e-viradham

For the uninitiated, viradham is the tamil word for abstention. Typically, it is used in the context of not talking or not eating. People choose a day in the week and dont talk or eat the whole day. Traditional wisdom for such actions is that not talking helps focus the mind and not eating helps keep the stomach clean. The famous sanskrit aphorism goes - 'langanam parama aushadam' i.e. fasting is the best form of medicine.

Continuing in that spirit and with the aim of reducing the horrible amount of damage I am inflicting on the planet, I am planning to start a e-viradham from this weekend onwards. e-viradham stands for electricity viradham. I intend to gradually reduce my electricity consumption on one particular day in the week in the hope of eventually taking it arbitrarily close to zero. I've chosen sunday for this particular experiment. Will try this out starting this sunday.

My guess is that upwards of 75% of all my electricity consumption originates from my usage of my computer. Almost 80% of the time I am awake, a computer runs for me :(. So that goes out as the first item. Other primary places where I consume electricity are my cellphone, light bulbs, cooking stove and heating water for taking bath. I will switch off my cellphone, will NOT switch on any bulbs and will not cook on sunday. I think I can manage sundays with bread/fruits/vegetables. Also, a temple in calgary offers free food on sundays. Can go there too. A decent chance to mend my recent atheistic ways :). I am confused about heating water. Switching off the mobile and not switcing on light bulbs are not very tough. But Calgary summer is not exactly Chennai summer. Still mornings are single digit temperatures. So, the water temperature in the mornings is likely to be in single digit and that is NOT exactly inviting. So, I intend to NOT include that in the list right now and see how I can make up for that as the experiment progresses.

The philosophy behind this is that unless we consciously try to lower our consumption, it will NEVER happen. Most of us gladly talk in length about global warming and its consequences but chicken out when it comes to action with the assistance of weird sophistry. This is an attempt to push myself gently beyond those boundaries and thereby embark on a journey to see how deep the rabbit hole goes :D. While I am an infinitesimal agent whose actions hardly matter, I can atleast take home the mental gratification that I am atleast trying and that too sincerely (hoping to do much better than that though). The aim of this experiment is to see to what extent I can reduce my PERSONAL consumption. So, the refrigerator in the house will obviously be running and the room heating system will be plugged on. My room mates will throw me out of the house if I tamper with them :D. Similarly electricity will be consumed in the places I visit. Obviously I cannot control that and even if I can, they dont come within the narrow purview of this experiment. For e.g., electricity will be consumed in the temple irrespective of whether I visit it or not. Finally, this is not an attempt to reiterate my holier than thou stance (which by the way many people think is my disposition these days) but is a simply a personal attempt that I am gonna chronicle in my blog. I was inspired by the efforts of no-impact-man which incidentally has a million more restrictions than what I have. The egoist in me hopes that I might induce a stir somewhere.

The biggest problem I am likely to face with this is my work. Profs have famously declared time and again that grad students dont have weekends. So, if I have something very urgent due monday morning at 9 (with my prof expecting that I work on the weekend), I dont know what my fate would be. But, it is highly unlikely that Ill get to know of such a thing sat evening. So, I should be able to plan most things. Nevertheless, I can cross the bridge when it comes and dont have to lay down all the ground rules right now. But, Ill be faithful enough to log every single transgression of the rules.

I will update my experiences in this space and will be filed under the category e-viradham. Please check it and please let me know of criticisms/comments/whatever...