"Farm Hall" Aar "Pipilika"

Prothom juddho ta dekhi roshayone

Dyitota hoi podartho bigyane

 Kichu Operation "Farm Hall" aar "Epsilone"

Tritoyota khabore aar jibon o shomaj bigyane

Ditoyo juddhe dekhechilam "kichu opore otha dhowa"

Sheh chilo "gogochumbi" aar "bhore dhoyashay"

Niche prithiber buke manush chilo "pipilika" moy

Aamra thik jebhabe paa diye maariye chole jai pipilikader

Dhoya, roshayon, podartho bigyan mariye jaachilo jader

Aar aaj amader bibeker ronger khelay

Shei Pipilika gulo haray

Juddho ashe aar jay

Pipilikara abar khele beray

"Farm Hall" Aaar "Epsilone"

Kothay tara hariye jaay

Ek khub gorome jokhon pipilika ektu hawa pay

Hothat dekhi gogonchumbi megh shore geche

Ei gorome hothat ektu brishti esheche

Why your protagonist name is - "LUCY"?

 It was a sultry evening of Kolkata when some latent coldness of air from the nearby Hoogly river was circulating around the "Oxford Bookstore" of Park Street. The date was - 14th September, 2016. I was there at that location (Oxford Bookstore) owing to the book launch of my first science fiction book on sustainability - "Lucy and The Train: Tryst with Sustainability" published by TERI Press. During the post launch session, a question which came from the other side to me on that day changed everything within me about seeking truth while writing. Truth was never quite same ever or more so ever after that. 

The question was nothing - but the title of this article piece. A simple question to which I said its not a western cultural domination of my thought, neither I am xenophobic or averse to any culture but LUCY to me was , is and will be - "Love, Understanding, Creativity and Youth" and a symbolism of the earliest origin of humanity on Earth which I saw in a museum in Addis Ababa. So its less of a name and more of an emblem of the corners of truth which I am seeking. This question thereafter has only chased me like the dogs of a police criminal squad or an investigation team of the anti terror squads and hence I was thrown out from the present. I have seen dreams where I am running a sprint or marathon with different characters on my sides with different names and I am trying to touch them. However, they are passing by me in the sprint or in the marathon and I would wake up from my dream in the midnight.

Like a fugitive and a wanderer I landed in the pages of a wide variety of books dealing with critical history of science fiction writing. It happened because I became more and more doubtful of my character name and voice which I wanted to be audible through the protagonist character. Hence, to write the next sequels, those pages  of critical history were extremely important for curing my perennial existential crisis with whatever I do. 

The pages of the history to a wanderer only wondered me. Hence, through those pages of history I discovered the three broad thematic definition of science fictions which later on is creating a derivative towards dystopia definition. I saw through the critical work of Damien Broderick that today's almost Providence type of act of science fiction creation from Hollywood or any part of the world through the cultural prisoner's dilemma game (gain of one culture is the loss of other culture) started strategically in the 18th and 19th century.

 It was deliberately done to reflect on the cultural, scientific and technological upheavals of that time. Once I went back further towards past some startling facts came upon. The summary of the historical search showed to me that science fiction writing  or dystopia was, is and will always be some form of a cultural discourse combining visual, textual, cinematic, tele-visual, comic book or a game playing to create a world view which is different from the world in which a reader lives. SO, the first reaction of the reader can quite naturally be - "It is impractical and doesnot affect me or how does it affect me or how can I relate to it?"

This world in which the reader lives also includes the vast unexplored fields of ideas in the mind of the reader too. So the history is constantly showing us that at every point of time, there is someone who is ruling or steering this gaming of the mind. Sometimes, history showed to me that fantasy, magic, religion, knowledge politics are ruling this game and holding the steering wheel of this gaming exercise. Hence, immediately characters and their names are also changing in the text of the science fiction or a dystopia creation or within the narrative plots. 

