Learning to Share

Kids love to play – that’s an essential part of growing up, and teaches them valuable social skills. And what is the one trait that every parent reinforces with their child when a fellow toddler wanders by and walks off with their favorite toy?

“Can we S-H-A-R-E?”

That’s right – the concept of sharing is hammered into the heads of our sons and daughters right from the time they start to interact with other human beings their own size. And this is one characteristic that transcends cultures – whether you are American, Swedish, Chinese, Kenyan or Argentinian, I can bet your parents made you “play nice” with your neighbors. That meant pooling your toys together rather than sitting in your respective corners, each with the same doll or car or whatever else the toy industry was selling at the time.

So how is it that all those kids grow up and promptly forget the meaning of that all important word and get indoctrinated into the culture of conspicuous consumption? Blame that on the advertising industry that exhorts us daily to “go shopping”, an activity that, if analyzed rationally, would make absolutely no sense. This is not a task done to satisfy a desire to acquire a certain object of value, but rather an endeavor unto itself – a form of exercise in some places where our otherwise sedentary lives make us run the risk of obesity and diabetes. Indeed, more than “sharing”, one of the most powerful cultural norms of our time is the quest to possess material wealth – this gets passed on from one generation to the next with surprising ease.

The advent of the sharing/collaborative/on-demand economy promises to revolutionize the way in which people consume goods and services – unlocking the value of assets that would otherwise remain unused, such as cars (Uber, Lyft) and beds (Airbnb). It could also shift us off the path of continuous production and consumption, which dominates most market driven economies, by placing demand in front of supply – goods would be manufactured only when needed. And, when coupled with establishing circular flows, it could dramatically lower raw material (especially non-renewable) needs for everything that we use in our daily lives.

If we truly want adults to embrace this new way of transacting commerce, we need to start with when they are kids – in the same manner that every company on the planet tries to inculcate brand loyalty before the age of 5. And childhood is a great time to understand that the true value comes not from owning a toy but in playing with it – because most kids outgrow a toy in less time than it takes to open the package. They all want what the other kid has – a precursor to the “grass is greener on the other side of the fence” that most of us experience later in life. How many times can you actually make the same Lego® set over and over again?

A vibrant sharing economy for children’s toys will have a massive environmental benefit – because most toys nowadays are made from non-renewable plastics. And while a few noble souls donate toys to the needy, that merely extends its life by a few months – the product is eventually going to end up in a landfill.

To be clear, a sharing economy for toys is not the same as a toy swap (http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/perfi/tips/2010-12-18-toys-swap_N.htm) or toy exchange https://the-toy-exchange.pswebstore.com), which one would regard as a secondary market for toys that have been purchased from the manufacturer/retailer (the primary market) – it is a complete elimination of the sale of toys, to be replaced by a leasing concept or “pay per use”. Let’s take the case of one of the most popular children’s toys, Lego®. According to information on the internet, there are over 400m Lego bricks on the planet, and it would be safe to assume that less than 10% of them are being actively used. While some enthusiasts like to make a Lego toy and keep it in a glass case, most sets are rendered useless due to the loss of a few pieces that get stuck within sofa crevices or just accidentally swept up in the trash.

There are a number of Lego “rental services” (pley.com, netbrickz.com, buildurbricks) but these function on a ”take or pay” arrangement – the user subscribes for the right to get a certain number of Lego sets in a given time period, much like Netflix for films. Given that the incremental cost of a Lego brick is virtually zero, paying $15 per month or more for a subscription service makes no sense. Furthermore, these companies are all intermediaries to the actual manufacturer who is still selling sets through their stores. So it is unlikely that there is any reduction in the number of Lego sets being made, just a slight shift in the number of people who are actually buying them.

All this can change with a simple adjustment – Lego should get out of the business of selling their bricks and instead get into the business of charging for enjoyment. Lego stores would become Lego play centers where children can come for a few hours and play with the bricks – no one takes anything home and there is never any disposal issue once you get bored of playing with the bricks. This concept will work equally well in a small town, where parents can walk their kids over to the play center, or in a large mall, where parents can leave their kids to play with some supervision (stores like Ikea have play areas). In both cases, the payment is made for the experience of playing with the toy, not the ownership of the toy. As I’ve written above, the cost of making a Lego set if perhaps a few dollars in raw material, processing and shipping costs, while they sell for anywhere from 20-200$ - or higher.

In the short run, moving away from the direct sales model will hurt Lego’s profits –but from a sustainability point of view, it will reduce the amount of plastic waste being sent to landfill by parents who don’t know what to do with the set once the child gets bored. Also, Lego can continue to make new sets from old ones that are no longer interesting/relevant – so a set made in the 1990s may be recast into one for the 2020s. The idea of grandparents, parents and children all playing with Lego then becomes a reality – your child is literally playing with the the same set that their grandparents had!

