Apr 30, 2007

Heat Tsunami

Per this link from today's newspaper the heat tsunami is official: Heat wave in parts of North, Central India I'd've been more alliteratively creative Heat Tsunami Hits India

This year a person not only born in India but raised at Gandhi's ashram in Wardha, assumes the office of the President of the royal Institute of British Architects.

In a Hindi interview that I have recorded he did mention cutting down energy use in buildings. A building in Harare (I forget which African country it's the capital of) was inspired by a young girl's comment to her architect father. She said, why don't you learn from the ants.. In a David Attenborough program for children she hd heard and remebered that ants design their habitate for an ambient temperature that is conducive for their eggs - better craft-creatures than huneybees and humans? Well they brought the energy costs down 90% or so they claimed.

Traditional Indian home design was smarter until we gave it up for what our British masters pushed us to. I know, during my childhood the temperatures went higher than now but they were not uncofortable. Now with intesive 3-crop irrigatede paddy cultivation we have stifling moisture, malaria and all of the water borne stuff.

There's a psychological as well as a scientific factor. I've never been seriously bothered either by external heat or Himalayan cold because I understand that the problem is not external but internal. Our thermostats get confusing signals from the fans and airconitioning and central heating we turn on - and the way we bundle ourselves up. I recall there was a need once for me to walk barefoot on ice for a few miles wearing nothing more than a pair of shorts. I had no problems later. The other person who was with me had...

In this regard, I take partial inspiration from Morarjee Desai, a former prime minister of India. The man even refused to be vaccinated. When they said, they'd have to cancel his state visit to Britain he said no problem. They can check my body for bugs. If I don't have any - and if I won't catch any in Britain, why vaccinate me? If you are scared I am carrying bugs, vaccinate yourselves... Once, while he was PM, he was 86 then, his plane crashed in Assam; the crew was killed but the man walked 7 kilometres alone from the wreck to the nearest village and declared, " I am your country's prime minister - go get some help."

My neighbors say "It's very hot" I say, "I'd no time to notice".... But when I mention the heat its my way of creating an opening... Anything designed by God cannot be inconvenient to creatures. Sure, bodies suffer and die; but what the heck; per the Bhagwat Geeta there's a perennial sale on for bodies at the Divine Wal Mart. Buy One Get three, free.....

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