মেঘের আশ্রয়

 মেঘের কাছে জল জমেছে

জল কি আশ্রিত তাঁর কাছে

নাকি জল আশ্রয় দিয়েছে

 বৃষ্টি হয়ে ঝরে পড়ে চোখে চোখে

বর্ষার মাঝে সমব্যথী মুখে

মুখে মুখরিত স্লোগান

আরজি কর এর গান

মেঘ অগত্যা পেল রাস্তায় ঝরে পড়ার টান

নীল, সাদা, কালো, রং বেরঙ হওয়ার কলতান।

To Be Or Not To Be - "A Green Day"

 

Francis Beacon had once said that to know the nature outside, we need to know the nature within. As a child, the quest to know the nature outside started with the thirst to know the nature within. While the nature within was lost in multiple conflicts of gene, nature, culture, conditioning, hereditarianism, a view outside towards nature got me back to within. It often happened, that when the answers of nature within were not available, I got the same answers in the green fields of West Bengal while travelling to Krishnanagar, Durgapur, Mogra away from Kolkata.

Every journey of mine in a train, away from Kolkata was actually bringing me near to the nature within while being positioned in the larger frame of the nature outside. The journey from Kolkata was therefore not a journey from the refugee homes of the city but was being more close to the nature within and outside.

Each such interaction of the nature within and outside through my travel to the rural villages, towns and suburbs away from Kolkata was like a – “A Green Day”.  The emotions of rage, despair, anguish, hope, anxiety, light would all get mixed up to reach to a tunnel end after a spiritual death through these pathways to the rural society. Urban society was quite synonymous to me as a “A Grey Day”.

However, on some days of monsoon or April stuck by Norwesters, my Grey Days of the City Living would become “A Green Day” when I would plunge to ponds, muds after football matches amidst high storm and rainfall. I could see the muddy color of my despair, feeling of exclusion from the city privileges, elitism being driven away by the muds of the monsoon football grounds of the refugee space and habitation where I grew up.

Often, I would do that in the middle of the football grounds within the TB Hospital Campus of Jadavpur of 80s and early 90s which had the humans and pigs playing together on the football ground amidst the mud. Orwell’s “Animal Farm” was not applicable in those days of my childhood as in that Animal Ground, humans and pigs had no hierarchy. They all would equally enjoy muds, smell of grass, monsoon rains, cuts and bruises of life and body together. Truly, the rage and despair would get converted to “A Green Day” in those days while playing together with pigs on the football ground of the TB Hospital Campus at Jadavpur. Then, one day, after leaving Kolkata and facing the city space of Delhi when I had a cultural realization of the space within me, I found out that the nature within me was – “A Green Day”. Such a Green Day was facing the threat of extinction from the perils of human induced impacts of climate change. I had no other way but to join people who equally had found out “A Green Day” within themselves just like me through nature. I had to fight the threat of extinction from the perils of human induced impacts of climate change to safeguard the nature within me from becoming extinct, and a living fossil. There was no other way but to collaborate with my Co-Editors, Co-Authors of The Book – “A Green Day” published by Hachette India and represented by The Book Bakers. I found out the same nature within and outside in – Mr. Jeevesh Gupta and Mr. Chittaranjan Dubey.

The rage, despair, hope of within expanded and extended its arms and joined hands with many across the world and gradually the chapters of the book “A Green Day” were born with the stewarding guidance and support of the other two co-editors too. The journey of the book “A Green Day” has just begun as it is a journey of a child to protect the nature within to see the nature outside and both are mutually co-existing. This voice will only multiply in future and will counter question every inner voice which often arises from our existential dilemmas of life saying – “Why do we need to protect this nature inside to see the nature outside or vice versa”?

Hence – “A Green Day” is not just merely a book that I was part off starting from the inception to publication but it has been an attempt to create a process of winning the doubt that arises everytime, everyday which often tells us that – “You should give up protecting the nature within and just be with the flow as anyways you might loose it being too little in the larger scheme of things”!

A Green Day is therefore an attempt to represent the voice of all such citizens and individuals who are fighting and conquering such a doubt everyday from waking up till they go to bed to sleep!

