem & biosphere that supports the very life is infected.
Politics, Economics, Law, Religion, et al are all systems devised by humans to better this life. We are so entangled in arguments & quarrels within these humanities with myriad of ‘holier than thou’ groups, each desperate to prevail on another. We need to stop this cacophony and get back to basics before it’s too late. Let us objectively determine as to how many people can fit in the Earth space available to us. And then design our policies accordingly to achieve that number. Surely, there would be many disagreements in such a discourse. But it ought to be easy to agree that we have already exceeded that number. The evidence is overwhelming. We are shirking responsibility to face the facts. The reality is unpalatable, so we rather shut our eyes with the belief that Gods will rescue us. Prayers enhance action, not replace it. Ganga & Yamuna are awaiting action from us, besides poojas. On their own they cannot heal themselves. They have served us well for eons. We burdened them to limits of their carrying capacities. The root cause, undoubtedly, is overpopulation.
Yet our policy makers, after overzealous failed attempts to ‘plan the families’ simply seem to have given up. After a mini burst of riding on an economic boom that was worldwide, they seem to have rationalized that ‘more the merrier’. This rationalization stems from faulty economic & governance models. In the upcoming columns, I shall expound.
Talking about excess population has been tabooed by our moralists & politicians. Through this column I urge all readers to voice their opinions on the matter. The logic is straight & solid. There is a limit to how many of us can co-exist. The human habitat is finite & limited, not growing. We cannot simply keep on gnawing & digging earth. It needs time to heal & replenish itself. For the sake of our own well being, it must absorb & process toxicity that is a result of human activity. The signs are everywhere & glaring. Yet we keep ignoring them. If for now, we cannot slow down the growth of population, let us at least not encourage procreation & its growth.
We appeal to our Parliament, Party Heads, Prime, Chief & other Ministers, National Advisory Council, functionaries at Centre & States, Think Tanks et al to urgently recognize that Populism results in increased Population. The urgent need of the hour is to brake hard & stop growth of population. Please design and deploy policies that shall lead to achieving optimum levels of population. And that will necessitate decline in our numbers. It is a painful truth to swallow.

As is the wont of Truth – Bitter Before Better.

Please do opine. Agree, disagree, whatever – but please don’t choose to be quiet.
It is a matter of life & death.
Indeed!!

The prime difference between cultures of East (most of Asia) & West (most of Caucasia) is how the age is viewed & treated.

East respects its elders as a fundamental cultural axiom. This deep inculcation extrapolates to valuing traditions & finding solace in ancient glories, real or imagined. Myth & history merge. Bottomline is that a skewed focus on past dominates and even the current or future is interpreted in a framework of bygone references.

West, in contrast, is forward looking. Rather than simply hand down the cultural baton from one  generation to next, it expects each generation to renew its culture whether in arts, technology, lifestyle &/or sciences.

Western culture thus is always work in progress. That makes it unstable & tumultuous but keeps it fresh & alive. East, in contrast, may stagnate. River roars while the lake is calm & serene. The difference is between flow & relative stillness. 

Cultures get passed on via parenting. When the teenager rebels, East tends to induce conformity by labelling the act as disrespectful. West may get worried that the child might be a wimp if upon attaining adolsecence he/she does not challenge authority. In such a case, the child is goaded to assert, to not be afraid to throw his best punch even if that invites a harder blow in return.

In East, children are provided a secure, warm, comforting environment right at the onset.  West does not mollycoddle as much and lets the child experience his aloneness & bears the discomfort of the child’s initial pain that is thus caused.

My brevity is due to non-interactivity on this blog…I could go on…the reason this subject is important is because it has a major impact on the nature of leadership that a society produces.

The simple fact is that in the past 500 years, almost all that can be bracketed under “progress” has been created / invented / discovered by West. East consoles itself  by digging out what its societies did thousands years ago.

We have had a long run of being mere spectators in a world that is not being created by us. To turn the tide, we got to look ahead. To prepare generations that could do so, we ought to shift focus from past to future. From old to young. From ancestors to inheritors. And it all starts with how we rear our offspring.

More, should you comment….

All of the metro cities of India were built by ‘foreigners’. We native Indians upon attaining their charge ended up messing up each one of them. One hardly needs to expound on this as perhaps every reader lives in one of these high priced urban jungles characterised by incessant assault on senses, gridlocks, pollution, crime and a glaring lack of aesthetics. Portuguese Bombay, British Delhi, French Pondicherry are distinctive & highly prized while North Mumbai is hardly any different from any other crowded, dirty town of india with the ugly shutters and grimy dust lined main streets. The so called Silicon valley of India was already bursting on its seams in early 90s and yet we kept on founding new businesses in there. The original Silicon valley would be justified in suing for defamation.

