2087

I estimate that if events were to go positively, then in some seventy years, in the year 2087, my great-great-grandchild will be in the range of 7-10 years, In-sha-Allah.       

It's a totally ridiculous piece of forward planning, in a world where Allah is Qadir and might dispose as He wishes.  But an even more audacious piece of forward planning is, I am hoping that these great-great-grandchildren would be resident either in Siberia or Northern Canada!!!   

   

There is some method to this thought process. If present trends continue, then not many places will be liveable on Earth. With Himalayan glaciers gone, Pakistan, Northern  India, Bangladesh and eastwards, plus Southern China will all be barren deserts, high temperature and not much to drink and eat. Other ice masses, Arctic, Greenland and Antarctic will also recede, causing damage elsewhere in the world. So, Africa, Southern Europe, Australia, much of USA, South America will be very unfriendly places too. Growing wheat will be a challenge, the outside temperature will be unbearable and water scarcity would be extreme. Some hardy souls will eke out a living from these places, but these would be like oases in a desert. Perhaps some areas of Northern Europe might be habitable, but it would be so overcrowded with climate migrants that one can see it being a messy place.

That is a conclusion I reached, having worked and lobbied on climate change and water for close on to two decades.  From being eternally passionate about saving humanity from its own folly, to being certain something will change, I have now become realist enough to feel we may be headed towards self-extermination. Sadly! Infact, recent forecasts from some experts suggest that the sixth mass extinction in this worlds history has already begun. 

Why this conclusion? Well most of you who will read this blog, are well aware that there is real danger on the horizon. But are you doing anything about it? You are going about your daily struggle of existence - and I acknowledge that goal in itself is a tough one - and do not spend a passing thought on what is coming just around the corner.

What we are witnessing today is, huge temperature rise in US, Europe and in Kuwait recently, trees by the road side caught fire, as temperatures reached 59 degree Celsius.  This is not normal and in the last fifteen years, average temperature worldwide have risen year on year. And let me elaborate a bit more. What we are witnessing today is the effect of our actions from the last century. The damage we have caused in the last twenty years, has still not come home to roost. This is a delayed cycle and it will be coming around soon enough.

While we doggedly go about our daily business of survival, ignoring our future, the damage to other species continues. So plants, animals, amphibians, birds, bees and sealife is all disappearing at a pace. We just ignore the fact that without this eco system, we will disappear too. Unfortunately, our climate sceptic corporates, with the oil and gas corporations at the head, are ignoring this story. They are simply playing out the same tactics as they did with tobacco. Pay politicians, lobbyists, scientists and media to create a sense of doubt, that the story is not real. The first knowledge that tobacco kills was available in the 1950s.  Sixty years later, they are still fighting a retreating battle of pro choice. Cigarettes are being consumed at a higher level worldwide, than it was sixty years ago. 

In the case of climate change, we have not got sixty years. We probably do not have even ten. We are standing at the edge of a precipice. If the people and nations of the world do not take immediate action, the battle is lost. It probably is even now. We need to do simple things. Consume less, travel less, burn less fossil fuel, use alternative energy, save water, stop cutting trees and plant them again. We need to go back to some of the basic ways of living, which served us well till the 19th century. If we do not do all this, we will be exterminated. That is why I personalised this at the beginning, in that I fear I too shall have no progeny to carry on the work of man.

Nations, just do not happen!

The breaking news was as usual all about dire consequences of one action or the other. One gets used to it. This is the way of all channels and media world over. Somehow, bad news travels fast, gets more attention and attracts people. Nothing like a good old disaster to get people animated. Anyway, here in Pakistan we have become de-sentisized, as we have plenty of bad news and on top of it, dozens of channels vying for breaking news. More grief!       

All the bad news notwithstanding, I would like to add my two bits to this discussion on how things have become this bad and how we are in a mess. My personal take on it is that it is nature taking its toll. Yes, Nature!    

In the past I have written on our nationhood and blamed our duality of vision. The duality being a desire to be an iconic Muslim homeland and at the same time desiring a strong economic state. We got our wires crossed, losing our vision and in the process ended up doing nothing. However, over time and after due consideration, while I still think we need a vision to take us further - otherwise there is nothing to hold us together - but the reality is that nature is taking its toll.  
    

Let me explain my statement, which I assure you is not an effort to be facetious. In the worlds written history, there have been nine great nations. There have been other good ones, but what we would classically call great, are those who have dominated their period in the world, added to knowledge and their traces are left in the working of the world even today. Historically they have lasted an average of two hundred and fifty years. Want me to count them out? Egypt, Persia, Greece, Rome, China, Arabia, Ottoman Turk, Britain, America. More or less chronologically and another interesting point; there have been no repeats. China might well turn out to be the first repeat.   

