Worse than yesterday and today.

I’m no futurologist. Neither am I a born pessimist. What I’m about to write is based on observation. I could be totally off the mark when I say that life will get worse and worse – never better hereafter. Ever after. That is going to happen because mankind has been profligate all along. What’s more, we refuse to learn from our mistakes. In Mumbai, for example, water will become scarcer and scarcer as high-rises keep rising all over the landscape and people callously insist on taking long showers, soaking in tubs and using high-end washing machines that waste water. Soon, power cuts may become pandemic even in South Bombay – oops, Mumbai. The recent Congress Party’s call for austerity should have been contextualized properly. They should have placed it squarely in the framework of the coming drought of resources which is likely to last for a long, long time in the absence of a miracle like a technological breakthrough or a major geological find. In the interim, we have to make the best we can of what is available. Greed (sorry, Mr Gordon Gekko http://digbig.com/5bakah) is no more good. It’s time we cease and desist outdoing the Americans in greed, profligacy and venality and learn to husband our scarce resources and share them with the less fortunate among us. This is not a sermon, mind you. It’s merely an opinion and a reminder.