The shift away from toy ownership represents a huge step for later in life when children grow up and start to want other possessions like clothes, shoes etc. While the concept of sharing differs in each of those cases, the lack of private ownership (for life) is the main concept. The key is that corporations who expect to see a drop in their revenues relative to the direct sales model should not ramp up their production to cover for that shortfall. The market will need to recognize that a company has made a structural change in their business model and that it is good for the environment overall. Companies can truly claim to have internalized the externalities in that case – taking credit for helping people not throw valuable materials into a landfill.

What are the lifestyle changes that people will need to accept if this shift happens? For starters, the convenience of having your own toys goes away – a child may go to the Lego play center and find it is full and not get the set of their choice. But if the child has been used to that model from the very start, they have nothing to benchmark against – it does not appear to be an aberration but the norm (this is the same for societies that emphasize shared ownership). Indeed, moving away from owning products to utilizing them to fulfill a need (in this case entertainment) will be most challenging for those people who have grown up with the concept of ownership. For the children of the future, visiting a play center to socialize with other kids will be as normal as going to a library to read a book or for storytelling.

I can, therefore, Ikea

Ikea, one of the world's largest retail chains, known for its innovative designs of products with quirky names, is preparing to enter the Indian market in a big way, which will expose customers to several new concepts. For those who have never heard of Ikea, or had the opportunity to enter one of its stores worldwide, there is plenty of information available online to whet your appetite. For the record, I have no vested interest in promoting Ikea, other than the fact that I have bought a lot of products there, most of which were functionally and aesthetically pleasing.

The first new concept is the Ikea store itself, which is essentially like walking through a showroom where you can get to see, touch and test literally every product that they have on display. If you want to buy a sofa, lounge around on a dozen different models to your heart's content before picking the one that works best for you. Thinking of a new bed? Again, a dozen bed frames are laid out, with mattresses and sheets - many a shopper (myself included) has taken a quick nap here. Lamps, bookshelves, kitchen appliances, cutlery, paintings, plants - there is almost nothing for the home that they do not sell here! Shoppers should prepare themselves for a half day outing because once you enter, it is unlikely that you will walk out of there empty handed - something or the other will catch your fancy.

A big reason for this is the brilliant design of products, which the Scandanavians are known for worldwide. They are almost all very simple, while at the same time being wonderfully functional. Some buyers might find the products somewhat dull, but when you are faced with making purchases for an entire house, you want items that do the job innocuously. But you will never find anything that was developed without some artistic thought in mind.

The second new concept is that, having gone through the entire store, you can then pick up your products in the giant warehouse and take them home. In some rare cases, you might have to get the order shipped to your house, but if it is something small enough that fits in your vehicle, then go right ahead. While you are in the warehouse, you might spy something else that eluded you and add that to your list. A very practical labeling system allows you to track down every single item even though there are literally thousands of them on the shelves. The days of going to a shopkeeper at the corner store and asking "bhaiyya, xyz kahan milega?" are over. You have the power to obtain what you want and exit quickly.

Now comes the fun part, the third new concept - most of what you buy at Ikea, other than some obvious things like spoons and plates, is not in its final form. It has to be assembled by you, using basic tools such as a screwdriver or allen wrench (look that up online as well - it is a most annoying tool, but once you make friends with it, you will yearn to use one!). Personally, I am somewhat skeptical of whether urban Indians will want to take the time to put things together by themselves - after all, we love pursuits of the mind, and doing manual labor is meant for a lower class of persons, isn't it? I'm sure a number of entrepreneurs will setup a service to come to your house and assemble the stuff for you for a fee but please heed my advice - if you really want an amazing sense of fulfillment, you have to do at least one item yourself. Preferably something that has numerous pieces and fasteners and that you can proudly display to you family and friends as your own creation. Yes, Ikea is to adults what Lego (another Scandanavian product) is to kids!

Let's say you decide to buy a bookshelf - you pick up the box and bring it home. Opening the box reveals several pieces of wood neatly arranged, with cardboard packaging to prevent them from being damaged in transit, and a little bag filled with screws, dowels and other fasteners designed to hold everything together. The most valuable item, however, is the little instruction booklet that tells you how to do it without making a mistake. A word to all men - do not think, even for a second, that you can throw away the directions and figure it out yourself. You will likely end up with an abstract sculpture worthy of an Anish Kapoor. Women - ensure that your menfolk follow the instructions or, better still, do it yourself.

Remember that Ikea does business in dozens of countries around the world - so you would assume that their instruction booklet has to be printed in numerous languages, and is about the size of an encyclopedia. Welcome to new concept number four - the instruction booklet without a single word! That's right - all the instructions are pictorial, with parts clearly labelled, and three dimensional views that show how they all fit together. The user is guided through the exact sequence of steps, and you have to follow that sequence to make life easy. Don't jump ahead to step six without doing the first five just because you think it will speed things up. In the fable of the hare and the tortoise, Ikea would have clearly sponsored the slow guy.

