Friday, July 16, 2010

Propane!

I have recently discovered that one needs to be an Indian Citizen to obtain a cylinder of propane gas for domestic use.

That is absurd. The only way for me to treat water in my house is to boil it. So I either have to lean heavily on the surrounding ecosystem to collect firewood, or use the only other fuel available; propane. The ecosystem is suffering enough from other human activities and firewood is very scarce. The only sensible thing to do is to act as those near national parks are legislated to do; don’t use firewood, but use a different fuel. No kerosene is available nor is any other fuel besides propane.

I understand there are lots of things that only Indian Citizens have the right to do. Many of these are sensible measures the purpose of which is to prevent re-colonization. I applaud these measures. For example, foreigners are not allowed to purchase land in Uttarkhand.

However, telling me that I cannot purchase propane and so must spend hours more every day heating drinking water and cooking food is a humiliation. Not only is it tremendously rude to treat guests of your country in this way, it is completely undignified that I should be forced to degrade the ecosystem in an unnecessary fashion just to drink clean water.

I hereby publicly declare that I have engaged in an act of civil disobedience; I have obtained on the black market a 14 kg tank of propane for the sum of Rs 2800. I am using it to cook rice, chappati, oatmeal and to boil water for drinking.

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