To illustrate, the pages of the history showed to me that the literary establishments in America and Europe for a long time were dismissing science fiction texts by showing deliberately literary fiction above science fiction. I explored and discovered  from the pages of critical history that protestant reformation, post-Copernican science and Catholic theology, mysticism and magic were constantly in a dialectics for a long time. The result of this dialectics was creation of different world famous science fiction and dystopian characters and their names. We often worshiped them which was, is or will not be necessary for any reader in the future. May be, I was a romantic and not a true reader and hence got trapped in the worshiping and that's not being a good, true reader or loving a character. So, I was just a romantic of the history of reading texts and liked the idea of living and idealizing, idolizing the memoir of romanticizing the character but not loving the character in the science fiction or dystopian plots which I read. Therefore, I could not distinguish the fact that when the Catholic was dominating the orientation of the characters in the plots, their names and the plot was turning towards fantasy. While, when the protestant reformation was dominating, it was leading to the formation of hard science fiction characters and texts. 

Historically, this hard science fiction texts also had a root once Descartes settled down in 1629 in Holland while the native Catholics became hostile to him. More shocking is - "between the Greek period and Renaissance", there was a long gap of science fiction texts and characters. Again, from the late 16th and 17th century, with a rise in scientific inquiry in Protestant countries, science fiction characters and texts started to emerge. However, the larger question is that the world before 16th and 17th century and even during the Greek times was rich in scientific advancements and other cultures. Then why those characters, cultures are not there or why we are shy to accept them as the science or fiction of those times as a science fiction. What stops us to accept those texts also as hard science fiction? I still don't know the answer. May be I will find the answer someday when I find the answer to the question of that sultry evening - "Why your protagonist name is - LUCY?" 

If Lord Buddha wrote a dystopian science fiction?

Today, on an auspicious day of Guru Purnima, I am writing a column on dystopia. So, when I started imagining about this piece, I was continuously awe struck by a Deja Vu. The Deja Vu kept on rolling on mind and told me - "The End is Beginning and Beginning is the End". The essence is that time is looped and re-looped through a set of human actions on this little droplet star in the larger scheme of science, nature, universe, galaxy, milky way.

No one yet knows why something begins or something ends, but we know how it begins and how it ends and then again how it begins. So everything is a Deja Vu. Even dystopia which is completely reverse of an  Utopia also follows the same cycle of Deja Vu. It begins and then ends and then it begins again. For dystopia too, "End is the Beginning and Beginning is the End".

On the day of Guru Purnima, my sense of Deja Vu is more intense because today was the day - "When Lord Buddha gave his first sermon to the world by sitting under a tree". The sermon was about realities of life, time, progress, enlightenment, the ultimate conciousness about the forms of life and time.

 Lord Buddha highlighted about how everything is a Deja Vu. The way, life progresses is always in the form of a Deja Vu. In the journey of that Deja Vu, the mortal forms will always go through - "Dukkha (sufferings), Tanha (desire), Nirodha (renouncement), Magga (path to enlightenment)". It is an unending time loop for every life form in the universe. Sage Veda Vyasa also was born on July 5. If we study deeply the work of these two sages and also our Upanishads, Vedas, Ramayana, Mahabharata, Bhagvad Gita, Manusmriti, Arthshastra, what we learn is not to dwell on past but to focus on the present, purify the thoughts, believe in faith and truth. This is because sun, moon and truth cannot be hidden and finally, faithfulness and contentment defines a strong society.

If today, Lord  Buddha was supposed to write a sermon again for the new dystopian times, very naturally the same teachings and sermons of July 5 will become very important. Our cultural past has certain things to offer in this Guru Purnima, which again has become important to come out of the new norm and form of dystopia that is looming above our mother Earth.

If Buddha writes a dystopian science fiction today, he will also refer to the literature of Hugo Gernsback's disaster science fictions of a time around 1926 which also ended with certain solutions. But Lord Buddha wont stop at that. He will be critical of the society which has created a peril for herself and mother earth through a technological change driven by a need of a desire. For that, Lord Buddha will also refer to Alvin Toffler's work - "Future Shock"  in 1970. Lord Buddha will not also shy away from quoting Aldous Huxley's work - "Brave New World" of 1932. Brave New World highlighted about the importance of existence of high and low end cultures for a dystopic situation.