The parts are also designed in such a way that they are deliberately asymmetric - so certain parts only fit others when aligned in a particular direction. If you find yourself in a situation where two parts are not fitting, go back and check what you did - you have invariably made a mistake, as I have learnt on many an occasion. This is the brilliance of the design - if you follow the instructions, you simply cannot go wrong. Foolproof technology if there was ever such a thing!

Remember the little bag of parts? Sometimes there are over a hundred objects in there of varying size and shape, and all of them are required to be used. In over twenty years of shopping at Ikea, I have yet to come across a single instance where even one part was missing (I did have a case where an extra part was provided). And I don't think my experience is unique. The attention to detail and the quality checks are phenomenal.

So shop away to your heart's content - you will not be disappointed, and your home will be worthy of gracing the covers of an international magazine!

Fool Economy

The news that Mitsubishi motors in Japan has admitted to falsifying fuel economy data for several of its car models is the latest blow to the global auto industry, coming on the heels of the Volkswagen "Diesel gate" affair from last year. In that expose, VW admitted to installing a "defeat" device - essentially some lines of code in the vehicle software - that could detect when it was being subject to a controlled emissions test versus being on the road. In some scenarios, the difference in emissions was over 40 times the legally allowable limit. This was all thanks to some clever detective work done by a non-profit think tank and some university students. 

The details are still emerging for Mitsubishi, but prima facie this appears to be a case of simple "fudging", something that many a school student has done in a physics practical experiment - recording a number that is more in line with expectations, rather than the actual number that is shown by the test. For example, if you know that the speed of sound is 330 m/s, you will "tweak" the reading for water level in the resonance tube to ensure that your calculations deliver a perfect round number. The teacher will be happy, as that is what the text book says you should get, and no one will be any the wiser (high school students may be able to confirm this is still happening!)

The problem is that in the real world, these differences do matter. In this day and age, with the growing threat of air pollution and climate change, the need to ensure full compliance with regulations designed to preserve the environment for future generations is paramount. It is simply unacceptable to lie your way into a false sense of security as the consequences can be severe. It also results in an erosion of consumer confidence, as the sticker provided in the car window is virtually meaningless.

Fuel economy tests are, in the base case, highly subjective, as there are numerous protocols used by testing agencies across the world, each varying in the duration, number of starts/stops, vehicle loading etc. The same car will provide different results depending on the test to which it is subjected - and it is recognized that the actual mileage on the road will almost certainly differ from that in the lab. You know this from the little asterisk shown against the mileage rating in an advertisement - the fine print will place all kinds of disclaimers so that the manufacturer cannot be held liable for underperformance of the vehicle. 

Correlations to adjust mileage for different driving conditions either do not exist or are not shared openly with the driving public - in any case, many factors may work in conjunction, so the actual effect will be multiplied. For a country like India, where the phrase "kitna deti hai" was used to indicate the laser focus of our drivers on saving precious fuel, the reality is that most cars will get only a fraction of their true mileage as they are perpetually idling in traffic jams. And as compared with a few decades ago, when people used to switch off their engine when stopped at a red light, you now see cars with a/c blasting parked by the side of the road as the driver checks their text messages or updates Facebook ("stuck in traffic jam, man it's hot!")

The auto industry - or any industry, for that matter - has rarely been on the right side of regulations, whether directed at safety, emissions or efficiency. The reason cited is almost always cost or customer preference - too much money chasing too little a reward, or arbitrary statements that the purchasing public does not want these features, and instead desires CD changers, bluetooth connectiivity or navigation. Fuel economy matters only when oil prices are high and the otherwise dormant driver wakes up to realize how much money is leaving his or her pocket every month. This unfortunate situation in 2007 led to the bankruptcy of General Motors, which had focused on making Hummers and other boat sized vehicles, and were confronted with an angry public and politicians who simply could not understand why there was no focus on better fuel economy. A decade later, the oil price has oscillated twice and is back at a low point, and the public has switched back to buying SUVs. Maybe they deserve to be fooled by fictitious data.

Mind the Crap

Picture yourself walking into your favorite shop. It could be the local corner dukaan, with its shelves crammed with everything from toothpaste to biscuits to washing powder, or the big retail store at the mall, with the fancy lighting and mannequins and big price tags. You walk around in a (mostly) pleasant atmosphere, while helpful assistants bring you a bag to carry your items, ring your purchases up at the cash register, and even carry your bags out to your car. Hundreds of millions of us do this every day through the year, and pay little attention to the process. And now, thanks to Flipkart and Amazon, you can avoid the inconvenience of traffic and other shoppers to have your desires delivered to your doorstep!

