My Journey of Faith

Since the mid-80s, I was of the opinion that the activities of humankind were transforming the world in an unsustainable way. I had researched about this view and found it validated in a lot of writings. I wrote newspaper articles about it in 1988. I discussed a number of alternative courses of social action with my Dad for dealing with it... but I ended up doing nothing other than imposing a sort of penance, subsisting largely on uncooked foods for many months in 1999, and adopting a monk-like dress-code in 2002.

Seeing Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth, in July 2007 was for me a vindicating experience. Here was someone with great credibility saying everything that I had been wanting to say all along, and saying it with style and effectiveness. It triggered me with a sense of urgency.
The film, screened at our chamber of commerce, was like a gas lighter's spark to a gas stove; already combustible, I needed that spark to ignite me into action.

The first task that I undertook, with the support of my chamber's anti-global-warming committee, was a mundane one: show the film to a lot of people in my city. And so I began to show the film around on my laptop, editing it down with fast-forwarding to about 55 minutes, delivering a short talk, fielding questions, clairfying, discussing alternative courses of action.

Here is a list of these meetings:

1) Screening at CCI's C K Naidu hall, Churchgate, on 26th July for 120 persons from the financial services sector , in coordination with Tata Mutual Fund, which then independently showed the film five times before audiences in Delhi, Bangalore and Calcutta.

2) Screening for 300 children of New Era School, August Kranti Maidan, on 26th July, Standards 6th, 8th, 9th and 10th.

3) On August 5, Sunday, 80 persons (25 families) at Railway Officers Club at Byculla watched this film before lunch.

4) On 5th September, 40 railway engineers at the Parel workshop saw the film and discussed Climate Change and viable responses.

5) On 10th September, 90 high-school students of Ram Ratna Vidya Mandir, a boarding school at Bhayender, watched this film and discussed lines of action with me over lunch.

6) 19th September at St Xaviers Boys Academy, New Marine Lines. 300 students watched intensely and 20 of them participated in an intense discussion held afterwards in the vice-principal's office.

7) 28th September at USV Limited, Govandi. 75 pharmaceutical lab technicians and their bosses, including their vice-chairman, watched the screening.

8) 18th October at Bombay Management Association. A high-quality audience of 40 persons raptly watched the screening. Two of those present there -- Prof. Bhavna Motwani and Mr Tejus Coulagi -- went on to become intensely involved with this cause. Soon afterwards, we formed an informal group called Children of the Earth. This group has organized two screenings at colleges subsequently, and has held three internal meetings. We are now attracting more members.

9) 14th November at Rotary Club of Navi Mumbai Hillside. An audience of 30 yielded a couple of very promising contacts. The vice principal of a very large college in Navi Mumbai is organizing a full day conference of teachers, besides other 2-hour seminars for students.

10) 26th November at Saraf College, Malad West. Prof Motwani and I addressed 300 girl BCom students for an hour, with a 20-minute screening of An Inconvenient Truth. It was my first experience of a mofussil audience. I became aware that Al Gore's film alone could not reach out to all audiences; I needed to weave oratory and humour into the mix.

11) On 8th December, I was present at a seaside amphitheatre at Khardanda where an awareness programme had been organized by some concerned citizens along with Greenpeace. Without meaning to steal the show, I turned out to be one of the main speakers there, and also facilitated the screening of Greenpeace films.

12) 11th December at Somaiya College, Vidyavihar. Prof Motwani & I addressed 100 students of BSc, along with their teachers, Principal and Vice Principal.

13) On 18th December, for about 90 minutes, I addressed 80 boys and girls of Std 9 at Colaba Municipal school, without screening the movie. It was an demanding job, engaging the mind of this audience without going into scientific abstractions of global warming.

Other activities:

1) Two weeks back, while travelling by train, I entered into a conversation with a peddler of books, who turned out to have a flair for scripting and directing street plays. Our discussions threw up a lot of ideological common-ground. Yesterday afternoon, I addressed a small gathering of slum youths near his chawl in Vile Parle. Many of these youths will act in a street play that we are scripting, and shall enact before slum audiences organized jointly with Rotary etc. For the first time in many months, I am experiencing a need to raise funds to keep this street play going.

2) In the last two months, I have emailed hundreds of members of Parliament, Central Ministers, students of IGIDR, Sardar Patel Institute, Management Institutes, IITs, bankers and economists, administrators, activists etc. I am carrying out a concerted campaign on the internet, through blogs, emails, comments to others' blogs, message boards etc.

3) I have designed Tshirts with slogans and attractive visuals, and am working at circulating them, enabling people to 'Walk the Talk and Wear the Talk'.

4) I have handed out a large number of DVDs and CDs with data on global warming, and xeroxed pamphlets of different kinds.

5) I have attended several meetings organized on Global Warming, at the British Council and other fora. I continue to network with activists and intellectuals, while also working with a more ordinary strata of citizens. All of this activity continues to happen on a day-to-day basis, several hours a day.

Upcoming Events:

1) I shall address a Rotary Club in Kala Ghoda, South Mumbai on 10th January, and another in Borivli on 11th January 2008.

2) Prof. Motwani and I will orient around 30 teachers on Global Warming on 21 st January at a state-sponsored seminar in Navi Mumbai. We shall speak on Corporate Social Responsibility and Citizens' Responsibility in the context of Global Warming.

3) Meetings are being fixed up for slum audiences and mofussil gatherings in coordination with Rotary and others. For such audiences, we have to structure our message differently. The street plays being produced are part of this effort.

Please don't take this as a boastful statement about how much I've done. What I'm trying to say here is: I'm dead serious, and this is a fascinating journey. Is there anybody else on the iland who would like to join me in spreading awareness or organizing some form of action on this problem? Please let us join hands and earnestly work on this problem.

Fighting global warming (or indeed taking on any such problem of similar magnitude) needs several leaps of faith, and then it needs to become a journey. I'm hoping that a few thinking people here on the iland will make these leaps of faith and run shoulder-to-shoulder with me.