evitable. In one of the reports for a session of MIS (Management Information Systems), while gathering pointers from library books, rather hurriedly (due to lack of time or my complacence up to date of submission), I chanced upon an early edition of Alvin Toffler’s ‘Future Shock’. This book gave some pretty hard hitting concepts. Buried in two neat towers of books with magazines spread all around, while I was lapping up all the information in the book, there was a concept that was rather unusual and ironical to my situation – it was called ‘Information overload’! Toffler in his analysis put forth his theory that there can be a situation where there is too much information. Now, that seemed rather preposterous at that time, for information was the one thing that was hard to obtain. No matter how many books one referred, there was always that one author whose books were hard to find or out of stock. Almost like freshly baked bread rolls near the college. To support this concept, there were references that some books quoted from The New York Times dating back to 1970s. Information explosion seemed like a difficult pill to swallow at that time. Somehow, the ramifications of too much information did not seem greatly destructive to be termed explosive. 
thing became extremely easy. Book report? There were ready made ones that were available. Papers on Management concepts like Shamrock Organization? There were many options to choose from. It started to get queasy and listless when finishing project reports were simply ripped off and submitted as the fruit of some hard labour. Sure, one wouldn’t consider long hours spent browsing the Internet and skimming sites after sites to get the right match!
warmed into the picture along with Thomas Friedman’s ‘World is Flat’. Through Orkut, Facebook, MySpace, etc there was hardly any breathing space for planned delay of updates or privacy of communications. Everybody can now know what everyone else is talking, writing, saying, thinking at any given point of time. Everything was available at the click of a button. Information superhighway just turned into Information at my fingertips! It was novel, innovative, fascinating, and a highly addictive proposition to be part of this movement. At the same time, it is scary that one’s details- personal & professional and opinions on the economy, people, music, movies and a multitude of other things – consequential and inconsequential – is available on an info platter. Yes, there are Privacy controls but their effectiveness in moderation and restrictions are highly suspect. I know I cannot write just about anything that would otherwise find its way into my diary in long hand.As time passed and flying became common place, there was a recurring sight of colored clouds. Not just grey or indigo towards evening, but almost yellow! Clouds seemed like they needed a wash in a strong detergent to get rid of the awful stains that were few and far between. With time, these only increased in frequency and were visible while on ground too. The concept of “Pollution” was discussed at length and the adverse effects of smoke plus the smog were drilled down in text book lessons. The “Green House Effect” discussions used to end with references to the invisible Ozone layer – at first many school students thought the syllabus included discussion on a new discotheque that had opened in the city! Kids grew with understanding the importance of the O3 as sessions progressed.
The transition from Green House Effect to renewable and non-renewable resources was quite smooth. Just as lighting up a magnesium ribbon! So, water, coal and petroleum were non-renewable. Wait, water was termed as a renewable source when I studied (either I have grown too old or the water table is now in a limbo due to sudden change in usage patterns!). I was quite annoyed when I discovered that I don’t live anywhere close to perennial rivers – which were the Ganga and Brahmaputra! But now I see that even these rivers too have not been able to escape the axe of depletion. Although rains were unpredictable then, the number of complaining heads
(about shortage of rains) seems to have multiplied significantly over the past few years. When all this complaining became far too noisy to handle, those in power referred to a technology that was developed a year before the Indian Independence. Cloud seeding, the newspapers reported, would solve the problems of water shortage in Bangalore.
Although no detailed explanation was available, the rains came and how! It poured continuously in places that had never expected rains. Water shortage issues too reduced, if not completely erased. The experiment was repeated in various other parts of the country. In some places it rained to the point of flooding an unprepared city, while in others it was a positive infusion. There was news about how China used it before the Olympics to clear out a smoggy stratosphere. It started to seem like finally there is a method of solving the issue of Pollution. Pollution – one that haunts students who are made to write long essays around it and mankind at large that wants clear, fresh air to breathe (and not spend time & money in Oxygen bars!).
Now Cloud Seeding – the seemingly obvious answer to water / rainfall shortage and thereby the solution to problems of pollution – was first developed by a researcher named Schaefer based on an idea that struck him while he was climbing a mountain (obviously, he must have thought about the ice axe, harness, not to mention his life, after the discovery!). The cloud seeding done in recent times include a heady mix of dry ice, silver iodide, salt (who knew!) and expanded liquid propane gas. Research on the after effects of the methodology has proved that though the effectiveness is there in varying measures, the contents may cause “temporary incapacitation or possible residual injury to humans and mammals with intense or continued but not chronic exposure”. Though exposure to the material can be controlled (hopefully so!) there is another disturbing fact. Although not on the same scale of industrial emissions, the technology amounts to pollution! This toxicity prompted Cloud Seeding to be rejected by Australia, which wanted to protect one of its endangered species.
Whether there an anti-dote to fight the ill-effects of silver iodide exists, is yet to be known. But somehow it seems like a maze of concentric circles where one begins with Pollution as a problem and ends up with Pollution as an after effect.
Wonder when the white fluffy clouds that I once saw out of my airplane window will return to stay for good. May be I could use the abracadabra hexes in the book of Grecian fairy tales!
Image: puppetgov.com
Divya Rao
10th June, 2010
Mumbai
Now, to the native it may be just another spot where his family sends out clothes for laundry and his friends complain on the filth that is unbecoming of a “washing” well. But when Lonely Planet lists it under a MUST SEE list, the curiosity of the tourist is not one to be contained or reasoned with. There should be something unique about this place and indifference towards it from the host is generally not treated with humour and candour. A flick of the head here and a nano-second smirk there is all that is needed to indicate that it is obviously a place that would definitely be seen, with or without the host’s approval! For the native, it may be funny and flummoxing at the same time to see the value of washing spot. ‘What’s the big deal about a Dhobi Ghat?’ reverberates in his mind. Once the tourist is done clicking away to the point of contracting a carpal tunnel, satisfaction descends on finally getting the catch. Now the only questions that arise are of how a collage of the images can be made for putting them up on the social networking site, where he occasionally tills and fertilizes often to win green virtual points for the hard-virtual-work!
wuerdigkeiten in Deutsch or just simply sightseeing places are not the only points of contact for tourist quirks. Some of the biggest revelations happen when it’s mealtime. When a tourist from the sub continent travels to a foreign land, it seems like food was the centre of all attractions that was expected. Once on the foreign soil, some of the Indian appetites start to growl rather loudly at the restaurant manager. Some of the requests seem quite implausible to the restaurant service agents who begin to wear a forlorn look till such time the new entrant with multiple shopping bags from supermarkets such as the MM Migros (wonder what they bought!) leaves. The regular requests – for instance, ‘do you serve vegetable toast sandwich- without mayo, without cream, without butter, and very little bread?’ or ‘can you add sugar to the fondue?’ or ‘would you have some masala or chutney to spice up this burrito bowl? It does nothing to my tongue!’ or even better 'Can you serve the French toast with everything but the egg?'. While tossing the most restrained ‘No’, if close attention is paid, one may hear the Spanish or Deutsch waiters exchange a ‘Do you want to take my place – it’s the “tourist” in red sweater? The one who just asked for chilled butter-milk instead of beer!’