Now picture the back end to this process, once you have enjoyed the fruits of your consumption. The toothpaste tube is squeezed dry, the washing powder sachet is empty and the biscuit packet has just a few crumbs left in it. What do we do with these? That's right. We toss everything into one bag, along with the soiled diapers, old CDs, light bulbs, toys, packaging - literally anything we don't find a use for anymore. The bigger the bag, the more likely we are to find things to throw away. Because once we throw things away, what can we do? You guessed it - we can start buying all over again! 

India is a land of variety - religions, languages, skin tones, food choices - but in one sphere of life we are all coming together very nicely, and that is the fact that we are firmly on the path towards becoming mass consumers. Some of us are already there, while the rest are waiting their turn, like the proverbial kid in a candy store who cannot wait to taste the goodies on the other side of the glass. In that respect, we are not unlike our counterparts in developed countries, who embraced consumerism several decades ago. So why deny us the pleasure, you say? The answer to that is - our blind focus on the manufacture and purchase of products has come at the expense of paying scant attention to the disposal of these products. And with our (still) growing population, the potential catastrophic outcomes of this lapse are starting to emerge.

Take the recent case of landfill fires in Deonar, that sent acrid fumes and smoke across the surrounding area and even drifted into central Mumbai. Or the tons of assorted debris that were washed up in residential areas after the Chennai floods and, in fact, contributed to the damage by choking drains. While Hindu nationalists go around fanatically protecting cows from slaughter, thousands of them are likely to die anyway by ingesting plastic bags and other non-cow friendly materials that they happen to graze on at the roadside corner. Your roadside corner, in fact. You pass it every day and don't notice. 

The government has finally stepped in and emphasized the importance of moving to a circular economy model, one where even waste products have some utility, and therefore some value. The desired outcome is for action to take place at the community, city and state level, with the focus on providing economic incentives to not dump waste. The free market has to be the most efficient way to solve these problems, right?

The waste management experts will tell you that India has a very long history of prudent resource utilization - that we are masters at repurposing a glass container into a pot for growing plants, or shoe boxes into CD storage. Even today, kabadi-wallahs exist for a whole range of products from newspapers to metal to old clothes. But they are unlikely to keep pace with the sheer volume of stuff that we are now unable to resist owning and discarding. Ask anyone who has grown up in post liberalization India if they are focused on conserving and reusing household goods, and whether they know the timing for the kabadi-wallah's next round.

While economic incentives may kick start the process, they cannot sustain it indefinitely. Just as we have all become consumers overnight, it is time that we also accepted the responsibility of being good "disposers" as well. It is about taking responsibility for not just what's inside your four walls, but the spaces that you share with your fellow citizens. Deep down, we have an instinctual aversion to unpleasant smells and sights, which has to manifest itself in action. A model society in this respect is Japan - a country that churns out thousands of products, but has no space to put the waste. Visit a coffee shop in Japan and you will see a half dozen waste disposal options, so much so that you have to really think about where to throw your cup, lid, stirrer and everything else that you paid for. 

Yes, managing waste is really all about being smart - something where we Indians again excel. The government's plan for smart cities across the nation will need more than just new infrastructure - it will require a smart citizenry. We can start by picking up that biscuit packet that just blew across our path.

The Autobiography of a plastic bag

It's my birthday today - hooray! Another year gone by, and barely any signs of ageing! I look as clean and fresh as the day as I was brought into this world.

I don't quite remember the plant where I was manufactured along with millions of identical siblings. Each of us started off as small pellets, uniformly spherical and white in color, and were fed through end of a giant machine that heated the pellets and eventually forced us into the shape that you are all familiar with - two handles supporting a big cavity. We then passed through an assembly line, where the logo of a big box retail store was stamped on our front and back, with an added warning "Suffocation hazard - please keep away from small children". There was also a small symbol made up of three arrows pointing at one another, an indication to the user that I could actually be sent back and recycled into a new version of myself.

We were all put into a large box and shipped halfway across the country and landed in the go-down of a shopping mall. Each of us was somewhat excited but also nervous - for the next day, we would be placed at a checkout counter, where everything from clothes to cell phones, foodstuffs to books would be placed inside us and then we would be whisked away by a different owner. Where would we end up? Would we ever see each other again?

The next morning, we were all pulled out in a big stack and placed next to the shop assistant who was ringing up the purchases. The barcode scanner started beeping and periodically, one of us would get opened up and an assortment of products would be shoved in till we were full. The scanning continued, and the next one was pulled from the pile. Till it was my turn, and I gasped a little as I was not prepared for the weight - not that I was not strong enough to hold it. The shopper, a pleasant looking middle aged lady deftly swiped her credit card, signed her name with a flourish, and motioned to her helper to pick up the 5 bags she had paid for and take it out to her car.

We were tossed into the back of large SUV and driven out of the mall, towards a swanky residential complex that had just been built on the outskirts of the city - one of those "gated" communities, with manicured lawns, plenty of open space and greenery. I could only imagine what the inside of the house would look like - fine marble, recessed lighting, paintings by famous artists decorating the walls.