However, the larger question is - "Will Lord Buddha in today's sermon focus on a cultural clash as a main determinant for the current or future dystopia"  or "Will Lord Buddha will in his sermon for today suggest that this clash is a deterrent for the humanity to come out of dystopia"?

My own sense is that Lord Buddha will believe in a culture of sustainability and will rather understand a context, challenge and come up with a sermon to follow as a salvation. He wont just stop at reading Eastern, Western, Middle Eastern, Persian, African, Mesopotamian or Oriental Literature. Understanding and action are more important than only reading in the current context of dystopia. Who knows more about it other than our - "Lord Buddha"  of Sarnath and Bodhgaya.

Hence, in an unending DejaVu of beginning is the end and end is the beginning, lets wait for our own Lord Buddha of 2020 to come out of dystopia. It will surely happen again as end is always a beginning.

A Failed Attempt To Record A Tagore Song

A celebratory birth day

- Celebrity, lord -

Could be a bridger of today's guantanamo bay

Morning, daily chores of meeting - the lord, bard, poet with his melody

In a juke box of continuity

Rising up and up all around

He had to rise, as everything is locked out

The present, past and future all bombarded him

Their love, gratitude, praise, symbolism

I kept on failing and failing

The bridge notes kept on going and coming

Sometimes it went out in the middle of MS Team

Frequently amidst in my Zoom sessions, watsapp work and capricious day dream

I hoped in the evening the bard and bridge will come

To find me and get a melody or bridge note which will be awesome

Well, the dusk passed

Digital gifts for the doyen rushed

Then came the evening

I strapped out of my work string

Got hold of the piano for the bridge and the bard

I failed and made the task to capture the poet very hard

He slipped by and told me that now its time for him

To go to MS Team

As I wandered, where is my bard and poet on his bird-day

I could finally feel him in my failed attempts to bridge the guantanamo bay

What do we want - A History of Dogmatism or A History of Sustainability (at the backdrop of COVID Outbreak)?

While the world is undergoing through a struggle and fight against a deadly virus COVID, it has to be remembered that this is just the tip of the iceberg.

The struggles right now all across the world and in this Anthropocene are far too many - a) Struggle between validation and legitimacy, b) Struggle between winning and understanding, c) Struggle between the periphery of truth and legitimacy of politics, d) Struggle between unmasking of power and the hardship of creating solutions going beyond the rhetoric of proving and disproving everything by a genealogy of hypocrisy, power relations, e) Struggle between class struggle dogmas and enabling a discussion to win over dogmas and create solutions.

Beyond all of this, the humanity has created a struggle for the self existence through a claustrophobia of self destructive, perpetual, multiplicity of truth. Going beyond these possibilities of the struggle of existence, the civilization on the Earth is also facing a struggle between human kind, peace, mutual coexistence with nature, aliens, future machine and humanoid civilization.

Challenges of all the listed struggles are too many. This precisely requires a breaking away from all dogmatic pedagogies from any past, existing scientific disciplines and seek for the new truth. In such truth seeking, the past has to  be remembered. But there also has to be a delicate balance in how much of the past should be remembered and how much should be delved upon and over pondered to create new solutions for a new future. If this is not done, then I wonder whether we will really be able to create a history of sustainability.

It is an imperative at this juncture, therefore to start a truth seeking through validation going beyond too much of the dogmatism of being a critique, an argumentative, a debating and a skeptic being. At the core of all this, what it has done to the humanity and society at large is that - "We have converted ourselves constantly into a race of winning something over the other and that itself to me is being dogmatic". The need of the hour is therefore not to win a debate, an argument, a critique, or be a skeptical and create a new claustrophobia of dogmatism within a world which is already plagued with too many challenges.

The harbinger of peace making process needs to be practiced. It  requires the journey of truth seeking which can then also lead to the self - defeating question of - "What is the truth that we are seeking for?"
These leads to questions of - "What are the truths of the history of human civilization - Is it only a history of oppression, class conflicts, one winning over the other and fighting which has led to this situation or - Is it also a history of mutual coexistence, a fight against dogmatism, peaceful coexistence?" 

