One of my heroes - Mansoor Khan on his book "The third curve"

ENERGY STOREHOUSE Mansoor Khan says there was a centre in his life he was always moving towards — leading a non-urban life. Photo: Sampath Kumar G.P.

Mansoor Khan, who directed the cult Hindi film Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak and then quietly retreated to his dream farm in Coonoor is now back in the limelight with a book called The Third Curve, which looks at world economic reality. He tells we are all deluded about things, like money, growing forever

Mansoor Khan is charming, down-to-earth, has an ability to laugh at himself, and has a view of money and success that most of us would scoff at. But he also has a life one would envy — after dropping out of top engineering colleges, doing a successful stint in Bollywood, he’s running a cheese-making farm in Coonoor, growing vegetables, and writing about Peak Oil! “I don’t believe in superheroes, I’m Mr. Reality,” he laughs, when we suggest he pose in front of a statue of Superman at the launch of his book in Bangalore. And in saying that he quite ably characterises himself. Excerpts from an interview:

What connects the dots between films, cheese, oil, and the economy?

My heart! (laughs). Whatever I feel is should do, I do that. There are no boundaries for me. Living on the farm was what I always wanted to move towards, so there is a centre — to live a non-urban life. I can’t live in cities. I wanted to live in a small place, have my own farm, grow my own food. This book is something that needed to be said. It’s not like I wanted to be an author and looked for a subject to write on. I realised no one else was talking about it. I’ve been studying this for the last 13 years. We knew the collapse would happen, but didn’t know which year, but you could see all the signs. We knew oil was going to peak. Sadly we all see the world through the lens of economics. Economics is the study of false tokens called money. We started believing that the token has value and started making our rules around it. And you can fudge tokens. In the west the collapse was called the Black Swan event – it didn’t fit into their model – like a Bollywood guy who writes a book on energy! But this book is not a surprise if people knew my background. I was studying engineering, computer science, electronics. I was good in physics, which is among other things, the study of energy.

Are you a very easily unhappy or dissatisfied person? You dropped out of IIT, then Cornell, then MIT. You made four films in Bollywood and moved to a farm…

No, no…The only thing I changed my mind on was engineering. I didn’t wan to do that as a career. I liked to understand it. Films… I was always sure I didn’t want to do it forever. If I can make films, I will, otherwise I won’t. I became more aware of environmental issues, about chaos humans are creating on planet. I studied that. I like the idea that my world is small. I like that I have time for myself, can grow my own food. We experimented with a gobar gas plant, my wife Tina and I make cheese. It’s adventure, it’s fun, it’s hands on. I can’t understand what people do in cities. Honestly! It’s so boring ya… The world is not going to be able to sustain its cities. Cities are energy intensive. That model will have to redefine itself. The suburbia of America is already facing it. It was built on a car and driving model. Our world here in India is quickly shifting there.

Living on your farm changed your worldview?

No, my worldview was formed even before I went there. Living on farm consolidated my thinking, made it sharper. Petroleum took 250 million years to collect. We burnt half of it in 150 years. So the notion of sustainability is a totally false notion. How can you be sustainable, because the primary energy you use is in a deficit of 10,000 : 1.

Are we too late already to change anything?

The “too late” part isn’t here. It’s in climate change. We’ve crossed the tipping point. Climate change is the other side of Peak Oil. In terms of energy consumption and changing our world it’s not too late. For India it’s definitely not too late. We are only now trying to go the other way, the way of the Western countries that are in the doldrums.

So you’re saying growth is an illusion?

Growth is a disease. Yes, now it’s become illusive! First it was real. It became an illusion after a point. We fudged reality with artificial means in the form of stocks, mortgages, leveraging, options, derivatives. We’re getting more and more notional. Money has to grow, double, follow the rules; so we’ll make it, either by real means or mathematical means. We make models from our minds.

Then this year’s economics Nobel is wasted?