Nudge for A People-Centric Clean Energy Transition and Decarbonization for Climate Goals: A Double-Edged Sword

 

Economic Survey of India of 2024 for the first time has raised a valid concern about the prioritization process and order of attainment of India’s Climate and Developmental Goals. Chapter 6 of this year’s Economic Survey cited the work of Mike Hulme to make a point that – “ It is quite easy to imagine future worlds in which global temperature exceeds 2°C warming which is 'better' for human well-being, political stability, and ecological integrity; for example, than other worlds in which – by all means and at all costs – global temperature was stabilized at 1.5°C." 

This year’s Economic Survey, therefore, highlighted the point that prioritizing only the temperature-bound climate goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius without balancing out the developmental costs of such a goal on low-income and developing countries might not be ethical when viewed from the lens of human well-being, political stability, and ecological integrity. This is particularly true while considering the work done by Richard Tol in 2024, where he showed that the welfare-equivalent income loss due to a 2.5-degree Celsius warming relative to pre-industrial times is always significantly higher for developing countries.

A focus on income, wealth, equity and distribution goals are equally important for developing countries to create their future resilience to fight the adverse impacts of climate change and global warming. Hence, a blind focus on temperature goals of climate action can often be biased against the equity and distributive justice aspects of developing countries. Therefore, a non-aligned, non-holistic approach and focus on climate action through renewable energy transition can be detrimental to the developmental goals of people in developing countries. This is particularly true because any energy transition from one dominant fuel to another on a national, global, or local scale is inherently a protracted affair as stated by Vaclav Smil in 2014. It might take 50 to 60 years to happen with constant perseverance by generations. A transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy is not an exception.

Moreover, often such transitions are marked and fraught by conflicts and knowingly and unknowingly might not be people-centric. A study by Sovacool et. al (2022)[1] of which the author was also a part, shows that different actors, tactics, and outcomes are at interplay for the clean energy transition in seven carbon-intensive regions in Asia, Europe, and North America. Based on a data set of 130 case studies, the research shows how tactics (such as litigation or protest) impact outcomes (such as remuneration, policy change, concessions, or labor protections) for different fossil fuel to clean energy transitions like solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear. The research highlights the importance of actors, nudges by the actors in terms of – a) tactics (like litigations, meetings, protests), and national and international institutional responses to national, supra-national, and global pressures impact the fossil fuel to clean energy transition. The research through a cultural, sociotechnical, and comparative perspective based on the data of 130 case studies proves that goals of people-centric clean energy transition are often refracted through local, subnational, and national institutions catalyzed through local mobilizations which are either in support or opposed to fossil fuel to clean energy transition.

These findings further substantiate Vaclav Smil’s work in 2014 and strengthen the need to have strong social enablers and nudges for a clean energy transition in developing countries to happen which are generally time-consuming and can last for 50 to 60 years. However, while the countries move, and transit in such a time-consuming pathway, the wiser strategy can be to reduce energy and material consumption of developing, developed countries with an equitable wealth and income distribution between the developed and developing countries and within developing countries. This in a way can in the long term be useful to create ecological integrity, political stability, and equity for fighting the adverse impacts of climate change on poverty and development in the future.

Mission Life of India primarily focuses on such a clarion call through an ethical and moral lens which also finds a mention in the Economic Survey of 2024. The global literature on reducing such a demand for energy and material consumption has already been outlined in the “Degrowth Literature” which mentions a steady state of economic growth by progressively reducing emission intensity, resource, and material consumption in the growth path. India which has on average achieved an economic growth rate of 7% - 8% with an emission growth rate of 4% is also on track towards creating a successful example of a country that can “Degrow” while following its “Economic Growth”. However, the long-term success of such a path will only depend on social nudges which can progressively reduce energy and material consumption in the production and demand cycle of economic goods and services of the country. Once, such strong nudges to facilitate ecologically friendly behavior from both supply and demand sides are in place, India can attain its Viksit Bharat Goal of 2047  while being a front runner in the climate action goals of the world by continuing to be a social and politically stable country.

