Spirited Start to my Day

There is nothing more relaxing than to be able to read the Sunday newspaper in total leisure, without worrying about being late to work or elsewhere.

I'm forced to get up early even on a Sunday, because my housemaid is an early bird. She rings my bell at 7 A.M sharp! How i loathe to get out of bed so early on a Sunday! As i rub my eyes and lazily open the door, the sight of the Sunday newspaper on my doorstep, lifts my spirits. Immediately, i forget how early it is or the fact that my sleep was rudely interrupted (while my husband peacefully snores away in bed) and i become excited about having 2 whole hours to flip through my favorite newspaper- The Sunday edition of "Times of India".

Newspapers are an obsession with me. There was a time when i could not comprehend the joy people got from reading small font black print, in random sized boxes, with an occasional picture. Then i was too young for newspapers. I don't know when i got the whiff of reading newspapers- but now it is definitely an obsession!

My favorite part is reading the editorials. I keep the best for the last. Reading those wonderfully framed articles, analyzing the affairs of the nation, keeps me hooked. Of late i'm reading the business page, in a vain attempt to understand money ebb and flow.

It is said the world's first newspaper came into being in 1605, in Germany. In India, the first newspaper came into being in 1780- The Bengal Gazette. India consumed 99 million newspaper copies as of 2007—making it the second largest market in the world for newspapers!

Reuse, Reduce and Recycle

Plastic has become so ubiquitous that it is hard to live without it. It makes our lives so much easier. Imagine trying to carry water for a long car journey without plastic or buying sterile milk without plastic. Our lives are so encased in plastic that it piling up in monumental proportions in our wastelands and dump-yards.

I thought that me as a single individual consumed very little plastic on a day-to-day basis. But i was surprised at what i found. I decided to survey (for starters) just how many plastic bag/covers/packaging material I consumed for a week.

This is my (family of 2 adults) average plastic bag collection for a week -

1. 7 half litre milk pkts

2. 1 soap pkt

3. 20 pkts from vegetable shopping- reused as garbage carry-bags

4. 5 large bags from super market shopping

5. 10 plastic wrappers of different food stuffs

6. 5 plastic covers over different stationary items

Thats a lot! about 50 bags of plastic of different grades used by 2 adults.

Imagine my shock as i read more about plastic..

One of the biggest negative impacts of plastic bags comes from their disposal. Plastic bag litter has been a driving force behind bans and other restrictions on their use. Problems caused by plastic bags in the environment include:

• Bags clog gutters and sewer grates, causing flooding.
• Bags get caught in trees, fences and other objects, where they become an eyesore.
• Bags kill animals--particularly birds and marine life--when the animals become entangled in the plastic or when they mistake pieces of plastic for food.

Plastic can take hundreds of years to degrade, and can pose risks even when it has degraded into smaller pieces, since these are especially attractive to animals as food. They are also believed to adversely affect landfill operations by interfering with moisture distribution and leachate flow within landfilled waste.

So i asked myself, if I should go back to using paper bags- like i remember from my childhood days.. but then i read this somewhere..

It takes 40 percent more energy (and releases more greenhouse gases and air and water pollution) to manufacture paper bags than plastic, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It also takes more energy to transport paper bags because they are heavier than plastic.

On the other hand, paper bags are currently easier to recycle in most locations, although again, recycling paper requires more energy than recycling plastic. They also break down much more quickly in the environment (in one month vs. 1,000 years, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency), eliminating many of the problems of plastic-bag litter.

The bottom line: the best option is to use a reusable cloth bag or other reusable container, and reuse or recycle paper and plastic bags when you do have them.

So right now i'm on a mission to find a good cloth bag for shopping.. but what about all the plastic wrappers around food stuffs.. can be ever do away with that? The solution for that probably lies in using "bioplastics" rather than "petroleum-based plastics" for packaging purposes. But till such technology is made compulsory- perhaps the only we can do is to recycle and reuse plastic bags.

Dream on..

Dreams, they say, are the minds' way to bypass the self-imposed censor of our conscious mind and play out unfulfilled desires in our subconscious space.

Holiday Fever

This has been one tough month.. started out on a really low note!.. and then was really stressed out for most of the time.. haven't shopped once(!) this entire month.. for the first time ever, am doing back-to-back night shifts, which are only making my dark circles darker!.. haven't watched as many movies as i usually do.. and to top it all.. i haven't made my three-weekly visit to the parlour, as a result of which, i'm feeling like a bear! Wheeew!

Finally today, actually feeling a bit relaxed, but wish i could have made it for my cousin's wedding this weekend (haven't decked up for an occasion in ages!).. but feeling guilty about taking off more days from work!..

Just the sheer fact that i can look forward to a holiday tomorrow is keeping me in good spirits. Its really too bad that doctors suffer from a holiday-deficit. I really envy my friends working in corporate houses, who live the typical 5 day/week work schedule with weekends off!..come Saturday, and they are all making plans for the weekend- Dandeli/ Goa etc.

Doctors, on the other hand, would be lucky to be exempted for Sunday rounds or duty!..we are expected to be committed towards duty 24X7.

Anyway, not really complaining, because in reality, i miss my work, when i'm away from it too long.. and sometimes even two days is too long!

Have my Reservations!

Reservations!.. thats the new political mantra in India.. to attract votebanks. Want the muslim population to vote for you.. float a muslim quota in employment and education! Want the vast OBC votebank- make sure your policies are pro- OBC in reservations!

And now- women's reservations for political purposes! Do we really need this reservation to empower our women?

Being woman myself, i think not.

I'm a firm believer that reservation, if necessary, should begin at the bottom, and never percolate to the top. For instance, if we can ensure that every citizen in this country has an equal opportunity at a school education, we need not reserve seats for them at the level of higher education, leave alone employment benefits!. We need to ensure that every girl and boy (regardless of caste/religion/region) in this nation gets an education that is the same minimum standard in all teaching institutions- the syllabus, quality of teaching and the infrastructure provided to each student, whether from a village school or in a urban international school, should be equal. I know that is a huge ask, but unless we train them right, we can never expect them to fend for themselves. When these students are equally equipped, they can fight it out for higher education and employment opportunities on the same stage.

Present day reservations in the fields of education and employment are misused to a large extent. It only the "creamy layer" of the backward castes that really benefit from these policies. There should be a scheme to ensure that the quota benefit is used by only one or a maximum of two generations in a family- otherwise majority of the intended beneficiaries will be left out time and again!.

A way to phase out existing reservations is the need of the hour- for 60 years we have been providing quotas based on caste- that have no doubt not benefited the vast majority who needed it. Perhaps, it is time we had reservations based purely on economic grounds rather than caste based reservations. But then again. like all government policies prone to corruption, when the question of who should be accorded the "economically backward" comes to play.

Reservation is a menace that refuse to go away after its time is over. No political party has the will to revoke or reduce the reservations already in place, for fear of losing their clout. Women's reservation too, will no doubt suffer the same fate.