(Laughs heartily) They can do what they want. They are deluded. I’m not only blaming economists. I’m saying this about everybody who believes in finance planning. You can make your lifestyles easy with surplus food, labour saving devices, hi speed trains, 300 TV channels …we felt great and felt “why shouldn’t this go on forever?” The reason why it can’t, lies in another domain called energetics – it is a discipline that has to replace economics. If you don’t do the real accounting, you’re fooling yourself. I’m not saying all industries will decay. When you look at real growth, GDP, it’s definitely going to go down in a shrinking energy world.My book says energy is the currency of the universe and the bell curve I have plotted are the laws of energy. We are at the top of the curve and we’re beginning the descent now, and there’s no up again. Nothing grows forever. You’re going to feel the pain of shrinkage. That’s what our finance minister is feeling now. They cant figure it out. This is not a book of blame. People are looking though the wrong lens — that of money. We’re busily making false plans. Because India is an emerging market we can pay the high energy prices — 100 dollars a barrel. Oil is not going to get over. We’ve only finished half. But descent is what I’m talking about. In a paradigm of growth, how can you do with less? Oil is a dam of 250 million years of sunlight. Which we found, looted, had a good time. Now, time to reckon with reality.

Does your book offer solutions?

Solution is the wrong word. Problems have solutions. Traffic jam is problem; death is not a problem. It’s a predicament. You don’t find solutions for it; you find ways of dealing with it. The finiteness of the planet is a predicament. We’re refusing to accept we’re energy-holics. You’re refusing to accept that your world runs on liquid fuels; we’re enmeshed in it. You’re trying to find arithmetic solutions to exponential problems. Transition is about accepting ecological thinking rather than industrial thinking. Right now I’m sounding like an oddball but I know it’s going to happen, I’m confident, so I’m writing about it. I had to WAIT to write about this. Before the economic collapse no one would believe it. We’re living in a bubble economy. It’s a fascinating subject – you can make a 100-part series on this.

Why don’t you?

We should! I’ll talk to Aamir (Khan, his cousin) about it (guffaws). I don’t have the money or the energy. I can do great talks.

What were your learnings from Bollywood?

I learnt how to deal with people first of all (laughs). Because I was too much of a loner. Because when you’re part of a big team, you’ve to instruct, be captain of the ship. I was fortunate enough to have a father who handled all the nitty-gritty. I was happily left to do the writing, direction – the creative part. Things were not so dear to me; somebody else did the marketing. I really didn’t care.

You felt no pressure at any time to deliver another QSQT?

I didn’t feel it right after QSQT itself, which is why I made Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander. This is a completely wrong way of looking at life, at success. I laugh at this notion of success. I find people are so badly trapped in this illusion. How unhappy can you be? I’m so happy with my book’s reach out…with whatever’s happened. It’s happiness in the happening, in the right now.


At the chennai book launch:

Khan, however, began by saying that what was said about him is unrelated to what he was going to talk about. “The book is about possibility; it’s not about morality, guilt, environment or blame.”

In 1850, oil, he said, made growth possible. And since then, growth became more plentiful, and we believed it would go on forever. In fact, “the biggest religion in the planet is growth”, Khan said, and explained how the ‘paradise times’ lasted till the 1960s. “And then came the ecological collapse,” when the life signs of the planet withered. But, “we thought money could control it!” he said, pointing out that, shortly, money too collapsed.

Laws of money

Next, Khan explained the laws of money we have built into the system. “The stock market is institutionalised gambling. Every time we’re in trouble, we add a new concept of money. Each is more powerful, more complex. And this is the growth trap — the ‘unbelievable growth’ that you seek comes with ‘crazy risk’.”

Ably supported with an interesting Power-Point presentation, Khan showed his audience at Landmark, Citi Centre, how money can double every 10 years, provided there is energy. “But the earth is finite, all resources come from here.”

Rapid exploitation

Khan then went back to the oil example — which the Red Indians knew about long before it was discovered — and which has now been rapidly exploited by civilisation. “Civilisation always talks about exploitation. But do we do it in our families? Do we say, ‘let’s exploit our aunty? No!” Then why the earth and its resources? Exploiting oil — or forcing oil-wells to pump out faster — actually backfires, because once the well reaches its peak, production only drops. “But ‘peak oil’ has not come into our parlance. In 2005, when oil peaked, and production dropped, prices shot up. The global meltdown of 2008 came as a huge surprise to economists,” he said, adding that it had not surprised him. Because, when the concept of growth (an exponential graph), and the reality (a bell-shaped graph) separate at one point, growth becomes false.

