over time build to
vast, huge consequences. Think of a snowball rolling down a mountain.
A half-degree temperature drop here, a shift in the ocean thermocline
by a handful of metres, a pressure shift of a single millibar."
"No doubt, but the Minister is wondering how long before these
little effects from this. snowball." Shaheen badoor Khan asks.
"Our simulations show a return to climate norms within six
months," Vinayachandran says.
Shaheen Badoor Khan nods. He has given his Minister all the clues. He
can draw his own conclusion.
"So all this," Bharati Water and Energy Minister Srinavas
says with a wave of the hand at the alien ice out there in the Bay of
Bengal, "All this will come too late. Another failed monsoon.
Maybe if you were to melt it and send it to us by pipeline, it might
do some good. Can you make the Ganga flow backwards? That might help
us."
"It will stabilise the monsoon for the next five years, for all
of India," Minister Naipaul insists.
"Minister, I don't know about you, but my people are thirsty
now," V. R. Srinavas says right into the eye of the news camera
peering like a vulgar street boy over the back of the seat row in
front. Shaheen Badoor Khan folds his hands, content that that line
will head every evening paper from Kerala to Kashmir. Srinavas is
almost as great a buffoon as Naipaul, but he's a stout man for a good
one-liner in a pinch.
The new, beautiful, state-of-the-market tilt-jet banks again, swivels
its engines into horizontal flight, and heads back for Bengal.
Also new, beautiful, and state-of-the matket is Daka's new airport,
and so is its recently installed air-traffic control system. This is
the reason a high-priority diplomatic transport is stacked for half
an hour and then put down on a stand way on the other side of the
field from the BharatAir airbus. An interface problem; the ATC
computer are Level 1 aeai, with the intellect, instinct, autonomy,
and morals of a rabbit, which is considerably more, as one of the Bharat Times press corps comments, than the average Daka
air-traffic controller. Shaheen Badoor Khan conceals a smile but no
one can deny that the Joint States of East and West Bengal are
technologically savvy, bold, forward-looking, sophisticated, and a
world player—all those things Bharat aspires to in the avenues
and atria of Ranapur, that the filth and collapse and beggary of
Kashi deny.
The cars finally arrive. Shaheen Badoor Khan follows the politicians
down on to the apron. Heat bounces from the concrete. The humidity
sucks out every memory of ice and ocean and cool. Good luck to them
with their island of ice, Shaheen Badoor Khan thinks, imagining those
urgent Bangla engineers clambering around on the Amery berg in their
cold-weather parkas and fur-fringed hoods.
In the front seat of Minister Srinavas's car, Shaheen Badoor Khan
slips his 'hoek behind his ear. Taxiways, planes, airbridges, baggage
trains merge with the interface of his office system. The aeai has
winnowed his mail but there are still over fifty messages requiring
the attention of Sajida Rana's Parliamentary Private Secretaty. A
flick of the finger yeses that report on the Bharat's combat
readiness problem, nos that press release on further water
restrictions, laters that video conference request from N. K.
Jivanjee. His hands move like the mudras of a graceful Kathak dancer.
A curl of a finger; Shaheen Badoor Khan summons the notepad out of
thin air. Keep me advised of developments re: Sarkhand Roundabout ,
he writes on the side of an Air Bengal airbus in virtual Hindi. I
have a feeling about this one .
Shaheen Badoor Khan was born, lives, and assumes he will die in Kashi
but still cannot understand the passion and wrath Hinduism's scruffy
gods command. He admires its disciplines and asceticisms but they
seem to him pledged to such poor security. Every day on his way to
the Bharat Sabha the government car whisks him past a little plastic
shelter on the junction of Lady Castlereagh Road
vast, huge consequences. Think of a snowball rolling down a mountain.
A half-degree temperature drop here, a shift in the ocean thermocline
by a handful of metres, a pressure shift of a single millibar."
"No doubt, but the Minister is wondering how long before these
little effects from this. snowball." Shaheen badoor Khan asks.
"Our simulations show a return to climate norms within six
months," Vinayachandran says.
Shaheen Badoor Khan nods. He has given his Minister all the clues. He
can draw his own conclusion.
"So all this," Bharati Water and Energy Minister Srinavas
says with a wave of the hand at the alien ice out there in the Bay of
Bengal, "All this will come too late. Another failed monsoon.
Maybe if you were to melt it and send it to us by pipeline, it might
do some good. Can you make the Ganga flow backwards? That might help
us."
"It will stabilise the monsoon for the next five years, for all
of India," Minister Naipaul insists.
"Minister, I don't know about you, but my people are thirsty
now," V. R. Srinavas says right into the eye of the news camera
peering like a vulgar street boy over the back of the seat row in
front. Shaheen Badoor Khan folds his hands, content that that line
will head every evening paper from Kerala to Kashmir. Srinavas is
almost as great a buffoon as Naipaul, but he's a stout man for a good
one-liner in a pinch.
The new, beautiful, state-of-the-market tilt-jet banks again, swivels
its engines into horizontal flight, and heads back for Bengal.
Also new, beautiful, and state-of-the matket is Daka's new airport,
and so is its recently installed air-traffic control system. This is
the reason a high-priority diplomatic transport is stacked for half
an hour and then put down on a stand way on the other side of the
field from the BharatAir airbus. An interface problem; the ATC
computer are Level 1 aeai, with the intellect, instinct, autonomy,
and morals of a rabbit, which is considerably more, as one of the Bharat Times press corps comments, than the average Daka
air-traffic controller. Shaheen Badoor Khan conceals a smile but no
one can deny that the Joint States of East and West Bengal are
technologically savvy, bold, forward-looking, sophisticated, and a
world player—all those things Bharat aspires to in the avenues
and atria of Ranapur, that the filth and collapse and beggary of
Kashi deny.
The cars finally arrive. Shaheen Badoor Khan follows the politicians
down on to the apron. Heat bounces from the concrete. The humidity
sucks out every memory of ice and ocean and cool. Good luck to them
with their island of ice, Shaheen Badoor Khan thinks, imagining those
urgent Bangla engineers clambering around on the Amery berg in their
cold-weather parkas and fur-fringed hoods.
In the front seat of Minister Srinavas's car, Shaheen Badoor Khan
slips his 'hoek behind his ear. Taxiways, planes, airbridges, baggage
trains merge with the interface of his office system. The aeai has
winnowed his mail but there are still over fifty messages requiring
the attention of Sajida Rana's Parliamentary Private Secretaty. A
flick of the finger yeses that report on the Bharat's combat
readiness problem, nos that press release on further water
restrictions, laters that video conference request from N. K.
Jivanjee. His hands move like the mudras of a graceful Kathak dancer.
A curl of a finger; Shaheen Badoor Khan summons the notepad out of
thin air. Keep me advised of developments re: Sarkhand Roundabout ,
he writes on the side of an Air Bengal airbus in virtual Hindi. I
have a feeling about this one .
Shaheen Badoor Khan was born, lives, and assumes he will die in Kashi
but still cannot understand the passion and wrath Hinduism's scruffy
gods command. He admires its disciplines and asceticisms but they
seem to him pledged to such poor security. Every day on his way to
the Bharat Sabha the government car whisks him past a little plastic
shelter on the junction of Lady Castlereagh Road