 

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[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378022000115

Chapter 4 - Intellectual Life – Detailed Summary (with additional insights from other relevant literature) from the Book – “Bobos in Paradise” by David Brooks

 

Irving Howe during 1954 mentioned the degradation of American Intellectual Life in the essay – “This Age of Conformity” in Partisan Review. He highlighted how the peak of American Intellectual Life that  coincided with the rise of Bohemianism, detachment from bourgeois life gradually started to lose that spirit and the intellectuals started to bow down to the forces of money, temptations of a better luxurious life, and high standards of living.  Irving mentioned that intellectuals lost a whole intellectual vocation process of dedicating life to values, firmness, and loneliness of ideas by being more credible. They lost out the vocation process by putting their foot in the world of commerce and politics. In a way through this intellectual degradation as per Howe, the intellectuals lost their total freedom in front of the temptation of writing for the New Yorker.  Times have changed. Today, the writers who were condemned in the 50s and 60s for making their books bestsellers are not condemned  for trivializing the intellect by making the book a best seller through different marketing channels. So, currently, intellectuals from any field do not cut themselves off from commerce and pop culture temptations and might perceive intellectual contributors like Hannah Arendt of 1950 as pompous. The intellectuals of the 1950s were portentous and loaded with authority, and they lived and participated in national life by living in a space of universal truth and disinterestedness that  was marked by the need to penetrate beyond the screen of immediate concrete experience. This strive of intellectuals, during the 50s, 60s had created a social divide within the society of Europe, USA where on one side there were people believing only in concrete conditions, situations and on the other hand there were people who believed in themselves to live a life defined by their sensitivity to sacredness, reflectiveness about the nature of the universe.

Later on, Hanah Arendt used a parable to describe this Social Life as a “Festival” where some come to compete, some to trade and the best are the spectators. Hence the slavish men go for hunting fame and gain, while the philosophers and thinkers search for truth by freeing from the large organizations and worldly alliances. Through this liberation, intellectuals who are philosophers and thinkers can see the truth  by fighting stereotyping, and generalization. Intellectuals of USA, Europe in 1950s fought a battle of not being assaulted by journalism, advertising, celebrity culture, philistines (indifference to art), and babbits (middle class standards) as they realized the biggest threat to an intellectual is money and its temptation along with commerce.

Gradually, commerce also attacked the intellectuals of 50s, 60s in USA with a culture called - "Middlebrow Culture"  which was a popular, pretentious, dull culture with high-toned writing, and art with high-end worthy self-congratulation. Middle brows who read books to impress friends were not interested in joining a priesthood of ideas but were rather interested in taking a realm of ideas, dragging it back to the earth into the clutches of middle-class America, and commercial mediocrity by coopting intellect and making it serve an utilitarian interest of the bourgeoisie. With the evolution of “Middlebrow Culture”, a new set of Intellectual Entrepreneurs emerged.

These Entrepreneurs did not make bold pronouncements, cut themselves off from reality, or invent conspiracies with a gloomy worldview. Rather, these entrepreneurs minimize and deny the gap between themselves and everyone around them by reconciling the tangible with the intangible facilitated by the information age. A young college student who wants to be an intellectual entrepreneur today will see dozens of academic stars, people who cross lines by succeeding in intellectual realms, and will be seen also on TV, academic circuits, private consulting firms, OPEDs. The young student will like to idolize Henry Louis Gates (the entrepreneurial Harvard Professor) or Esther Dyson who spins theories at expensive technological conferences.

In the 1970s, a new class emerged which showed that a small and politically liberal intellectual class gained disproportionate influence over the American culture by controlling media, academia, and culture. Today, the gap between intellectuals and everyone else has been reduced because the landscape has been filled with quasi-intellectuals, quasi-academicians, quasi – scholarly and rich people. The word intellectual has changed its meaning from a small group of people to a large class of people who are claiming to be intellectuals.

