In a world of growing energy needs, my wife has decided our family needs to be conscientiously carbon compliant. Since we hadn’t previously switched off the power even during Earth Hour, this was a bold and potentially life-altering decision. “We’re regulating your use of airconditioning,” my wife told our son. His response was to leave the lights on in his room, and sleep with the TV muted. My daughter said she couldn’t do without her steamer, hair irons and sundry other gadgets. The kitchen staff complained that using the exhaust was their birthright, even though opening a window was just as effective. That night, my wife said theory was fine but if I thought she would be content sleeping with just the fan in the bedroom, I ought to have my head examined. She said other rude things that I cannot repeat here, even though it was her idea in the first place.
Of course, my wife has been doing her bit to save the planet, and it involves garbage waste and icky things that creep and crawl and are in danger of ending up in our food. She decided some while back to abolish the use of pesticides from our vegetable patch, no matter how much the gardener pleaded with her to spray the bugs off the leaves and roots. But growing rocket leaves in a pot is a different ballgame from growing vegetables in a garden, and no amount of neem composting has been able to rid it of bugs. She hasn’t relented yet, so we get organically grown spinach leaves that resemble delicate lace because the beasties got there first, and the brinjals and tomatoes remain worm-infested.
Her zeal, however unwelcome, is infectious. Which is why I was soon scouting for a solar energy system for our patch of land in the countryside on which we’ve developed a tiny cottage, currently the abode of the aforementioned parasites. My decision wasn’t entirely altruistic given that there is no electricity on the farm, and a diesel generator is proving exorbitant to run. My parleys with solar energy specialists, though, haven’t been entirely fruitful. “What do you require solar energy for?” the first one enquired. “To run the house,” I explained. “Yes,” he said, “but what do you want to run in the house?” When I provided him a laundry list that included fans, lights, geysers, televisions, airconditioners, refrigerator and kitchen gadgets, swimming pool motor, garden mower and sundry other items powered by electricity, he suggested I invest in a power plant instead. Not liking his sarcasm, I dialled other consultants, each of whom gave me contrary information about what I could or could not run.
My tryst with clean power, therefore, is still a work in progress, though I’m leaning towards cajoling a farmer into leasing me his agricultural power line till such time as a regular electricity is made available to us country-dwellers. I’ll think about humanity later. It just isn’t convenient for me to be saving the planet right now.
 "My tryst with clean power")
