Day in And Day out 

(This is actually a tweaked, refined version of an article I wrote way back on 21^st November 2013)

Now-a-days not a single day passes without it being a day. The other day I came to know that the previous day had been a World Food Day. That day, thanks to the unpredictability of my stomach’s acidity, I had a bad day and settled for liquid food only. Had it not been for my ignorance about it being World Food Day, I would have binged that day as if there’s no tomorrow! Is there any other way a wise man can live up to whatever world food day stands for?

It’s time someone told, whoever is behind these ‘days’, these days, that there are only 365 days in a year and hence one year can hardly accommodate all the things we fancy, fear, love, hate or care for. Which in turn means for some ‘days’, we may have to wait for 4 years for the leap year   to turn.

 Recently World Disaster Prevention Day came and went with a whimper-fortunately there were neither any major disasters, and hence, nor preventions! If I had any say in deciding on which date what day shall fall, I would have suggested the day tsunami hit us as the World Disaster Prevention Day as that remains etched in our memory when all our preventive measures fell flat. (Of course it was a calamity and not a disaster yet failure of an early warning system could make it an also-ran to the slot of a disaster of sort).

Tsu means harbour and nami means wave in Japanese hence ‘harbour wave’ or tsunami. In one calamitous sweep the tsunami that hit on the 26^th of December 2004, snuffed out AT LEAST 2,90,000 lives in 14 countries bordering on the Indian Ocean. Actually it was targeting some other country, it seems, in retrospect. It was trying to wake up the mankind about the consequences of being too power hungry. It got it right the second time. No, I am not commending the forces behind tsunami for the havoc it wreaked in. I am stressing the point that, it may also be viewed as a wake-up call against our depending so heavily on nuclear energy. Well, when you come know the difference between a nuclear bomb and a nuclear reactor, you will understand the perils of having a ‘peaceful’ nuclear reactor in your backyard!

Both have enriched uranium (or maybe plutonium) at the core. It’s fission that generates immense energy in a reactor or a catastrophic explosion in a bomb as the case may be. So what’s the difference? In a nuclear reactor the fission is controlled whereas in a bomb it is not!         

Now you know when a country like Iran starts enriching uranium for ‘peaceful purposes’, the US feels like robbed off its peace of mind and develops cold feet!

The tsunami that followed on the 11^th of March 2011, dealt Japan with such a monumental blow that, it made the Land of Rising Sun really wake up from its deep slumber of complacency about its self sufficiency in power, courtesy the nuclear-curse! There were 54 nuclear reactors in Japan. That’s fifty four Chernobyls waiting to happen, mind you. According to TWN all the 54 were shutdown post tsunami and the nuclear corporate power has been stifling the media under its siege, to keep the bad news under the wraps. So nobody is sure how much is contaminated and how long it would remain!

 Believe it or not Fukushima is creating history once again, for wrong reasons…you guessed it right! They are planning to erect a huge wall of ice encircling the reactor. To keep it cool you need power and it is a vicious circle!

America is waking up slowly since everything is coming home to roost. It is said, the waves of contaminated sea water are lapping up at its shores! Now what? Will it take the call?

Will it do what it did in the aftermath of its dropping atom bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima? That’s aiding Japan in its fight against the consequences of a nuclear mishap? So life comes to a full circle for these two superpowers, thanks to their misadventures with something so miniscule as to be invisible to our eyes.

Post tsunami, the Prime Minister of Japan dreaded the mere thought of evacuating the entire populace of Tokyo city! What about the livestock? What about the vegetation, flowers? Flora and fauna? Those who contribute least to the devastations, suffer the most! More about it when I write mainly on nuclear reactors in my future posting. So every day is a disaster prevention day as long as we depend on nuclear reactors.

  Economics has a way explaining inflation as too much of cash chasing few goods. Similar analogy could be found in Karnataka wherein one finds too many awards announced for outstanding contributions made in a few walks of life. Things have reached such a pass that the common man is simply scoffing at these awards and those who presume they are really being honoured by such titles. And they have a competition in cine awards sponsored by too many a brand. At the end of the day, the so called days may also go the same way. Perfunctory exercises. Futile charades.

Like a paragraph wherein barring one or two, rest of the lines are highlighted and the reader’s attention is drawn to the ‘unhighlightd ones’! Like   black holes in the deep space which refuse to emit their own light thanks to their gravitational pull which is stronger than that of the most dazzling ones! 

Economics again? How boring! Consider this-it is called theory (or law) of diminishing marginal utility. If you consume the same amount of goods with the same period of intervals, the utility you derive from the successive unit goes on diminishing over a period of time. To put it another way, an apple a day keeps the doctor away but not very far away with   steady increase in the number of apples! One apple in the basket makes the additional one look very worthy whereas with the third one added your perceived utility diminishes and you almost feel the doctor knocking at the door with the tenth one! http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/glossary/marginal-utility-theory/

 I wonder why this theory is confined to the hard covers of economics books whereas it needs psychologists to ponder over things like why we don’t listen to our favourite songs as often as we do in the beginning …that’s, when does novelty give way to staleness? Is it diminishing marginal utility? Is it in our mind or is it in the matter we seek?

Well, that brings us to the fundamental- how much is too much? How much of dancing does music need? How much of lunging out can a musician’s body tolerate? How many channels do we need? How many TVCs could one put up with during a TV programme ? Why is it that the corporate world is so obsessed with our well-being? Did we ask the corporate houses to provide us with new, improved, updated versions every now and then? How many times could one afford to buy TV sets? Any society that regales on excesses as virtue is doomed. The glow cosmetics lend our skin indicates the robust health of the marketing men and not that of our skin. If skin    has lost its natural sheen what is the use in making it glow? Sorry, I am afraid I am drifting into a philosophical mode (yes mode, not mood) and today the 21^st of Nov 2013 being what it is, World Philosophy Day, as announced by the UNESCO ( third Thursday of November). But I remember reading somewhere that the birthday of Socrates is actually celebrated as World Philosophy Day-alas I did not find anything to substantiate this claim, not in the UNESCO’s site at least.

What a coincidence –since it falls on the World Television Day-I feel justified in philosophizing trivial issues such as these!

 Ever wonder how much of TV Socrates watched or for that matter what philosophy has to do with TV viewing…or is it a case of mistaken identity, say someone passing off an armchair philosopher for a couch-potato… any way who is bothered? Coming to World Philosophy Day coinciding with World TV Day, split the day into two halves- watch TV first- you can’t help philosophizing for the rest of the day!

At the end of the day, I hope, of all the days, one day will be set aside every year for not being any day, anyway.