So, the prevailing question is which truth is being demanded by the society, institutions and which path do we want to follow?  In the past, too much of critique, debate, dogmatist thinking of class oppression by observing one reality definitely has exposed us to some realities - But the pertinent question is - In that truth seeking have we enabled a culture of winning or of practising peace making?

Isn't it so, that the culture of truth seeking in a way got disrupted, validation ended and then we have knowingly and unknowingly moved towards a culture of legitimizing a dogma, a hypocrisy. Well, it is actually an easy task. This is because, hypocrisy is natural, instinctive and banal at the same time. But a soulful search for truth should also move towards and then beyond such a banality and establish the new norms of validation of truth which are coexisting in a culture of complexity by understanding - "What is the value of such a truth?"

 The world needs it quickly, by going beyond the establishment of any dogma to immediately overcome the struggles mentioned as above. Otherwise, we will only write a history of dogma for the world and mother Earth and not a history of sustainability both for nature, humanity and civilization. The future will answer the course of such a history!

When "Environment" can become a "Helicopter" or "RBI"!

Imagine, there is a patient who is having a fourth degree haemmoroid with constant internal and external bleeding. Moreover, say, due to blood and haemoglobin loss, the HB level drops to 2. As an emergency situation the doctor will pump in pure blood and haemoglobin.

This body will be stabilised for a while. But, this is not enough. The body will finally need the haemmoroids to be removed through a surgery to cure the body. This is less risky if the haemmoroids are non carcinogenic. Moreover the body also has to be resilient to accomodate  post surgery situation. This year's budget measures for the Indian Economy were like the blood and haemoglobin pumping to such a human body. However, surgical measures were still not applied which may be required and implemented soon.

Yes, certain positive steps have been taken in terms of pushing the infrastructure demand. Such demand will however be realised only when the lagged or halted projects are pushed along with a clearance of dead investments complemented and accelerated by fresh investments for specific sectors with strong auditing structures and mechanisms.

However, these investments might not be enough to boost demand creation and paying capacity of every income class. We have to see the response of the economy very closely and keep on implementing the demand side measures.

Moreover, class specific income tax measures to enhance paying capacity will soon be required. The consensus around everywhere is that demand creation and it's sustainance is a key now to realise the 5 trillion dollar growth path. At this juncture, I feel that "environment" and "renewable energy" as a sector can act as a "helicopter economy" gift for Indian Economy. The focus of the article is to analyze how this can actually happen for the Indian Economy in future. 

The current budget indicates an allocation of INR 22000 crore for the renewable energy sector. However an allocation complemented by its efficient utilisation and regular auditing can lead to green job creation. If this money is utilised in setting up of renewable energy power projects along with its efficient distribution, then it will create a demand for jobs for carpenters, fabricators, designers in the entire value chain. The same can happen in renewable energy projects related to biomass, wind and waste sector. The question is - can some of these sectors absorb migrant and informal labours considering the differential in skills of sectors. The answer is not yet clear but can be explored. Can this money also be applied in cleaning processes of waste, water, land through new renewable energy projects by enabling employment generation with a strong, digital and transparent auditing systems? Why not. 

Similarly if solar power pumps are given to farmers, can the same measure create some new employment and also be complemented by agricultural productivity enhancement measures for the same solar power pump users? By doing that the same farmer can raise the awareness for using solar pump and also come out of the agrarian crisis. Gradually, the early users can create a network with new entrant farmers who are in distress and can take them out of such a situation. This can be enabled through a new governance structure that can be implemented by the central, state government along with district, village level institutions.

This might need additional assistance too through incremental credit allocation and it's distribution and utilisation by the farmers. Gradually these measures can be expanded to other farmers too in distress. Similar employment creation and processes can also be initiated in the air pollution sector through the budget allocation of inr 4200 crores. 