The small bohemian intellectuals of New York, San Francisco, Boston are now replaced by educated analysts and opinion leaders. Therefore, today’s intellectuals who are intellectual entrepreneurs discuss “Mutual Funds” and get paid in a certain way by thinking in a professional way, with one eye on the clock and on the other hand by conducting in a professional way between a 9 to 5 job and making one ownself marketable and presentable. Therefore, today’s intellectual entrepreneur is represented by Henry Louis Gates (Chairman of The Harvard’s African American Studies) who impulsively says  – “I am an entrepreneur and if I was not in an academy I would have been a CEO and I have Quincy Jones as my hero and Vernon Jordan in on my wall right above John Hope Franklin.”  Largely intellectuals in the evolutionary process from 1950 onwards are seen to participate in an economy of symbolic exchange as mentioned by Bourdieu. In such an economy, an intellectual enters the market place with intellectual, cultural, academic, linguistic and political capital. Throughout the career the intellectual tries to gain capital in a marketplace or tries to convert one form of the capital to another one viz. one intellectual can convert knowledge into a lucrative job, someone might convert it into getting invitation to conferences and someone might use the linguistic capital to destroy fellow colleagues and become popular. Popularity can also come by earning honor, publishing in the reputed journals, and houses and being associated with institutions. Intellectuals as a starting point need to know whom to support and criticise to grow up the ladder in this market place. In order to gradually become an intellectual giant in this market place of symbolic exchange, one starts as a paper people and then gradually becomes a face people. The paper people do all the hard work as interns, assistants to famous intellectuals or academicians or thinkers or professionals. They provide the face people with all the material to blurt out in the media appearances, conferences, and meetings while the face people are mostly busy in attending meetings, shows, interviews, and are on call. Paper people have to take reference from the face people to get placed in better career positions by self-weaning them ultimately from the shadow of the face people at the age of 28. Otherwise, paper people will get stuck and confused within their own status and the status of the face person whom the paper person serves through a self aggrandization by coopting her own status with the status of the face people. This will perpetually become true as self-aggrandizement is the opium of the anonymous. 

However, once the self weaning is done the paper people have to identify a subject niche in the market place considering the future market demand of ideas. Then the paper people have to develop expertise to be called by conferences, talk shows, search committees, shows, broadcasting, and print media. Like Say’s Law, which says that supply creates its own demand, every new entry of a paper people in this marketplace will create a new demand for conferences, outreach medium, and outlets for the paper person to grow through the subject niche. Once the subject niche is defined and identified in this market place, the intellectual (turned from the paper people)  has to create a demeanor to carve out a set of audience for what the intellectual delivers or says in the marketplace or in the society. 

To find out the right audience, the demeanour has to be identified for the intellectual which generally cannot be a moderate radical or an aggressive moderate. A radical has to be aggressive, vehement, adamant, seeking a world of conspiracy, deceit, and paranoia to find an audience for what they deliver as an intellectual. On another note, moderates can be slow, peaceful, placid as supporters of moderate intellectuals will like to see interactions that are more civil, subtle, with rhetorical, uninteresting strokes. Therefore moderate intellectuals will speak, express thoughts slowly, and calmly from a height but no one will remember that thought after a while. However, through this demeanour, they will establish an audience for themselves. Once the demeanor of the intellectual is set in, the intellectual has to define the strategies and path to constantly be relevant and present in all media, broadcasting, and print medium through topics that will never end but will spark attention through the catch-phrase like – “The End of History” where everyone knows that –“History Never Can End”.

Moreover, the intellectual has to present the work in editorial pieces and in all written forms, books even though it is not or will not be read by anyone. A process of praise inflation has to be set in for the work of the intellectual, where a group of intellectuals will continue to praise the work of the intellectual and in reciprocity the intellectual will also praise the work of them. The superficiality of praise will be inflated in a way whereby just looking at the book someone will like it, by reading the first few pages and not completing it someone will love it, and by entirely reading the book someone will praise the book as – “Brilliant”. The intellectual has to keep on writing in books which are defined by their publication houses in the course of the career of the intellectual. The journey will be defined more by the stature of the publication houses and not by the content of the book by the intellectual.  So, a writer’s career should be known by the journey of her publishing houses beginning with University of Chicago Press. This will be followed by W.W.  Norton with the big think tank being directed to Simon Schuster. Finally, this needs to be followed by a blockbuster memoir of an intellectual which should be published by Random House.

