By keeping lights on all night,Bengaluru's high end stores are affecting the environment

It’s 11 pm. A typical night in Bengaluru. After meeting with friends, one wanders out of a pub and into the streets, bathed in incandescent glory that cascades down the buildings. As one drives past Indiranagar 100 feet Road, Nike, Adidas, Blackberry, Allen Solly stores, one after the other whizz by.  While drowning in the hallucinogen that is capitalism one can’t help but notice that the stores are desolate, but the lights inside are on. Bengaluru, the IT capital of India, is alight but the teeming workers are long gone. Faceless mannequins gaze out of showrooms, enjoying the spotlights.

 

A drive post 10 pm around the city’s busiest localities, such as the shopping districts of Indiranagar and prominent office areas such as Whitefield and Marathahalli reveals a strange and recent urban phenomenon. Perhaps emulating the west, most offices and commercial spaces leave their lights on well past business hours, even after the shutters are drawn. The city never sleeps they say. In this age of alarming depletion of natural resources and need for energy conservation, doesn’t this unwarranted usage of energy smack of environmental irresponsibility?

‘Keep your lights’ on is a figurative way to say that keep your business afloat. It’s often a tool of marketing or visual merchandising where one hopes that even after business hours are done, passers-by lured by the mannequins or products on display would visit the store next day, presumably to purchase. While marketing is the most common reason for keeping lights on, some showrooms also use it as deterrent for crime since burglaries are less likely to happen in a lighted area.

Bengaluru’s IT capital status and the 24 hour economy means that a lot of companies work according to US or UK timings that necessitates the use of power through the night.  Also, several new age companies that offer flexible timings leave their lights on to encourage and help employees who come to work at hours convenient to them, which may include late nights. While some offices claim the lights are left on for the janitorial staff to perform their duties, offices that are part of larger parks or work campuses point out that the control of electricity is operated centrally and that they don’t have the choice of turning off or saving electricity. At the expense of development are our environmental costs escalating?

The main sources of power in the Karnataka are thermal and hydel, followed by alternate sources such as solar and wind. Bengaluru gets its supply largely through thermal power (mostly coal, gas and diesel and sometimes nuclear), which is generated from the various power stations in the state and from centrally owned CGS or Central Generating Stations that are distributed across the country, such as Neyveli Lignite Corporation in Tamil Nadu and Kaiga Atomic Station in North Karnataka.  Each CGS provides 1000 MW to the state it’s located in. The other source is NCEP (Non-Conventional Energy Project) that uses wind, solar, and biomass to generate power. KPCL, (Karnataka Power Corporation Limited) is the state agency that is in charge of procuring power from different stations, including from other states if need be. Another state agency, Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Limited (KTPCL) then transmits the power to the different ESCOMs. Typically, Bengaluru is allotted an average of 2000 MW per day, and uses up 45 million unit of power while the rest of the state gets 6000 MW, consuming 140 million. Bengaluru consumes 1/3^rd of the electricity of the state. Though BESCOM (Bangalore Electricity Supply Company) is allotted 2000 MW per day for the city, most often the demand exceeds supply by at least 300-600 MW, and following supposed directions from the government to provide 24-hour supply to the city; BESCOM draws more from the grid.

In Bengaluru, BESCOM provides electricity in two slabs, one for domestic use (residents) and the other for commercial. Commercial spaces may further come under another category called LT users (lower tension, tension being a French word for voltage) that are used by small shops and businesses, and HT (high tension) used by organisations that require high inputs of power such as film studios and big offices. Off late,gated communities and multi- storied residential complexes have come under HT category. On April 11^th of 2017, the KERC (Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Committee) announced an 8% increase in tariff resulting in an average hike in tariff of around Re 1.48 per unit. As per the new guidelines, one unit (1000 KW) of power for commercial purposes costs Rs. 5 for the first 50 units and 7.15 onward for the next 50.

A casual stroll around the city reveals that a showroom, on a minimum, leaves around 6 -10 spotlights on during the night. Assuming that the store shuts at 10 pm, and opens at 10am the next day; the lights are left on for 12 hours.

A typical spotlight used by a store is a halogen lamp that is available in different wattages, ranging from 3, 5, 8,12, 17 35 80 watts etc.

An 80 watts light, used for 12 hour for will consume 960 watt .One unit of electricity is 1000 KW.  Hence one light bulb consumes 0.96 units for the night. In monetary terms, this translates into Rs .6.86 per lamp. Thereby, if the store leaves 6 spotlights on through the night, the total cost would be Rs. 41 per day. Subsequently, the monthly expenditure for keeping the lights on through the night would hover around Rs.1235. While the monetary expense of leaving the lights on may not be a big concern for showrooms or corporates, the environmental costs are a cause for concern. Also, when the electricity demand of the city increases and BESCOM is forced to draw more from the grid to feed the city, the rural areas may have to face the brunt. Most rural areas never have continuous or uninterrupted power supply, with daily power cuts ranging around 4 hours minimum. Though government officials promise that rural power supply is not being comprised for the city, with the rampant shortage of power all through the country especially during summer, the electricity board maybe forced to distribute power unequally.

