India Ink Shares My Concerns About the Environment

I found this piece on the very informative India Ink site. It reflects one of my ongoing concerns as wafts of burning garbage pass by me and cause me fear for my lungs: 

Time Magazine’s special report on India, carried a series of articles that focused on the overarching theme—“can the nation recover its magic?” One of the articles, by the author Akash Kapur, argues that the entire country “has been reduced to a giant dumping yard,” with plastic bags, bottles and rubber tires strewn around and the air polluted with chemicals. He writes that the “garbage crisis” is symptomatic of the “nation’s troubled engagement with modern capitalism — reflecting a new prosperity and consumer boom, yet a reminder too of the terrible price often expected by that boom.”

 I have few complaints about India, as the people we've met have been friendly and knowledgeable, the food excellent, and the culture & scenery something to behold. But all of the garbage everywhere continually riles me. Not only an eyesore, it seems symptomatic of a widely held mindset that seems not to give a damn about the world around us. I don't think that this phenomenon is unique to India, but India has so much going for it in terms of what it has and can accomplish so that the disjunction strikes me more strongly. It also strikes me that those who realize this shortcoming don't have the numbers or the willpower to correct it. 

I must admit that the other day I saw a woman emptying plastic garbage bags in the garbage dump outside our compound, obviously looking for anything of value that might be salvaged. I do not want to rob that woman of anything that might prove valuable to her given her manifest need. But there must be a better way. 

Is Jaipur unique? While this problem was not nearly as apparent in the capital city of Delhi, at least in the parts that we visited, check out this piece on the Silicon Valley of India, Bangalore. Here's a quote, but I recommend the article in full: 

Yash Enclave is a walled community in a new north Bangalore neighborhood called Hennur Road. Inside, the streets are squeaky clean, homes have lush gardens, and there is seldom a honk heard from the cars as they cruise through, stopping to make way for kids riding bicycles, gliding by on rollerblades or chasing after cricket balls.

It is a place where children also leave bicycles and skateboards outdoors without fear of theft – a situation unthinkable in any Indian city.

Beyond Yash Enclave’s manned gates is India’s urban reality: slums, potholed and traffic-choked roads, piles of garbage on street corners, traffic fumes, and a cacophonous din from the revving motors and incessant honking of the cars, buses and motorcycles. [Emphasis added.]

This last sentence describes the scene outside of our more modest, but gated, compound. Where's the outrage of an even modest middle class? Can the middle class, which I believe relatively small but nonetheless real, survive in enclaves of refuge from the blight around them? This may have been the life of elites throughout virtually all of world history, but can a functioning democratic, market society function in such a manner? Maybe it can, maybe this is an equilibrium that will maintain itself indefinitely, but I doubt it.

An Excellent Summary of India Today by William Dalyrmple

William Dalyrmple, a Scot by birth, has won about every writing award that you can imagine for a non-fiction writer. His primary subject has been India, its history, people, and places. In this article, he turns his eye toward the current political economy of India, and in it you can get a complete sense of India today, the promise and the disappointment. The figures he quotes show great growth and promise and saddening failure. I commend this article for anyone who wants to get an insider's overview of what's going on here in this land of contrasts.

Thank you, IDNR

After having worked over the course of my 29 years of practice in Iowa with issues involving IDNR on behalf of municipal and private clients, I sometimes came away thinking that they were a bit of a pain. Picky and rule-bound, I sometimes concluded they were hardly worth the pain and that they were paper-plying bureaucrats. The engineers that I worked with seemed to have a more jaundiced view. 

I recant. 

My viewpoint changed one day when I stepped outside our front door and smelled a foul-smelling smoke. This was not a unique occurrence. I decided to investigate. I exited our gate and began walking down the narrow lane toward the creek and the place where I could see a fire burning. Upon arriving at the creek, looking to my left, directed by my nose, I spied an open pipe with a pool around it. By the odor, the pipe was used (even if not intended) as a sewer pipe. Ugh! 

A short distance beyond that point, which I passed quickly, I got a better look at the open fire burning trash. What trash? The trash that often lines the lane and that can be found further up the lane about 50 yards in what we might call a dump. Plastic bags, wrapping, and who knows what else were going up in flames and converted into a noxious smoke. (I must say that nothing plant or animal was likely to have been burned, as the pigs and goats normally address these items.) 

If the whiff of rather noxious smoke wasn't a regular morning and evening occurrence, which suggests to me that some are burning open fires for cooking, I'd be less alarmed. I'd also have less concern if we didn't see fires in dumpsters at random points throughout the city, which perhaps reveals that trash collection is irregular and that users are trying to make more room or pay less. 