Once this stage is set in, the intellectual has to be present in all conferences with the elites, and has to hop in from one conference to the other with a glass of wine and by being flocked by the clan of the same set of people and the high flyers. The conference will function like a – “Stock Exchange of Status” where one will assess the value of fame, and growth through the recognition, sycophancy, flattering by everyone else in the conference. The value of an intellectual will be determined by such a stock exchange by showing how many people are coming to meet and talk to the intellectual and stopping by and greeting, flattering the intellectual in the dinner party and also in the panel with long set of introductions. Gradually, the intellectual also has to be present in the glamour world, TV shows and hang out with the famous rich people from all frontiers of society in TV, Conferences and other meeting platforms like retreats. This mingling will create a crisis of Status – Income Disequilibrium (SID) between the “Intellectual and The Rich”. The intellectual and rich will reach a social equality. However,  while the intellectual will get the recognition during work time, and in socialisation events, they will feel inferior to the rich once they get back to their homes. The rich on the other hand will like to feel significant like the intellectual even though they have the money.

With this convergence, the gap between intellectuals, glamour stars, film stars, business people will reduce. Intellectuals will be concerned about their glamour demeanour and they will realise they all are same as they all have worked hard to be reputed. The cultural  gulf between the classes will be submerged but it will create a new tension – a tension of social annoyance through money.

Conclusion:

In the America of 1950s when middle-class intellectuals socialized with each other, rich was remote to the middle-class intellectuals. Gradually, as time passed, the rich and the intellectuals achieved social equality but with the creation of a Status – Disequilibrium for the middle-class intellectuals in which they spend the day in glory in the workplace but once they are back at home they feel inferior and live a life of mediocrity (by a comparison of themselves with the rich which was remote but now they have mixed). At work the intellectuals get the attention of the Rich and at home they are wondering if they can afford a new car but they also want to stay in the higher income bracket and cant go down to the lower income bracket. So the intellectual who suffers from Status – Income Disequilibrium suffers from the worry of money and reputation and hence she has to look for market opportunities to find a market niche for himself or herself. The worry of the rich in this process of evolution of intellectual degradation has to be to gain significance. Rich in this process is paid to do dull mundane tasks whereas the intellectual is paid to do interesting and provoking staffs and at the same time becomes a Status-Income Disequilibrium (SID) sufferer. SID is actually an evolutionary remnant of the class war between the bourgeois business person and the bohemian intellectual who  glowered at each other from distance for ages and now they mingle and want to become each other and could not become  like a mingled identity due to the tension of money. The intellectual of today therefore is not any more an identity of loft ideas, self exiled personalities from mainstream but they are wise with a feet and larger understanding of both sides of the world. Through this evolution of intellectuals, they are more like William Whyte of 1950s and they are looking out for an audience of their work using different broadcasting, communication, marketing modes. Today’s such intellectuals are trying to be meaningful by finding out their niche audiences and create a substantial impact just as William Whyte was doing in the 1950s!

Story of A BSA SLR On The Day of Kafka Centenary Celebration

 Today, June 3rd, 2024 marks the day of Franz Kafka's centenary celebration. Today, rather, yesterday since midnight, I have been missing my BSA SLR cycle as soon as I remembered that June 3rd , 2024 is Kafka's centenary year of celebration. The reason behind missing the BSA SLR is quite associatively simple. The centenary year reminds me of Kafka's conversation with the crying girl in the Steglitz Park of Berlin who had lost a doll. Every day, Kafka and the girl would meet at the Park and Kafka would hand over a letter on behalf of the doll to the girl. The letters used to bring solace to the little girl telling her not to cry as her beloved doll had gone on an adventure to see the world. The doll through Kafka would tell the little girl a story using a letter which would be given by Kafka to the little girl. Gradually, one day the doll had come back to Berlin as Kafka gifted the little girl the doll along with a letter which said that the adventure trips had changed the doll. When finally Kafka died, the girl discovered  an unnoticed, tucked letter in the doll which said that - "Everything we love would be lost someday but at the end of the story it comes back in a different form". 

Today's centenary day has made me almost like that little girl. However, while the little girl was looking for the doll, I was looking for my BSA SLR back. The earliest model of bicycle was gifted to me when I was in Class IV with which came our middle-class dreams of exploration, pain, love, despair, aspiration, heartbreaks. Every time I rode the bicycle, I felt like Oliver Right, Jay, Veeru of Sholay, Amitabh Bacchan of Muqaddar Ka Sikander. Some times I also felt like the Elliot, Gertie of ET after I had watched them in Nandan. My BSA SLR then reminded me of Mick Doohan of 90s'. It immediately used to take me off to the scale of Yezdi, Enfield, Yamaha and I would feel high up in the ladder. 