My day dreams were rudely interrupted as I was quickly emptied of my contents and thrown to one side of the room. Clearly, the shopper wanted to examine her purchases immediately and not wait. We lay in a corner of the room for a few hours, before we were picked up by the maid who took us into the kitchen.

And put us down next to a large waste bin.

So that was to be my fate - a shiny plastic bag, in perfect condition, would soon be used as a dumping ground for all the waste generated in the house. I grimaced at the thought of being filled with used tea bags, vegetable peelings, dress labels, leftover food - maybe even cigarette butts. Yuck - the very thought repulsed me, even though I was designed to hold all of these without any leaks. After all, that was the beauty of plastics - waterproof, leakproof, flexible, strong!

A week later, I was taken out from the bin and carried all the way to the nearby compound wall. The maid tied a nice little bow with my handles and gently lobbed me over to the other side. I landed on a mix of rocks and grass, and rolled to a halt surrounded by dozens of other similarly filled plastic bags, all of whom had started their lives not too long ago, but were now bearing the detritus of their human users.

"When did you get here?" I casually asked a bag next to me. He looked a little scuffed but seemed to be pretty content.

"About a week ago - but we are going to be moved soon".

"Oh really - where do we go?"

"The Municipal corporation will come by and take us to the landfill"

"What's a landfill?" I asked naively

"You'll find out soon enough - don't worry, there are lots more like us out there"

So I waited and waited, and sure enough, a truck drove up, a few people jumped off and started collecting us all and tossing us into the back. We drove away from the gated community, and the houses started to look more run down, and the people around us were clearly poor. I also started to smell a really foul odour, that was nothing like I had ever experienced before.

"What is that stench?" I asked my friend

"That's the landfill" he replied. "Don't worry, I'm told that you get used to it pretty quickly"

And that's when I saw it, as the truck took a curve in the road - a veritable mountain that loomed ahead of us. We were still a few miles away, but it already dominated the horizon, and I could only imagine what it would like from the top. The truck made its way to the base and started a tortuous climb that took almost a half hour, the stench almost unbearable by now.

We finally reached the top where the truck tipped its load backwards, and we all came crashing onto the top of the landfill. Half of us split open with the force of the impact, all the food, plastic, glass from our insides spilling out under the open sky. Overhead, there was a circular procession of birds, some of  which would periodically descend to peck at any edible material before rising again to join the aerial chakra.

"What happens now?" I asked my friend of a few hours

"Nothing much - unless we happen to get blown away by the wind, or we have a fire"

"FIRE?" I gasped in alarm

"Yeah, all this rotting food generates methane, and once in a while it catches fire"

"Does it happen often?"

"Oh, there are fires going on right now  somewhere on this landfill - it's just a question of when they end up where we are"

"Why can't they find a way to stop it?"

"Costs too much. As long as the landfill is far enough away from the rich folks, they could care less about what happens here. And the locals have become so used to it, they have found a way to profit from us"

"How's that?"

As I finished the question, I made out a group of small children who had emerged and were scrambling around picking up things and putting them in bags.

"What are they doing?"

"Making money. They take components that can be recycled or reused and take it back down"

"Why couldn't they just not bring it up here in the first place?"

"You're just full of questions, aren't you? You think the place you came from could be bothered to separate different materials in the house?"

No, they couldn't, I thought to myself. Pity though, it would have saved these kids from having to stumble around barefoot, risking their long term health - many of them would get infections from being exposed to toxins and other dangerous materials casually tossed out by families who did not understand the consequences of their actions.

"What about getting blown away?"

"Happens a lot to us plastic bags. Mostly we end up in a canal or stream, or in the stomach of a fish or bird. Often fatal for them, but we are pretty resistant to gastric juices"

The idea of getting swallowed by some creature and spending the rest of my life in its gut made me nauseous - or that could have been from the stench rising all around to which I was still not accustomed. The kids seemed to have found whatever little they could carry back and had wandered off back to their homes. Somehow they seemed content, as though they appreciated having this eyesore near their homes for the little benefit it brought to their lives. I could only imagine the horror of the residents of the gated community I had been in earlier that day if they found themselves living next to to this dump.

By now the sun was moving closer to the horizon, setting fire to the clouds overhead that went from light to dark pink to an angry red before fading completely, to be replaced with a few stars and the reflected glow from the massive city that lay to one side. I imagined what might be happening in all those houses as more trash was piled into plastic bags like myself, taken outside and tossed into a heap, picked up by a truck the next day and brought here to lie next to me. I drifted off to sleep.

Sunrise the next day revealed a fire that had started in another part of the dump, the smoke from which was starting to blow towards the city, choking its residents. Thousands of plastic bags like myself were going up in flames, releasing toxic fumes as they escaped their prison on this mountain of garbage.