In terms of an environmental perspective, the costs are heavier. Environmental experts peg the carbon dioxide emission factor (amount of CO2 released per unit of electricity) for electricity to be around 0.527 kg per unit. Therefore a single store that leaves its 6 spotlights on through the night emits around 3.12 kgs of CO2 everyday. Imagine the number of shops around the city and their respective CO2 emissions. The numbers are staggering.

Unless one is a Trump supporter and strongly believes that global warming is hoax, these numbers are worrying and question our responsibility towards the environment. Solutions include shifting to motion-sensor lights (to discourage criminal activity) and LED lamps that consume less electricity. But the larger question looms large. Do we want a city that depletes energy on a gigantic scale and contributes to heavy light pollution? Do we need advertising at the cost of our rural population? Do we really need a city that never sleeps?

-Originally published in The News Minute on May 28th 2017

Motherhood is a choice and nine other truths we should keep in mind

Tears streamed down my cheeks. The credits were rolling and I was fighting the urge to call my mother. I wanted to collapse into the folds of her sari and sob, like the many times before. But this time I knew Amma would be bemused. Why would a 33-year-old cry over a seemingly simple movie called English Vinglish? Though I don’t recall taunting my mother over her English, Sridevi, in the movie, personified everything that my mother is. The way she wore her sari, pleats tucked into her hip, her minute idiosyncrasies and most of all her courage of conviction. Like Sridevi, my mother fits the ‘perfect mother’ trope to the hilt- she is nurturing, she holds fort while we are all away, busy living our own lives. She is often our friend and guardian but mostly a parachute when we come crashing down. We take her for granted, we project our daily moods on her and like every mother she prioritises us before herself and like every Indian mother, if she had had the opportunity to work (and wasn't bogged down by the family and its extensions) I knew she would have excelled in that too.

30 years later came little Maya who gave birth to me, her mother.

I fell headlong into the failings and trappings of motherhood and till date struggle to meet the standards that my mother set. But I am a different mother.   I love my space as much as I love my daughter. I often complain of being stressed, a word my parents seldom used though they had more mouths to feed and many more issues to deal with. Sometimes when I look at Maya, I get sneaky little thoughts such as " what have I done?"

Trump is the president of America, same-sex marriages are becoming common, but the myths of motherhood have hardly ebbed. Parenting changes one for the better and worse, and while I am still learning on the job, here is my list of little nuggets about motherhood that will hopefully cause a minor dent in India's most loved and misunderstood motif.

1.Motherhood is a choice

 A growing number of youngsters, including many of my girl- friends, who are biologically fit and happy women, do not want to become a parent and that is ok. Either they don't feel motherly or think a little human being is too much responsibility to bear (fair point). Sometimes they simply don't feel it's right to contribute to the exploding population. Nothing is 'wrong' with them. It's a choice. Just as it was my choice to have a baby.

2. Mothers come in all shapes and sizes, there is in no one prototype

Society believes that mothers come with a manual. The ‘ideal mother’ is the one you see in breakfast cereal commercials. She cooks for her children, monitors their screen time, arranges play dates, hyperventilates about the nutritional value of the pizza they gulp down or the stain in their clothes and constantly strives (while comparing best practices with fellow moms) to improve their quality of life.  While there are several women who have dedicated their life to being the ‘ideal’ and are happy to do so, this is a stereotype and not a rule. Some mothers aren't ‘maternal’ in the traditional sense of the term and it doesn't come naturally to them. It doesn't mean that they don't love their child or that they have a faulty genetic mutation. It definitely doesn’t mean that they are a bad parent either. To each his own.

3. Post-partum depression is real. Did anyone tell you that as a new mother you can feel up to a hundred emotions the same day, sometimes swing from being upbeat to downcast to downright repulsed? Women are hardly ecstatic postpartum. When I looked at Maya for the first time, she looked like a little Tibetan monk to me, with slit like eyes and puffy cheeks. I wanted to say “Dalai Llama” to the next pesky relative who asked me whom she resembled. It was hard to digest that I had made a little human. While I was combating feelings of disbelief and gripping pain, the world was moving in super motion, with a steady stream of visitors trooping in unannounced and nurses barging in one after another and violently squeezing my breast to induce breast-feeding. In the background the family was busy laying claims on Maya’s nose, eyebrows and what not. Amidst all the pandemonium, I was sitting, alone, hit by waves of confusion. Isn’t this supposed to be the happiest day of my life? Then why am I sad? I was thrilled for sure. But I was not flooded with affection for the tiny screaming monk. Am I weird? I pondered, wiping away the gush of tears. Can I do this? I plodded around for weeks with almost no recollection of how I lived prior to the birth of the little miss. Everything was a hazy. Days blurred into nights and nights seemed longer than before. It did not take hours, not days, but weeks for this conundrum of mixed emotions to settle down.

