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.