Anyway, think of these nations. They were formed layer by layer. The Egyptians took thousands of years to come to a stage of absolute dominance. Same with the Romans.  From the discovery of Romulus and Remus on the banks of the Tiber to Julius Caesar was a good several hundreds of years. These years comprise a coming together, a homogeneity of purpose, a gathering of strength, conquest and respect from others that you are the leaders. Having reached this peak, the decline starts and first society fragments, then economics falls apart and finally the military strength declines. That is the round trip of a nation.      

Now think back to August 1947. When India got independence they had a memory. They remembered the Aryans, then Alexander as he came through the Khyber Pass, later the Huns, Mongols and Babur. They owned the Red Fort and Taj Mahal. This they took as their own. This was as much their history, as Chandragupta Maurya or Ashoka or Ranjit Singh. Their culture was a melting pot of homogeneity and in economics they were working against adversity together.

Then there was Pakistan. We had a seven year history (from 1940 resolution) two clearly varying lands and cultures apart by fifteen hundred miles, a western part which comprised borderland tribes who had only invasion history in common and were diverse. We had nothing binding us, other than a principle and we competed for the same resources. This all was running uphill against history and nature. No wonder! 70 years is minuscule in history, a dot in time. We are children and still learning. When we get to our teens our time will be different and hopefully we will mature one day. This might involve another hundred years for these layers to form. In comparison to other development of nations, I would say maybe we are like the Wild West of USA just now.  

We shall get there Inshallah. Just require patience and faith. Nations just do not happen, they are chiselled into shape.

Chai please, it's not Coffee

It all started with the Nestle advertisement. The obvious commercial interest was to drive conversion from tea to coffee. That too an instant coffee mix. To me it looked more like a quick brazen attempt to drive convenience. Tea requires ritual and hard work to get the right cuppa. Instead go for an instant coffee mix, which will give you a quick strong fix. Notice no comparison of taste or tradition. This is the modern quintessential person, who has no time nor any interest in the softness of palette. He or she is in a hurry to fix it with a strong hit. 

What caught my attention though was an argument going on between some of my social media friends. There are two clear sides to the argument. One side is annoyed at this sacrilege of chai tradition - it's chai and not tea.  The other side is like   "What's the issue? Both are 'Gora' historically and so anyone or the other would do".

I had written a blog on Tea some five years back, on Borderline Green. It was about the relationship I personally have had with tea all my life, from drinking to being involved with tea and tea whitening companies. The blog also related the historical aspects of tea, its usage and production. But this is different. It's trying to judge between the qualitative aspects of two arguments. 

The argument of it being chai, tradition and significantly Pakistani, is emotionally an appealing one. It drives my sense of belonging and culture. It makes me someone. So personal bias immediately tilts towards it. Also, it so happens that I have the inside track, on the history of our tea tradition. Remember, I actually worked in Unilever and Lipton (and later Brooke Bond) who owned the tea market for half a century in Pakistan. 

During my years with Unilever, I had personal contact with the Chairman Habib-ur-Rahman (late). Habib sahib was very different. He would reach down 15 job classes to a junior employee and inspire him. So I can remember a session, when he described how both tea companies in the late 1940s and 1950s actually used ground activation to spread tea. A whole set of donkey carts would go off into the rural areas. They would carry tea leaves and a movie projector with generator power. Village to village they would assemble people and show them movies. As part of this entertainment they would sample tea. The tea would boil endlessly and become strong, thick, sweet and end up being described as karak. Apparently this activation went on for a few years and out of it was born our tradition in Pakistan of karak chai. Karak was the very characteristic which Tarang (Engro Foods) tried to replicate so successfully a decade ago.

The other 'import of Gora culture' argument, is perhaps not quite true. Tea (not chai) came via the Opium Wars, the preferred weapon the British used to beat China on its head. Tea plants were smuggled out of China to India to start tea plantations. As it so happened, it was indigenous Indian tea plants which eventually worked and this skulduggery came to nothing. But, neither tea nor coffee are products of temperate climates anyway. They do not grow in Western countries, but are imported from Africa, South America and Asia. They were drunk a millennium before any Portuguese sailor ever saw them. It was an acquired taste for Europe and later North America. So I am not sure how it can be claimed as Gora culture.

For me the argument spins on the usage of milk in chai. It is so, so different from anywhere else in the world. In India its masala chai. In Britain it is a weak milky tea, and in US and others, it's no milk. In Pakistan its Habib sahibs 'karak chai'. For us the thickened, sometimes sweetened concoction is our creation and over 70 years has become our tradition.  So to all wannabes out there. Chai please, its not Coffee!

Related link. /https://sarfarazar.wordpress.com/2012/07/14/tea-best -drink-of-the-day/