My BSA SLR reminded me of Uttam Kumar of Soptopodi with Suchitra Sen being at the back seat of a motorcycle and of so many Hollywood, Bollywood, Tollywood films. BSA SLR was love for me. It helped me to transcend from reality to my space where all heroes from pages of literature, comics, cinema will come and play with me. I used to imagine myself as being in the pages of Blue Lotus of Tintin with my Indie Street Dog and Trampy Snowies who were equally beautiful. 

However, gradually, the images of my magic realism faded but the memories didn't go away. My BSA SLR also started to get old. An adolescent BSA SLR became an adult gradually and started to become old as I grew in age from Class IV to BSc in Economics till I did not leave Kolkata. I did everything to ensure that my BSA SLR stayed in the same old rented house of our 11/1, Upendra Biswas Sarani, Jadavpur just near the closed meter box as soon as the door of the house was opened. It was metaphorical of me on why I loved to always keep my BSA SLR in that position in the house. One was there was no other space left for the large memory that the physical structure of my BSA SLR carried with itself. The other reason was as soon as you opened the gate of 11/1, Upendra Biswas Sarani, my BSA SLR even then in 2001 was old but would greet every new visitor with its memories which were my memories too of 11/1, Upendra Biswas Sarani. 

As years passed by from 1999 to 2002 and I was getting ready to leave Kolkata for my masters in JNU, my BSA SLR was crying for elderly care. This was because my joint rides with my BSA SLR to keep riding on life and moving on through its mental health conditions had stopped by. In my times of depression, BSA SLR took care of me. It took me to Jharnar Math, Jadavpur University ground, the corners of South Kolkata, Bijoygarh, Garia without ever failing and letting me know that it had got old and needed elderly care. It also demanded a therapy from counsellors while I secretly rode on it and went to Baul Mon near Ibrahim Pur Road being troubled by existential questions of life. It was silently doing everything. In 2002, once I came to New Delhi, I left my BSA SLR alone at Upendra Biswas Sarani. After that, two times I went back and would ask my Dad how my BSA SLR was doing. It was lying lonely. I would rub my hands on its handles trying to show my care. But I think my BSA SLR had faced its mental obsolescence by then. I suffered a lot of guilt during the entire 2002 about not getting my BSA SLR back to JNU campus and in my hostel Jhelum. Everytime, I saw a student in a bicycle in JNU, my BSA SLR was in front of my eye and I could not do anything for my SLR. 

Often, at midnight when I would not sleep in the hostel and study in the mess room, I would silently go to the place where all cycles of hostels would be parked. Those were not the days of car or motorcycle in JNU but of bicycles. I would secretly touch any BSA SLR model (if they could be found) and try to communicate with my BSA SLR back at Jadavpur, Kamarpara. I would try to feel the memories of my BSA SLR and the smell of my growing up from 80s to 90s through the entire socio-cultural set up of Kamarpara, Jadavpur, rural, suburbs, townships of West Bengal. After sometime, during December 2002, one night while I was trying to feel my BSA SLR again by touching a similar cycle at the Jhelum Hostel when everyone was asleep and I was studying in the mess-room, I could hear a cry. After that, my communication with my BSA SLR was over. I could not let it go away from me on the November 2002 chill of Delhi. The night was horrible. I could not sleep and went to the toilet of Jhelum Hostel around 3.00 am and was looking at the mirror with a shaky tremor. 

It was 2002. Almost after 21 years back, last year during June 16 - June 23, 2023, I went back to my elder brother's house at the Central Park, Jadavpur which is very nearby to our child hood house of 11/1, Upendra Biswas Sarani. I saw an abandoned cycle at the balcony of the Central Park House which also was crying just like my BSA SLR whom I had abandoned in my life. 

I immediately asked my elder brother, Dabhai to take out the cycle on a Sunday and fill it up with air. He immediately pampered me by taking out the cycle from the Balcony and filled it up with the air. I got up in the Bicycle and started following my Dabhai and their son "Kakai" (as he calls me) in a rickshaw. 