Less than an hour later, a fresh load of trucks came by and covered us up. Gone was my view of the sky, the clouds, sunrises and sunsets. My friend who had been close by got pushed to a different part of the dump, and now I was surrounded mostly by rotting vegetables and meat bones. Anything and everything that could be bought or made was there - a cornucopia of human endeavour, piled hundreds of feet high.

That was a long time ago, and I'm probably fifty feet deep in this pile of trash now. Even my claim to this being my birthday is somewhat tongue in cheek - I have no way of keeping track of time anymore. But thanks to the wonderful work of the scientists and engineers that made me, I know I will be around a lot longer - plastic bags can last over a hundred years with no adverse effects. So perhaps I'm fifty today, or eighty, or crossed the century mark and don't know it.

Millions of people pass by this mountain I call home, close their noses, and move on. They carry in their hands things they have bought for themselves or their families, food, clothing, toys, gadgets - all neatly wrapped in plastic. If anything is longer lasting than I am, it is the manner in which humans cling to their existing lifestyles. And so the vicious cycle continues...

The Art of Empathy

For those of you who enjoy TED talks, I will point you to one in particular - on the importance of empathy, by Sam Richards. In this extremely provocative, yet highly enlightening, presentation, the speaker goes through an imaginary scenario where China, not the US, is leading a uni-polar world, and is exploiting the resources of the US to maintain its standard of living. He shows real pictures of brightly light Chinese cities, upper class Chinese wearing the latest fashions and using the newest gadgets, and contrasts that with grim US towns that have been run down over years of neglect. The most shocking moment comes when he asks the audience to imagine that the Chinese are using American troops to control the average American citizen who resents the manner in which this foreign intruder is making his life hell.

If you haven't figured it out already, what Sam Richards is trying to get his audience to experience is the life of an average citizen of Iraq - one whose nation has been occupied by the US for over a dozen years, and faces the same kind of hostility from US soldiers who barge into their houses, arrest them on suspicion of terrorism and generally maintain an air of superiority at all times. Again, real photos of Iraqis being mistreated and their sense of fear whenever Americans are around are shown to the audience. Sam constantly asks - "Can you feel it? Can you go there?" as though the audience has to physically move to a different location in order to understand what it means to be an Iraqi.

The world today is all about globalization and economic growth and who will be the next unicorn. The population has burgeoned to over 7 billion and while there are a handful of super-rich and lots of people in the middle class, unfortunately the number of people who are still poor, lack basic amenities, are deprived of their rights as humans and therefore are often regarded as being on the fringes of society, are still too large. While the UN in 1948 drew up the Universal declaration of human rights, that continues to be cited to this day in instances of war, genocide, famine, economic depression and crimes against women and children, the reality is that most of us choose to just not care. It is akin to a Sam Harris asking us "Can you go there?" and we ignore the question, or act as though it is not our business.

Most countries, apart from a few enlightened ones that have risen above the rhetoric, are focused on economic growth and providing jobs for their people. Jobs that require not just a school education, but increasingly a Bachelors, Masters or even PhD! And as the focus on academic excellence has gone up, with specializations that just a decade ago did not even exist, what has gone down is the art of empathy - the ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes and see the world through their eyes. We don't need to focus on churning out more engineers, doctors, lawyers or financial analysts - what we do need as a nation and a global community is more empathizers.

One must be careful to not confuse empathy with sympathy - the latter has a very negative connotation, and usually does not result in any positive action to rectify a situation. Very often, the situation cannot be rectified - for example, expressing sympathy at the loss of a loved one. Empathy on the other hand, should lead to a sense of increased power for the person who puts themselves in another's situation. Try it for yourself - when in a public place, observe those around you and try to imagine their lives. The auto rickshaw driver may not be as well educated as you, but surely there is some basic humanity that connects you both? The person behind the ticket booth at the metro also has to commute - what is his day like? And do you doubt that the chaiwallah now doesn't dream that maybe one day his son could be the PM?

It is unfortunate that globalization, while bringing people from different parts of the world into contact with one another, is increasingly leading to greater hostility between different groups. That civilizations have clashed for millennia is well-known; at the same time, interaction between the East and West also led to great advances in all fields of human endeavour - think Marco Polo and Kubla Khan, the monsoon trade between India and the Arab world, and the Greek influence through much of Western Asia. Indians increasingly are traveling abroad and seeing Japan, Turkey, Norway, Australia - not to mention the perennial favorites US and UK - but are they actually learning what it means to be Japanese, Turk or Norwegian? And from that knowledge, can they learn something that might make their lives, communities and societies better for all?

The debate on intolerance that has taken up so much air time and column inches in the Indian, as well as foreign, media, has sadly not recognized that a root cause for intolerance is a lack of empathy. It is far easier to typecast someone as evil or anti-national than it is to attempt to understand them. And while empathy has its limits, it needs to occupy a more important place in our lives. If you have any doubts, just ask Sam Richards.