At a talk at REC Kurukshetra, I pointed out that one reason South Mumbai has retained a bit of liveability is because the 3 wheeler auto-rickshaws are banned there. At the same forum, an industry colleague in his talk on pursuit of excellence used “taj” as an icon of excellence 27 times in an hour. As the next speaker, I abandoned my prepared talk on “Moving up the value chain” and instead challenged the ~400 members of the audience to collectively come up with alternative icons of excellence other than Taj. We struggled but could not come up with anything that could be credited to post colonial india. Perhaps, the reader of this post could respond with some ideas.

Once again, I shall stop here & wait for interactivity on the subject

Gaussian distribution is not a mathematical construct but a natural law. It is normal distribution that occurs in populations, events and seemingly random & mass instances of all sorts.

Another natural law that should be easy to agree upon is that what is good for Earth is good for all life forms dependent & residing upon it.

Also, common sense would dictate that Earth is limited as to how much life can it sustain.

Hence, Death is not merely desirable but essential. Else, earth would soon be devoured by life’s longing for itself, its innate goal to proliferate.

Predation, therefore, plays a crucial role in maintaining the health of our one & only home. So does calamities, wars, diseases & so called natural disasters.

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Morality, on the other hand, is not Natural.

It is a man made construct. It seeks to eradicate pain, suffering & death. All forces causing so are termed Evil.

Yes, it does accept non-violent, painless natural death but essentially its basis is man’s fear of pain, suffering & death.

Morality as a common code of conduct for humans, as commandments to regulate behavior is required but it has unduly drawn focus away from health of Earth to health of Mankind.

Under the guise of morality based on common fear of masses, mankind, for ages, has eroded Earth & other life forms on it. It has devised systems, theories, religions, sciences, etc. based on concepts like justice, fairness, equality, virtuosity & such. The combined effect is a significant tilt towards the welfare of people & not the planet without which they cannot exist.

Mother earth, consequentially is getting sicker and has developed fever & shivers as a starter. Global warming & icy winters are merely a warning. If not treated, health of our home can only worsen.

One thought which is being pursued is search for an alternative home, like mars or moon.

But isn’t it conceivable that Mars is not our future but our past. That like Earth it was once a hospitable planet which hosted human beings and their activities increased the carbon dioxide in its environment and made it hotter & hotter till it became unlivable & decimated all life on it.

Perhaps a few escaped. To Planet Earth.

(That may explain the sudden onset of industrial revolution only in Caucasian Europe while Indigenous Indians lived at peaceful co-existence with nature elsewhere in Americas, Australia, Africa, & the polar continents).

Only to repeat the cycle … to make another Mars in the offing.

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With the context above, let’s examine one man made concept, the Democracy. More specifically, the system of governance, not devised but practiced by us, the Indian Nation.

Democracy is based on one person one vote – all equal. Monarchy allowed the fittest to emerge as the Natural Leader with one person holding all the votes. Both extremes are against the Gaussian law. By law the population would appear as a pyramid. With majority at the base. And decreasingly fewer on the upper rungs.

If democracy was imposed in a jungle, surely an insect or a rat would emerge as the leader. Insects & rodents would vote en masse to elect one of their kind. In the hope that they shall do them the maximum good little realizing that the ones elected from their kiln would abandon them rather quickly because they shall try & hasten their evolution to the next rung in the ladder. They would want to become bigger predators. Though disappointed, the voters would understand and may even empathize. After all the desire to evolve is innate, they even take pride that one of their ilks has made it to the next rung.

Tigers would hardly vote. They know they simply lack the numbers to make an impact on the outcome. They would become disengaged and rely simply on their own strengths to get by in the jungle. (I am in the process of writing a book extending this scenario to all beings of the forest and the resultant state of the jungle)

The Gaussian distribution is simply a reflection of the reality. In the above context, we know that species which breed more tend to be lower on the food chain. And vice versa.

Anthropologic studies have established similar patterns in humans everywhere. Those whose survival is assured do not bother much to reproduce and if they do they keep the quantity small so as to ensure similar quality of life for their offspring. In ghettos, on the other hand, a culture of hopelessness pervades. Life is lived on a day to day, one breeds simply because there is no responsibility towards the offspring.

Once again, what is described above are two extremes. For majority, the boundary arguments do not apply. The point, nonetheless, is that a system which is based on quantum alone is apt if the assumption that all are equal is warranted by rather limited variance in quality.

There is much more that I can say. I’d rather have a dialogue. Pl contribute.