The rickshaw started moving from Central Park to 11/1 Upendra Biswas Sarani of Kamarpara. It felt like I was chasing their rickshaw and was going back to my past of Kamarpara of 80s and 90s. I was going back to my BSA SLR who I had abandoned and could not take to JNU when I left Kolkata for good.

However, just like Kafka's little girl at the Park in the Centenary Year, last year, my love of BSA SLR came back to me while I chased the rickshaw that was taking my "Dabhai" and "Kakai" in a rickshaw back to Kamarpara and to the past of my memories of BSA SLR. Love moved away but it came back last year during a Sunday as I reached my old childhood house and memories through a new cycle while chasing that rickshaw. It reminded me of this little girl at the Park whom Kafka had gifted the letter of the "Doll".

A Pleasurable Act of Enjoying a Psychopath in The Other: Animal, Kabir Singh, Bhakshak, Dahad, Mirzapur, Darlings, and many more in the infinite order…………….

 The society of India has been worshipping the act of enjoying a Psychopath in the Other. The trends and patterns of the success achieved by some of the recent films indicate such a paradigm. Society today worships and enjoys the act of seeing a Psychopath in the other. When such a Psychopath takes a larger-than-life measurable form in the shape of a character in the films – “Animal”, “Kabir Singh”, the bonhomie reaches a new pinnacle.

The booming box office numbers, whistling in various cinematic frames, and clapping, and jeering crowds within the cinema halls are a testimony to this worshipping of the Psychopath in the other. The most disturbing and astonishing element of this worship lies in the following statement – “While the family members of the Psychopath are disturbed and struggling to deal with the Psychopath in the film, the audience is cheering fully to the phenomenon and clapping to the Psychopath”.

This was a statement by Konkana Sen Sharma in the latest interview. Then why does the audience clap and whistle and create a box office hit while the family of the Psychopath in the cinematic frame struggles in a film called – “Animal”. This is because, in a way, the audience is celebrating the psychopath in the other on the visual frame by escaping his/her/their internal psychopath lying within the psychoanalytic zone. As a society, we tend not to do our Psychoanalysis and identify the innate one while we celebrate the same when we see the Psychopath in the other.

The other in the characters of various films, and web series in recent periods has only strengthened this hypothesis of – “Society Celebrating the Psychopath” in the “Other” while escaping the own inner one. This is also happening in most of the celebratory content of all the audio-visual medium web series on the Web. The society also in a way has started to believe that to come out of the inner ills of psychopathy within individuals and in society a larger Psychopath might be needed.  When that Psychopath and the Psychopathy are visually projected on screen, the mass escapes from their psychopathic self; and celebrates the rescue of a psychopathic society by a psychopath while the actual character in the film or the audiovisual medium struggles or troubles the characters around him/her/they in the communication medium. The infinite chain of such a psychopathic order has been already established and it will continue in the infinite loop in the future.

Heat Stress and Energy Consumption - An Act of Jouissance?

 The word jouissance was coined by Lacan which means “satisfaction of a drive and not as the satisfaction of a need”. The French term means – “Pleasure- In – Pain”. Lacan associates the word with a repetitive act or a compulsive act which we do over and over again even though in the end it causes us pain. The act of human-induced climate change coupled with our unbridled growth and energy consumption drive can be seen as a “Jouissance”. The perpetual satisfaction of greed and drive to chase money and orient an economy and demand system of chasing money forces an unsustainable energy consumption behaviour and economic growth. It creates a demand for fossil fuel consumption and leads to human-induced climate change from GHG emissions arising from such economic activities and unbridled energy consumption.  

The human-induced climate change then causes heat waves, climate disasters, heat stresses, and urban heat islands which causes pain to the urban civilization who was the cause to the creation of such a pain. In the perpetual need to sustain an urban civilizational behavior of energy consumption through energy-efficient or inefficient AC in urban heat islands, the pain and pleasure continue for eternity for urban heat islands of modern civilization. 

Therefore, pleasure stays in the form of larger energy-efficient AC consumption at a higher rate, while pain in the form of increasing heatwaves in cities and urban heat islands also prospers. The continuation happens to an extent where cities like Delhi of North India which are more prone to heatwaves and already have created heat islands have to be more worried to be prepared for a daily peak load demand of around more than 8 GW in the summer season of 2024. 