The accidental motorist

Imagine waking up one morning with the breaking news of a plane crash in which there were no survivors.

Not just a small plane with a few dozen people, but a Boeing 747 or Airbus 380 with 400 passengers.

Gone from the face of the earth.

You would obviously be shocked at the magnitude of this tragedy, and there would be a massive investigation to understand what happened, and how it could be prevented from happening again.

Now imagine waking up the next day, and seeing the same headline. Another plane, another 400 gone.

And again the next day. And the next. And the next.

Till you come to midnight on December 31, and you realize that the entire year has gone by, and every single day, 400 people have died in plane crash.

Before you dismiss this as the most unbelievable story of all time, let me assure you that it is completely true. This has been happening for the past several years, and we are completely blind to it.

The roughly 240,000 people who died on Indian roads (2013 WHO figures - likely to be higher in 2015) are equivalent to not just one plane crash every day, but two, for an entire year!

And yet we as a nation are totally oblivious to this, and continue to drive rashly, pay scant attention to
safety norms and disregard all laws that are put in place to preserve human life.

There is a reason for this, and it comes down entirely to the human tendency to ignore risks that are large in number but with a minimal impact in each instance. In simple terms, that means we focus more on a single plane crash with 400 deaths than we would on 400 car crashes with a single occupant fatality. The few instances where the person involved in this incident happens to be a celebrity of sorts gets a huge amount of attention, but that quickly dies down once the media moves to another "masala" topic.

Some would argue that we are a fatalistic lot - after all, the Almighty has decided when he wants to have us join him, so what are mere traffic lights, zebra crossings and speed limits going to prevent? If your time has come, then there's nothing you can do about it. Hindus will point to reincarnation and the fact that they are fated to return anyway - Muslims will simply say "Insha'Allah".

I happen to belong to the camp that argues that this is simple a question of discipline, or lack thereof - something that we seem to adhere to in most other walks of life, but somehow forget once we are behind the wheel, or crossing a road. From birth, we are taught to be obedient - to parents and elders at home, then teachers at school. That obedience goes out the window, however, when we come face to face with a person in khaki. In the school morning assembly, we stand in a nice orderly queue, and walk single file back to class under the watchful gaze of the principal. Put us behind the wheel of a car, and that nice orderly queue degenerates to what can only be described as Brownian motion of dust particles.

Prof Raghunathan of IIM-A has explained this dilemma elegantly in his book "Games Indians Play" - through the lens of game theory. When faced with a choice, if you choose to maximize your benefit, it results in a negative outcome for the other person. If you decide to be altruistic and maximize the overall benefit of both parties, however, you get a smaller individual reward. Let's see how this works in practice.

Imagine you're driving your car on the road, following a long line of other cars (contrary to virtually all car ads, no one has the luxury of driving down an empty highway with beautiful scenery in the background!) If you were in most other parts of the world, you would follow the car in front of you, occupying the space that it has vacated. If that car slows down, you slow down. If it stops, you stop. The person behind you does the same thing, as does the one to your left and right. You occasionally change lanes if you want to go a little faster, but recognize that your choosing to drive at 100 while everyone else is at 50 will make you the odd one out and incur a penalty.

In India, this orderly scenario is turned upside down, with every driver seeking to find the shortest way to fill a gap that is often several meters in front of them. Never mind that there are five other cars between you and that space - your mission is to get to that space as quickly as possible.

And therein lies the crux of the problem - everyone rushing to get ahead when an objective analysis of the situation would tell you that the appropriate solution is to follow the leader. And while penalties for speeding do exist, the Indian motorist is particularly skilled in the art of wriggling out of such situations either through pleas or threats depending on their socio-economic status.

The problem is compounded by the fact that, as compared with most other countries, the diversity of objects on India's roads is unparalleled. We have everything ranging from a conventional car to two-wheelers (motorized and human powered), three-wheelers, animals (under human control and free roaming), pushcarts, buses, trucks and, of course, pedestrians. The range of speeds is all the way from 1 to 100 kmph (or higher at early hours of the morning). And we somehow expect all of these to exist harmoniously without any incidents.

The first step clearly would be to reduce the variety of transport options. It is unfortunate that the Tata Nano failed to takeoff, as it would have moved a large number of families moving around on two-wheelers to cars which are considerably more stable and less able to squeeze themselves into small spaces. While auto-rickshaws are convenient, replacing them with high capacity buses is more conducive to orderly road traffic.

Once you are down to just cars and buses, the next step will be to segregate space for pedestrians. Every year, places like Zurich, Tokyo, Melbourne and Vancouver make it to the top of the list of most livable cities in no small part because of their emphasis on providing options for walking. Most Indian cities, on the other hand, pay lip service to the pedestrian, with excavated pavements, vendor carts and large trees blocking the path of those brave souls who often have no choice but to walk. As a result, they end up walking in the road along with vehicles. Attributing this to a large population is no excuse - most cities in Europe and other Asian countries are as crowded as Delhi or Mumbai but are able to manage this based on good planning. Making cities more walkable will not just reduce traffic incidents, but is also recognized as a solution to climate change as well as the growing problem of obesity around the world. Having a fitter and healthier population is infinitely better than having to spend money on accident victims.