A lot will be said in the next few days about what budget didnot do and could have done. Therefore in the limited space of this article I will however highlight that the budget did inject the haemoglobin and has created a scope of a helicopter economy through "environment" as a multiplier sector. However, the future will suggest whether "environment" becomes a rescuer and the lender of the last resort for the Indian Economy. As an eternal optimist, I will believe and hope that such a lender of last resort will go a long way to ensure a green and sustainable growth and development in India in the long run.

Can Climate Change create a new liberal regime?

The latest Australian wildfire is being considered as one of the worst extreme consequences of human induced climate change impacts. However, climate scientists through the Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change titled - "Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation"  have already predicted about the possibilities of such climate extreme related disasters. The recent occurrence of this massive bush fire is being explained scientifically through the persistence of extreme drought conditions due to the climate change. The worst part is that the wildfires are so extreme that they are triggering their own thunderstorm and leading to a massive "Khandava Dahan". The initial parametric conditions, pattern structure of the event are following a nonlinear differential equation structure which is constantly creating an exponential, spiralling and chaotic path. Many natural events can be of this type depending on their initial conditions and the degree, nature of the pattern of accumulation or depletion over time.

In order to bring an analogy of the event to a Hindu mythology, Khandava Dahan was also caused by the humans where many innocent animals died as a sacrifice to the politics of the human on the earth. A strive for power and kingdom also led to the sacrifice of animals. Somethings, however, donot change ever. Today, in an Anthropocene, therefore, owing to human induced impacts of climate change, the earth is bearing the cost. The Special Report of IPCC has already predicted these types of extreme events due to the shift in the tail of the event occurrence distribution curves which indicates the probability of the occurence and recurrence of these extreme events.

All scientists working in the special report have predicted that there will be an urgent need to create more humanitarian, relief based measures to enhance the resilience of the ecosystem which can be impacted from the impacts of climate change. Scientific data based measures, adaptation and coping mechanisms and systems need to be built up immediately to address the risks and exposure to these extreme events in future. And the reality is - "These events are going to increase."

 However, there is still a little window of time before it hits the peaking point if we act with urgency. The sense of urgency in these actions are enmeshed with politics too.

Coincidentally, the wildfires have set in and around Sydney and New South Wales. The current liberal party head of Australia, Mr. Scott Morrison, also comes from Sydney and studied economic geography at the University of New South Wales. Climate disasters and Dystopia always create a background for a magical fiction. Therefore, a leader who heads the liberal party and studies economic geography also has to see the break out of a disastrous, catastrophic event during his regime. Human relief measures are also on full board with the plethora of media visuals potraying the desperate, empathetic, rescuing hugs between scared, bawling kangaroos and kind humans. A Khandava Dahan (induced by human greed and human greed induced climate change) has also created a new love and bonding between the nature and humans. Hence a balance is also created. This is fiction and magical realism at the same time. However, if these disasters have to be dealt with, then the adaptation measures need to be strengthened. It will also mean implementation  of measures which reduces human greed and creates a larger policy push towards conservation measures. These conservation measures have to come out as policy and political decisions.

Some of the core tenets of liberal party in Australia are based on a right of the centre vision with promotion of conservative, liberal conservative, conservative liberal and classical liberal futuristic vision. It also relies on economic liberalism, free markets, individualism and small government.

The recently occurring catastrophe can lead to a dystopic earth too if frequency of such events increase in the future. Will such possibilities enable and create a larger push to change political vision of different leadership across the world starting from Australia which is currently suffering. However, similar such sufferings have already happened in Mozambique and in other parts of Africa and Latin America too very recently. Will nature, the science of climate change and action push us to change different political vision all across the world as an imperative to survive on the Earth? Will there be a convergence between the right of the centre and left of the centre towards centre to ensure survival of species on Earth which as a co-benefit will also lead to a political peace on the land of Earth? These are the questions which are left towards the future of a science of fiction story. Some of these types of political questions enmeshed with dystopia are also dealt in - "Lucy and The Train: Tryst with Sustainability"  and in an upcoming book of the Lucy series. However, these are the questions that the world will deal with more in the future days in whatever form it comes. Till then, the characters and plots are being shaped up organically every moment by nature and all species and humans on the earth in the age of an Anthropocene.