4. Love at first sight?  Childbirth is often romanticised. It’s a happy picture of the baby being handed to the new mother, who clasps the child to her bosom and cries happy tears. For me, the love for Maya was never instant. The floodgates didn’t open on cue.  Besides the fact that I don’t believe in love at first sight (except when it’s cake), the chronic lack of sleep, the waves of depression and the baby’s routine of crying, feeding and pooping on loop for the first three months didn’t help the cause either. It’s been 2 years now, and the more I get to know Maya, the more I get to know myself and the greater I love her.  With each passing day I get to see a little more of her personality unfurl in front of me, and it’s fascinating. Will she be stoic like the husband or bear my sentimentality? I wonder. But mostly I hope she is like herself. Unique.

Motherhood for me has not been a flooding of love, but more like a gentle fragrance that slowly wafts into a room and immerses one in it, silently, eventually.

5. Mothers are lonely creatures. Giving up a job, nursing a hungry baby behind closed doors, and skipping lunches with friends to run after an amok toddler can be exhausting and incredibly lonely.  During my first trimester I was diagnosed with Hyperemesis Gravidarum, which in simple terms refers to extreme vomiting, including losing the ability to drink water without throwing up. Kindred with the best intentions of-course showed me a news article that said that pregnant Kate Middleton was suffering from the same. Great. Yet Kate was standing outside the hospital, all glowing and her hair freshly blown. Years later the same Kate Middleton while speaking about mental health mentioned how as a mother she often felt lonely and isolated. I caught myself nodding then. She may be a princess, the Duchess of Cambridge, with hundreds of people milling around her, but she was fighting the demons, the same ones many of us do, everyday.

6.Every mother's constant companion is guilt.

 She is afraid of not fulfilling the million expectations that tug down her neck. She is scared of falling short. Not like a ‘Best Mother’ Trophy is waiting. Breastfeeding was my biggest of woes. Feeding the baby was extremely difficult. The milk was not coming in and when it did, the baby was not latching on. Dwindling supply, nipple shields, sore breasts, lazy baby, sleepy baby, dream feeds, and the whole paraphernalia.  Every relative who scorned at formula feed and every article with pictures of robust breast-fed babies acing their milestones added to my guilt and I was officially depressed. Overnight my identity changed from the confident teacher to failure mother. It finally took a kind-hearted lactation consultant, (never knew such a job profile existed!) to put an end to the tears; to tell me that some babies do not enjoy breastfeeding, that breastfeeding is not natural, but a learnt art.

7.There is no super-woman.

We must give up our obsession with the ‘super- woman’ trope. Celebrating the super-woman, the multi tasking, omnipresent goddess, who aces her job whilst building the perfect home is an unrealistic and unreasonable expectation. Such women are barely super, and only suffer from severe burn out. Hold the compliments. The ‘superwoman’ would prefer the division of chores or help in running errands instead.

8.The ideal mother stereotype hurts many

It hurts not only the mother, but the children too. Children whose mothers don’t fit the stereotype often feel remorseful, and cheated by life.

9.Mothers, take a break.

The journey of a mother is a journey of worry. It starts the day you hear the heart beat on the Doppler. From then it's a series of counting kicks, nit-picking on the food they eat, choosing the school, the friends they make, what they do behind closed doors and what they do when they walk out of those doors. I am 33 with a decent human as a husband and a healthy baby, but this ordeal of worry for my parents still hasn't ended. I am no Zen master, but maybe mothers can cut themselves some slack every now and then, or take the ‘chillpill’ as your child may suggest. Parenting is an endurance sport and is not worth squandering time over constantly beeping parent Whatsapp groups that are infested with tiger moms and ninja dads who love to feed off your rising blood pressure. No, the classrooms don't have to be air-conditioned, your kid will learn to read aloud too and it's ok if they don't have a play date this weekend. Maybe they can stare at a wall or draw on the floor. We never had all this and we managed fine.

10.Motherhood is fun and fulfilling but it doesn’t hurt to have a plan B.

You can sing all the rhymes to her now and she will gape at you in complete admiration. But there will come a day when she will tell you, quite nonchalantly that you sound terrible. That for the every nth time of putting her to sleep and the quiet tiptoe to freedom, there will be a time when the teenager will want to be left alone. The little green shoes with pink roses that she waddles around in so proudly will give way to the day when she scorns at the dress you buy her. They grow up too fast and times change too soon.

I know that, that day, Maya will teach me a valuable life lesson; the important difference between letting go and holding on. The nest will get empty. But when mine does, I am hoping the multi faceted avatar of mine with varied interests will not only know how to keep myself busy but enjoy it too.

-Originally published in thenewsminute.com on 14th May 2017