While the trash lining many of the streets of Jaipur is ugly and annoying, this is worse. For those who complain about environmental regulations (you Republicans know who you are!), I invite you to come to where there are no environmental laws or regulations enforced (or at least they don't address some very serious issues). It ain't pretty. Think about that next time you prepare the bitch about any environmental regulation. I now do.

The Eye of the Tiger

Iowa Guru and I ventured out of Jaipur into the open country of Rajasthan. Our four-hour journey by car took us through some small mountains, but mostly we traversed a broad, flat plain. We encountered another range of low mountains marked by low trees and rocky precipices. We had arrived at Ramthambore Park, the home of about 50 Indian tigers, and we were here to visit. 

We took two trips into the park, one late afternoon and one in the morning. We took both trips in a “canter”, an open vehicle which looks like a modified troop carrier. The road, such as it was, was rough and winding, following a stream through the mountains. On the opposite side of the stream, the sunny side, we viewed low dry grasses and low shrub trees that created the look of a savannah. On our side of the stream, the mountain rose steeply beside us, and the vegetation was thick with dense undergrowth interspaced with grassier areas, not unlike what you’d find at Kent Park in Johnson County. 

During our bumpy sojourn, we spied two types of deer,  one was a small while spotted deer (which we mistook for fawns) and a larger deer, the favorite of the tigers. We saw a lot of deer grazing in the shady woods (avoiding the open savannah area). We saw numerous peacocks, the males with their amazing colors. One male began a display, but he quit quickly, perhaps realizing that our group had no females he could woo with his effort. We saw wild pigs, which look very much like the pigs I see in Jaipur and throughout the towns and countryside that we’d just traveled. The pigs have long snouts and long, spiked hair on their backs (a razorback look). The shallow stream revealed one, miniature-looking crocodile. I’d never imagined such a small crocodile. At one point, looking down on us, we discovered a pack of monkeys. Large and docile looking, their white fur and dark faces allowed them to stand out and display the creepy human-likeness that monkeys can have. 

And the tiger? Maybe the eye of the tiger had us, but none us spied one of them. Of course, we’d have loved to see a tiger in the wild. On the other hand, the worse thing, we quickly learned, was the disappointment we create when people ask if we’d seen a tiger. Iowa Guru and I conspired to tell a fib and report a sighting, but we have opted for the truth.
In a country where the wild seems no further away than the next street, it was nevertheless a delight to see a more pristine, wild India, where the tiger (so they say) still roams.

Meet Gordon

About this time of the year back in Iowa City, something unwanted would make itself known. Perhaps it would be the movement out of the corner of her eye; perhaps the subtle sound of movements; perhaps--although she'd be loath to admit to such preternatural powers--she could smell it. But one way or another, Iowa Guru would discover a mouse, or several, had invaded out house. The order would go out with no delay or ambiguity: terminate with extreme prejudice. Then I, as Lord High Executioner, would swing into action by deploying the most archaic mousetraps that I could find (since they work best), and each of the beasts would be hunted down and eliminated. The Guru could rest easy. 

We do not have mice in India, at least so far. 

But we do have Gordon. 

A couple of weeks ago, while sitting quietly in our apartment for the evening, I heard the "Steve" come out of the Guru's mouth with that tone of loathsome panic normally reserved for rodents or dogs (the Guru finds little difference between them initially, although she'll make peace with some--dogs). I looked over and followed her gaze to the ceiling and there, very near the junction of the top of the wall and the ceiling, was a gecko. Quite frankly, not having any real acquainatance with any such creature outside of the one that hawks insurance on TV (and whom I do not consider a representative of his species, his cleverness notwithstanding, I did not know how to respond. 

Whatever puzzlement I held, the Guru had none, and order went out to terminate with extreme prejudice. And, ever mindful of my duty to defend the family realm, I armed myself with a rolled up magazine to go make done with the loathsome creature. I moved in like a stealthy cat, all crouched and ready to pounce. Alas, this proved ineffective as my target was located very near the ceiling & crouching took me in entirely the wrong direction. Realizing the error of my tactic, I arose to my full grizzly stature with the idea that like the fearsome hulk whom I (attempted) to imitate. I, too, I imagined that I possessed an unfathomable quickness such that the apparent insouciance that the creature held toward my superior size would disappear with its life. I pounced. 

