Mumbai Air Quality: lacking
When I first rolled into Mumbai I was immediately aware this wasn’t the best air in the world. When you can see the density of the air at a 50ft distance you know something is up. Besides the daily traffic jams that pile up at least 4 times a day outside my window, many of the roads are covered in dust and muck that’s kicked up easily, with no rain to wash things away or knock things out of the air once they’re in it. If I stay in, I dramatically notice I feel better– more normal in the sort of breath I can take and generally more energetic, which I’m supposing is because I’m just not breathing in so much junk. But I digress… Can’t just complain about the matter and not take action. I went and bought $15 worth of air cleaning plants.
Here’s a list of goof air filtering plants from NASA… ( I know I’m not sure why NASA was studying theses plants, but I can’t say I mind ).
1. Philodendron scandens `oxycardium’, heartleaf philodendron
2. Philodendron domesticum, elephant ear philodendron
3. Dracaena fragrans `Massangeana’, cornstalk dracaena
4. Hedera helix, English ivy
5. Chlorophytum comosum, spider plant
6. Dracaena deremensis `Janet Craig’, Janet Craig dracaena
7. Dracaena deremensis `Warneckii’, Warneck dracaena
8. Ficus benjamina, weeping fig
9. Epipiremnum aureum, golden pothos
10. Spathiphyllum `Mauna Loa’, peace lily
11. Philodendron selloum, selloum philodendron
12. Aglaonema modestum, Chinese evergreen
13. Chamaedorea sefritzii, bamboo or reed palm
14. Sansevieria trifasciata, snake plant
15. Dracaena marginata , red-edged dracaena
For an average home of under 2,000 square feet, the study recommends using at least fifteen samples of a good variety of these common houseplants to help improve air quality. They also recommend that the plants be grown in six inch containers or larger.
More than happy with Senuti
My computer crashed and I was looking for a quick way to take music from my iPhone to iTunes. There are quite a few places out there trying to sell you something that can do this. Senuti offers a free trial and was quick and easy to understand. This is the sort of software generation that is worth donating to!
Check out Senuti here.
Future Cities: slush
What does the future metropolis look like? Cars fly, architects continue to push the anticipated forms of buildings, things float certainly. Things look more religious, things look postapocalyptic. The sky is brown and bright blue and then so polluted that the light is weak and the sun only sort of shines. It’s crowded. It’s Empty. There are few consistencies.
10 Ways to Make a US City Great
1. Socialize healthcare in a city. Show the US it can be done! Start small and grow out… cities with shrinking populations might give this a shot. (eh hem… Pittsburgh!)
2. Be the first city to build a Vertical Garden!
3. Be the first to place oxygen-rich plants in public schools (like Kamal Meattle did in Delhi buildings) and study the affects.
4. Build fountains that serve as sources for drinking water. Serbia did it… we can do it too! It creates an instant social space and sense of security and well being in the community.
5. Legalize street vending or make it easier to get a vending liscense. This easy entry into business will make room for small time entripenuers to get their foot in the door. It can also add free security to city streets, act as quick solution to workers on lunch break looking for a meal or a coffee, and add extra flavor to other wise monotone sections of cityscape.
6. Be the first city to paint all the rooftops white! Save on energy and become a green tourism location!
7. Make more streets walking streets. It’s something that is so rare in the US, as most cities are tripping over themselves to clear the way for cars. Imagine the downtown of any US cities with more open air restaurants and a safe place to walk and relax? Imagine Times Square without cars! Put the walking streets right in there with the public drinking fountains.
8. Include safe bike lanes in city planning. As cities in the US fret over obesity related health issues and pollution from cars, issues with congestion and traffic, “ye olde bicycle” remains a viable solution all around. Bikes put more eyes on the streets (safer streets) takes cars off the road, provide a means of free transport and exercise, and hey-–it’s fun!
9. Add Green roofs to any building!
10. Encourage dynamic educational and artistic programming in communities of all sizes.
Day in the Life of the Stomach Troubled Ghori
10am. wake up. look at broken clock on wall and realize that right now, it shows the right time. poke at stomach.
10:30. Get out of bed and think of showering. Feel optimistic for a 15 minutes. Feel bad again. Doubt doctor.
11am. Take medicine anyway. Maybe it’s not the doctor, it’s me.
11:30. Fall asleep again.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
12:30. Wake up and watch TED talks. Shamelessly post my website address on Facebook thread during Zappo’s founder’s speech because his speech sounds like such a commercial anyway. Wonder what it really takes to succeed. Listen to Zappo’s guy speak about happiness. Wonder if he’s really happy. Wonder why I didn’t choose some more practical money making career because I’m so good at long hours of work. Watch other speakers. Text friend who is actually at TED talks. Watch musical section of TED and worry that TED will never come to India again.
2pm. Go to sleep again.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
3:30pm. Wake up again. Realize I have to go out into the world and get rent money from the ATM. Dress nice to make myself feel well. Dressing nice makes people stare. Someone walks by and says something about “Ghoris…” a fourteen year old boy walks by and says “Seeeexxxyyyy!” Feel rediculous. Get money from ATM. Return home past leering men. Set out rent.
4:30pm. Go to sleep feeling bad again.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
5:30m wake up. realize there is no other option besides going immediately to the imported food store and buying familiar healthy foods so I can convince myself not to give up hopes of eating a meal that agrees completely with my stomach. Go to Ghori store. Buy luxerious things such as smoked salmon and frozen peas. Buy something called “Southern Fried Chicken” which turns out to be too spicy to eat. Buy, of all things, ginger beer because it restores hope in the world and in my stomach also.