Given the international net zero commitment of India in 2070, a city like Delhi which is a victim as well as the creator of urban heat islands and heat effects from human-induced climate change is forced to think of procuring power from renewable energy sources to address the forecasted peak demand of 8 GW in the summer season of 2024. 

The onus of supplying electricity by procuring from renewable energy sources therefore falls upon the loss-making DISCOM sector of India. Delhi is also not an exception. Hence, in Delhi, distribution companies like Tata Power DDL, BSES Rajdhani Power, BSES Yamuna Power have to make arrangements for sourcing renewable energy based electricity to meet the rising electricity demand. Tata Power DDL has a consumer base of 19 lakh whereas BSES has 2 crore 50 lakh residents in South, West, East, and Central Delhi. In each of these zones, wherever the peak demand goes up due to say higher AC consumption during summer, it creates a higher propensity of urban heat effect while the summer heatwaves also continue in a homogenous way across all zones of Delhi. Hence the act of pleasure and pain continues simultaneously in the urban, civilizational landscape of Delhi. 

In the meantime, for the Jouissance to continue complemented by renewable energy sources, the loss-making DISCOMs get into long-term power purchase and banking arrangements with other neighboring states to supply power to Delhi amid the heat waves of summer. Through a power banking arrangement, DISCOMs of Delhi ensure to get 670 MW. Around 2100 MW of green power is sourced from solar, wind, and waste-to-energy sources to sustain the pain and pleasure game of heat effects and energy consumption behaviour of Delhi residents. Out of the 2100 MW of green power, 888 MW comes from solar power, 500 MW arises from wind power and 40 MW is generated from Waste-to Energy, and 160 MW of roof-top solar power is installed on roof-tops which will also be utilized to mitigate the peak load demand of the summer months. 

The question is are these sources enough to reduce the fossil fuel-based electricity consumption of Delhi which can thereby reduce the human-induced impacts of climate change and also reduce the heat effects, and heat stresses caused by human behavior while the heat waves of Delhi summer months continue. Clearly, the answer is NO! Rising energy consumption behaviour needs to be checked by Battery Energy  Storage Systems (BESS) but that also adds to the cost of supplying power and electricity and might not always be viable for ailing DISCOMs and cost friendly for the consumers. However, the good news is that Delhi already has its Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) at Rohini and Rani Bagh and it promises to support in providing continuous and reliable power to key customers during any exigency in summers. 

However, the cost economics of BESS driven power supply by DISCOMs across various cities of India still needs to be worked out. According to many, pumped storage works out better than BESS. However, some successful BESS-driven Power Purchase Contracts are operational where concessional loans were given to set up the BESS by DISCOMs. However, there is no definite answer to this aspect. Heat effects in the peaking summers of Delhi can cause eventualities for which mobile distribution transformers, additional staff, dedicated round-the-clock teams, and supply restoration infrastructure for sub-transmission systems have to be created. All of these would mean additional costs and investments which can be a challenge for loss making DISCOMs. 

Hence, a radical push need to come in to implement all the above measures to take the entire system out of this Jouissance. Apart from regulatory, policy, and financial measures and incentives to take out the system from this Jouissance of Heat Effect and Energy Consumption, a complete shift in the social and economic system is required. In the long term, a city life structure like Delhi is not sustainable if heat waves, and climate disasters increase. With the rise of such climate events, Delhi as a city cannot afford to continue its behavior of raising heat islands through rising AC loads. New forms of city lifestyles, value systems, social nudges for reduced energy conservation and nature conservation behavior by preserving trees, and lakes have to be worked out. Cars in the city have to be reduced by pushing a degrowth-centric city lifestyle which incentivizes community-based lifestyles facilitating energy and nature conservation by incentivizing it for the citizens on a larger scale. Incentivization can be thought through in the form of a complementary money or currency system where citizens who help in reducing heat effects , heat islands or energy consumption are allowed to transact in alternative or complementary forms of currencies for the exchange of goods and services and are allowed to create a society which has an optimal amount of heat effects or heat islands. Even though it sounds like Fiction, An Act of Jouissance needs a fictional reality to secure the city civilization from future heat effects. Covid did rescue nature from us for sometime in the recent past through such a fictional reality.