Oil - The Burning Question

Last week’s Oil Workers Strike has not only been one of the many harrowing experiences in an average Indian’s life but it has also given all of us a morbid glimpse of the possibility of a future without fuel.


While my dad was scouting the neighborhood petrol pumps for a refuel, I sat at home wondering, what if we hadn’t gone to the mall the weekend before, to waste all those hours doing nothing but plain window-shopping. We could have spent same amount of time at home doing something worthwhile and more importantly, saved those couple of litres of fuel.


Why is it that man regrets his actions only after he suffers the consequences even though many a time he is aware of the outcome. Luckily my regret was soon doused by the joy brought to me by the fact that the strike ended the next day.


This was just a temporary crisis. But what will happen when we are faced with the bigger crisis, the oil depletion crisis. Predictions state that oil reserves will never be depleted, but that is only after taking into account the rise in usage of alternative sources of energy and the possibility of finding new ‘future’ fuels.


So the question is – Is India capable of developing alternative/non-conventional sources of energy to such an extent that our dependence on oil becomes negligible?


It would be a great to know your opinions and ideas on the issue.

Pic Courtesy: www.shell.com

At the Steering Wheel…

Today, I attained one more of the few “teenager’s milestones” in my life…I attended my first driving lesson! It was a tense yet exhilarating experience. The first lesson of course got me familiar with the basics…putting the car into the first gear, slowly releasing the clutch to thrust the car into a gradual glide…and that was it. I know, it was not much, yet it suddenly dawned on me that I had now gained a new degree of freedom, in a few weeks time it would mean an independence from the bus timings and train timetables! Now, I actually knew what the Wright brothers must have experienced on that fateful day!
At the end of the class, the instructor opened the bonnet and explained to me the various automated parts and their functions. After the class got over, when I was passing through the gate of our building and heading towards the staircase, I walked over to the parking space and looked at our little WagonR. A thing that had seemed so lifeless and obvious a few days ago now seemed unique and alive…I was able to appreciate a piece of machine whose components, once started, worked in perfect harmony.
Then, when I reached home and sat on the PC to deliver this beautiful experience I thought…there are so many of such inventions which irrespective of their complexity, are taken so much for granted by the us, that is the Gen-X! We work with these tools all day long and all throughout our lives and yet we do not tend to understand the indispensability and distinctiveness of such machines and tools and their inventors