6pm. Return home and eat a meal so familiar I want to cry.
7pm. Convince myself I feel good enough to go out with the girls because I am so tired of laying in bed. Last week has had a few bright points of entertainment. Have spent too much time in one room!! Get dressed up and take all my medicine and hope that nothing goes wrong.
Fingers crossed…..
Ode to the Pushcart
Show of Carts and Hand painted signage by Michael Genovese in Chicago, IL. Worth a look…
Rainfall Fantasy+
When I first arrived in Mumbai it was the monsoon season. I took this for granted because the rainfall was actually reasonably similar to the sort of rain that comes to both Tennessee (my birthplace) and Pittsburgh (my last state of residence in the US). If anything, I found myself thinking of childhood vacations to Florida, where the wind and clouds swirled around and dumped out a thunderstorm almost daily. Mosquitos and humidity followed but it was always worth it for that brief vacation from the heat and the clean air which inevitably followed.
The same was true here. In that first month in India, I came to think of the rain as a distinct part of this place. If nothing else, it provided a reason to stay in bed away from the “What am I doing here?” feeling that followed most misunderstandings or frustrations that take place beyond the wooden doors of my apartment.
Now proceeding into the months of October and November when it hasn’t rained for 3 weeks plus, my roommates and I confess to audio hallucinations of rainfall. Just a week ago during Diwali, I woke and heard that familiar Tennessee summer storm sound of hard rain on the windows and regular thunder in the back ground. Rolling over I dozed off again, feeling wonderful familiarity: if this is what I was hearing I must be at my parents house, and there would probably be someone waking me up soon for dinner so why not keep sleeping peacefully?
On waking a second time, I found the sounds in the distance were not thunder but fireworks going off, one after another. Now loud explosions were happening just outside my window as neighbors set off rockets from the roof. Children laughed and cried in unison. The rain had only been my ceiling fan, and I was (and am), a thousand miles from Tennessee.
In June, India’s scientists went to work seeding clouds to encourage rainfall and ease the droughts that were destroying farms in the South. The rains came, (it’s still unclear what the seeding changed) and they lingered almost 2 weeks in the year later than they usually do.
Besides the seeding, other methods were attempted:
The government of Andhra Pradesh ordered religious institutions to pray for rain
Frogs were married (later some called for divorce)
And in some villages, a girl wearing a skirt made of knitted vines and small branches, sang and danced through the streets of the village, stopping at every house, where the hosts poured water on her. The people of the village followed her dancing and shouting.
Following this,
the rain fell and fell and fell: for a limited time only.
Quite the Quite Quiet
For the last few days my roommates have been out of town and I’ve figured out how to sit still again. Hard to sit still in a place like Mumbai which offers so many versions of distraction. There are 20 things I see here everyday that I want to sit and write about, and I am overwhelmed…so I don’t write anything! Or I jot it down by hand in a notebook because the fidget of writing something on paper is still valid and appealing.
A few thoughts from the department of quiet time:
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The banana man and his son are always sitting on the corner 1 block away. You can have 6 bananas for 20 rupees which I think might be a little more than average but the bananas are always in good condition and the banana people always remember that for some reason I have decided 6 is the perfect number of bananas to buy at once so we don’t even have to make attempts at English or Hindi. I can’t say the banana man looks cheerful… He has a bright red beard. But his son seems very cheerful. I find myself thinking that they “just came in on a boatload of bananas”. Then I feel a bit like a jerk, because if you aren’t thinking you don’t realize that it would be kind of nice to be on a boat of bananas, and the ride might be beautiful, and that’s a huge amount of pudding potential.
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There are a hundred thousand million different fantasy and real versions of the world to partake of. In Mumbai there are twice that many. If you have a little money, you can pay to enter into almost all the modes of living: If you’d like to think of passing from one ideal to another as going from one building to the another you can. Each place will claim to be the most real and the most important. People from one building to yell across to the next “You are living in a dream land!” and the people who hear it will get defensive and yell it back. The tough part is it’s almost all legitimate. You can convince people over time that any building is the best one to be in.
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one person thinks I should move to NY.
one person thinks I should spend some time in Maine.
one person thinks I should move to Chicago.
one person thinks I should move to TN.
one person thinks I should stay in Mumbai.
one person thinks I should move to Portland, OR.
one person thinks I should go back to PGH.
I think I need a shower…
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I am going to spend all day working on a presentation about the Fulbright work I am doing here in India. I have always thought you really figure out what you are doing when you are required to describe it to someone who is not at all on your wave length. That also may be the point at which you make a complete fool of yourself. What if they just don’t get it? What if your idea is not that valuable? It’s enough to make a person figure out how to at least complete a functional task. ” This project will no doubt broaden the conversation about ______ and be useful by _______ to depict _______. And in conclusion, ______. “
Done and done.
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I am afraid of a world in which I don’t make sense. Either in reason and logic, or emotion and optimism. I picked up a small booklet that one of my friends already made fun of me for. It’s one of those cheap paper back guru booklets, but the name caught my eye: “Circus of the Mind”. Who would deny there are a few elephants and monkeys in there? Not me. When the featured Guru, Sadhguru is asked about the adequacy of the mind in understanding the deeper, uncharted realms of the spirit he replies: “It’s like trying to go to the moon on a bullock cart. No matter how hard you beat the bulls it’s not going to get there.”
