Renewables

I gaze out of the oval window next to me. The entire cabin is sleeping though it is just 9 in the morning. DC to Seattle is a long flight, and I recognize a number of faces from the international flight from Dubai last night. They must be exhausted, I think.

Outside, it is crystal clear, a rare sight for late November. Not a single cloud in sight. I look down at the countryside. We are flying at 34000 feet, but I can see the farms and roads clearly. Straight lines, geometrical shapes - squares and rectangles mostly - and the occasional turnabout. I keep staring outside for almost half an hour - the shapes and symmetry appealing to my compulsive sense. Then I notice something - the scene has hardly changed in half an hour. The same plots, agricultural fields, one or two houses per farm - as far as the eye can see. I feel sad for a moment. I muse at how we have taken Mother Earth and drawn lines on her to demarcate areas - yours and mine, his and hers. It doesn't seem fair. But it is just human nature I suppose - to feel power, greed, the need to organize, improve efficiency and learn. I can't make up my mind whether we are better off today or a thousand years ago.

I look down again and see several tiny-looking windmills dotting some of the farms. I am told these are over 200 ft tall, but from up here, they look teeny, blades idly doing their work. I feel better - at least we are using something that is available freely, is clean, renewable, and we don't have to draw lines around to demarcate our shares. Or is it that we just cannot draw lines around wind? I'm certain we would have, if we could!

Back home

It is not the best place to be first thing in the morning - the last person in a 300 long queue of Non-US Citizens lined up for immigration check and stamping in the nation's capital. At 6 am. Only 3 of the 10 counters staffed (recession took its toll?). The collective bad breath of the crowd blowing towards me by a big fan at the front. I won't blame the 300. They had, after all, endured a gruelling 13 hr trip from Dubai to DC, harassed by the turbulent weather, the trembling 747 and the completely unkind United flight crew (my bar for flight crew mannerisms, professionalism and service has gone sky high after traveling on flights in India - those guys just rock!). Add to this the high probability that I would miss my connection scheduled to leave in an hour and a half, I am on the edge of my nerves already. I badly need some sleep and I'm famished. Just finished reading Chetan Bhagat's first novel - Five Point Someone - good book, amateurish writing (but I guess that's the essence of the book). I feel like I have relived my 4 years in college - I studied at BITS and not at IIT, but the experience was almost identical. Am onto his 3rd novel - The 3 Mistakes of My Life. Hope it is as good a read.