It turns out the geckos are quick, very quick. I swung and missed, gave chase, swung and missed again, and hurling myself forward again, I swung and missed. I was at this point, owing  to my All-American upbringing, thinking that I was required by the rules to quit and turn the bat (magazine) over to the Guru. She thought differently. However, by this time the endeavor had become moot, as the creature had disappeared into our closet and was presumably hiding among our clothes. You see, unlike mice, geckos have the additional advantage of being able to climb the walls--and I'm not speaking metaphorically, either. This is no small measure of advantage and rather unfair and unsportsmanlike, but nature holds no such scruples. I have not mastered this skill and have only seen it accomplished in the movies. Alas, none of the those persons were currently available in Jaipur. (Perhaps in Bollywood, but we haven't any connections there yet.) We were at an impasse. 

A state of high alert remained in effect, and our silent specter would emerge from time to time to be seen reposing near the top of the wall. I continued to offer perfunctory and utterly futile chase, and the Guru continued to issue the order, but with the passage of time, our mindsets began to change. 

The creature did not seem to eat our food, it did not leave poop that we'd find, and it did not pop out of places to scare us. It would simply appear from time to time mocking our pretensions to mastery of our abode. 

Come to think of it, we'd never had a pet before.

As I write this, Gordon is there above me. ("Gordon" Gecko seemed better than "Geico" and, one hopes, avoids potential legal entanglements about naming rights, product placement issues, and so on). Gordon looks down upon me (maybe, who knows with those funky eyes he has), still has a statute, quietly observing. What mischief is he planning? We mortals cannot say. Fortunately, unlike his namesake, he has no vile vices of avarice or envy that we can identify; oh, perhaps some pride of accomplishment, which we can forgive.  He seems a rather content creature. And, I dare say, quite at home. 

Gordon photo by Iowa Guru

A Dinner Conversation & After Thoughts

Last week, Iowa Guru and I were invited out to dinner by a young Indian couple. He is an entrepreneur that I am working with, and along with his wife, they took us out to a fine dinner. From the dinner and conversation I came away with a sense of the possibilities of India. I believe the husband comes from a family with money, and with that boon he was able to get a law degree in India and an MBA from the U.K. She has a college degree in the arts, and she is now spending her time caring for their toddler son. Her intentions are to open a “kindergarten” (in our scheme we would call it a preschool). The husband had the marks of someone, despite being relatively young (I estimate mid-30s), who has started a business, done well, and traveled widely. She struck me with her very open and gentle demeanor. Her plans for her kindergarten get rolling after her sister’s upcoming wedding. She remarked that she couldn’t imagine leaving India, which in part is attributable to her obviously close connections to family, but also because India now offers young people such as themselves such a complete & wide-array of the material and cultural goods of life. This struck me as a keen reminder of the variety in India, where we can see abject poverty in some places, and material wealth and success in others. Whether the young and vibrant middle class in India can pull the nation as a whole to a higher standard of development remains to be seen, but I couldn’t help but admire the pluck, optimism, and vibrancy that this young couple represents.

Sometime after this, Inscrutable Panda forwarded an article about 50 million missing women. The article is interesting because it’s the account of a young Indian woman who was educated in a self-described liberal, feminist college in Boston, and who in the late 1980s was exposed to the writings of Nobel prize-winning economist Amartya Sen, a native of India and a frequent, perceptive commentator on Indian affairs. In the late 1980s, Sen pointed out that women were terribly underrepresented in Indian demographics, and this suggested something sinister. The author Rita Banerji, goes on to explain that she came to realize that Indian females, from conception through marriage and beyond, were suffering deaths in shocking numbers. The young author believes that these deaths of Indian females from conception through adulthood are India’s equivalent to the silent complicity that child abuse became in the US. (Especially in the scandal of the American Catholic Church.) People tried to deal with it by ignoring it. The article is shocking and eye-opening.




The reason I came to think of this article in relation to our dinner conversation is that the young wife, in describing her upbringing and her present circumstances, is someone whose appearance and demeanor strongly suggest that she is the product of a loving family. The openness and ease of her demeanor struck me that way. To then read shortly after how many Indian females are killed, not to mention mistreated, is another reminder of the huge contrasts that this nation often presents us. And even in my short time here, I can think of many instances where girls and women are doing well (so as not to paint to gloomy a portrait). At some point, I’ll have to go back to Indians that I get to know well enough to find out how went widely recognized or considered this problem is. My sense is that it remains a national secret that everyone is in on. One of the problems I keep reading in the papers about of late has been about a series about rapes. In these articles, as the New YorkTimes has pointed out, the victims are portrayed as the subject of shame rather than the victims of wanton violence.

How do all Indians come to be valued? It may take something more than just lifting people out of poverty; it will probably take a real change in attitude among members of every class. It will probably require India to reveal its shameful "secret".