Finally, the discipline of maintaining order on the roads and awareness of safety has to start as early as possible in school. Children have been used to great effect in advertising to bring about behavioral change in their parents - from not bursting crackers at Diwali to giving up smoking. A comprehensive awareness program in schools, with the transference of those learnings to their parents, will go a long way in ensuring that the next generation of drivers will regard any accident, no matter how small, as an aberration that cannot be accepted. The autonomous car revolution may one day render all of this moot, but till that time, we have to take responsibility to keep people safe.

Make in India - 24/7/365

For the past two decades, the emerging economies of China and India have each carved out their own area of specialization. While China has become the default manufacturing powerhouse, making everything from soft toys to large turbines, India chose the to take the soft route, using its IT workforce and English language prowess to become first the back office of the world, and then the coder for the world. Almost every product sold in US stores comes bearing the stamp "Made in China", while most American companies have an operation in India or employ primarily Indian software engineers to develop the next generation of apps for smartphones and tablets.

With the election of Narendra Modi, and the realization that the IT sector cannot hope to provide jobs for hundreds of millions of people, India is now trying to re-invent itself as in the manufacturing space with the "Make in India" initiative. Foreign companies are being wooed to come to our shores, setup factories to make stuff, and in the process employ large amounts of Indians who would otherwise be gazing overseas to get opportunities in the Gulf, Europe or America.

On the face of it, this seems perfectly logical - having a population that is productively engaged in some activity is infinitely better than having the same population idle, with the potential to create havoc as was seen in Europe a few years ago after the 2008 recession, when  unemployment in some cases was greater than 50%. No doubt Modi is trying to ensure that as our population continues to grow, and fewer people are interested in going into farming as their fathers and forefathers before them did without fuss, the lure of getting a factory job with decent wages will help cement the Indian dream for those aspiring to the middle class.

Of course, delivering on this promise will continue to be a challenge as India still is unable to boast of a nationwide infrastructure that is even adequate by western standards. While many industries have been able to provide their own electricity supply and built roads and other facilities close by, the national road and rail networks are often left wanting. This is not a problem in China, that realized the need for infrastructure early on and now has the biggest high speed rail network in the world, as well as expressways and immense power plants.

Even if we are able to attract investment in the form of physical assets, which cannot be pulled as easily from the country in poor economic times, the net benefits may not reach all those who really need them. The free market sounds attractive in principle, however in practice has usually ended up being a trickle down of wealth from those who control the system, to those who merely participate in it.

Which brings me to my proposition which I am confident will shock most readers - if we are going to leverage our strengths, as Michael Porter's theory of competitive advantage says we should, then the most appropriate outlet for Make In India is something that we have become experts at over the centuries - reproduction. That's right - this is one area where India leads the world, and shows no signs of slowing down. And it is a perfect fit in a world where the richer countries are faced with an aging population and people who are unwilling to have children. Let's see how this might work

Every year, India adds about 20 million people to its population - about the size of Australia or Canada. Probably half this population will grow up undernourished, with little access to a good education, and consequently would not be able to participate in the experiment to become a manufacturing superpower. These are the folks that would be prone to violence or other forms of protest to get their share of the pie. Now consider this - countries like Singapore are offering their citizens S$ 15,000 as an incentive to have a child. You can see where I am going with this, but before you reject the idea as immoral/unethical/repulsive, think about the alternative - would you rather have those children grow up in India and then start to look overseas anyway for employment? Countries like Germany and Japan are often hostile to foreigners because of language and cultural issues, but if the child grew up in those countries, they would fit right in, at least in their speech and beliefs, if not their looks. Or worse - if it were a girl child, the odds that she would not survive a week are fairly high in some parts of the country. Where is the morality in that?

Due to some recent cases that went wrong, surrogacy by foreigners has been banned - however, as we all know, a ban is almost never enforceable in its entirety, and I'm sure such activities will continue under the radar. Instead, if we setup a proper system, just like we would a factory to make cars or safety pins, then everything becomes legitimate. It is no different than legalizing prostitution or marijuana

So you have a perfect Make in India story, for which we need to rely on nothing more than our innate desire to procreate. Each Indian woman who is willing to give up their child (and millions do every year under duress), a foreign government will pay $ 10,000 or so directly to that woman - not to the Indian government, which will fund a way to squander the money, but to the woman who has made that sacrifice. The foreign country will in turn benefit from having an infant delivered to them that they can raise in the mold of their own citizens. A total funds transfer of $ 200 billion per year will surely be the kind of kickstart to the Indian economy that Modi would have envisioned!