“Growth, according to me, is a disease,” said Khan, quoting Edward Abbey’s famous statement ‘growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell’. “We have bred cancerous ideology into our economy.” And with growth demanding more and more energy — and given that half that energy (oil reserves) has been used up in just 150 years — we’re heading towards a crash if we go into denial. “But there’s a better way — acceptance, and then a controlled energy descent.” And that, he said, was the third curve — transition. “But it’s not just about putting CFC bulbs, or putting off all the lights for two hours and holding hands. That is fun, but it won’t stop anything. We need to talk not just about economics, but also energetics, because we are addicted to cheap energy, and we need to get over that.” In the last 150 years, every single thing we have made is more efficient. “So how come we need more energy? That is because we are only looking at growth.” Deal with reality, the author advised. Or else, “reality will deal with you”.

http://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/chasing-a-rainbow/article5228808.ece

Mansoor Khan, whose book on alternative energy was released recently, talks about the leap from making blockbusters like Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak to growing one’s own food.

Mansoor Khan, the man behind blockbuster films like Qayamat se Qayamat tak and Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander, is not in the hustle and bustle of Mumbai where the biggest Hindi films are produced, but in quiet Coonoor. 

His journey from the city to the 22-acre ‘Acres Wild’ in the hills began with computer science at IIT-Mumbai, Cornell University and MIT. But this was not his calling. Instead, he followed in the footsteps of his father, filmmaker Nasir Hussian. Though temporary, filmmaking helped him identify Coonoor as the space that would fill his spiritual vacuum.

After the recent release of his book The Third Curve: The End of Growth As You Know It, he talks about his filmmaking days, life as a farmer and energy perspectives. Excerpts from an interview:

Why did you leave Mumbai?

When I came back to India from the U.S. in 1980, I realised that I did not like cities. The city was all about straight lines, traffic lights and people rushing to office. Open spaces, the desire to grow my food — it slowly began making sense. It took 23 years to materialise, but the decision was made a long time back. People ask me why I gave up a successful film career. I tell them I moved away to something that I value more than some film of mine doing well. It’s of no value to me that someone else thinks I am successful.

Why films at all, then?

I had to prove myself to my father. I had a knack for telling stories. Could I render the story differently; through characters that are real, and not completely over-the-top? Life took its own course after that. I do not believe in free will beyond a point. We do not make our destiny, but within that we can shape our lives and believe in something and know what is good for us. I bought land in Mandwa, where I went sailing, and thought I would live there. It took me three hours (from Mumbai) to reach there. I realised I can’t live half here and half there. I had to get out of there totally.

What was the turning point?

The government wanted to take my land in Mandwa in 1997. That led me to question the basis on which the government acquired land for development. Later I met Medha Patkar and that led me wonder what we actually value when we have dammed our rivers. I realised that this is the other side of education we were not taught because we are not the ones being thrown out of our homes. We created an inverted concept of development, which is why these people are homeless.

What is the central theme of your book?

My book talks about possibility. I’ve explained why economic growth is over from an energy perspective.  Growth is dead for a geological reason. Oil makes the industrial world work. It is the keystone of energy. Remove that energy, everything else fails. We’ve reached the peak of the resources. So, growth slows down because the earth gives you these resources slower after the halfway point. Nothing in nature grows forever. How did we come up with the concept that growth can go on forever, when we are using stored energy? Oil is nothing but 250 million years of stored sunlight.

Why not make a film about this instead?

A film is not a strong medium. It’s a great medium for entertainment, propaganda, titillation and instruction. But it does not serve as a platform for shifting paradigms or to change a set of rules. Real life is good; you’ll stick with your paradigm till real life teaches you that this does not work.

To what extent do you think your views will be absorbed?

I do not expect people to change instantly, but hope they will keep it in the back of their mind. It will only be seen in hindsight. If you don’t believe what I’ve said in my book, please go ahead and do what you think. But keep this lens handy. Tomorrow, when something you did according to your rules fails, look through my lens and see. May be it will make sense.