**The MAST KALANDAR Effect **

When you wantsomething, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it- Paulo Coelho

"Take your akka-anna for chawal channa” went the tagline and for once the fare inside lived up to the tagline outside. You may wonder what this mast kalandar effect is all about. I will wax eloquent about all of it shortly. I am still reveling in the after effect of eating out at MAST KALANDAR – a north Indian eat out joint promising authentic desi combos. All the details of this place in greater granularity a little later.

I want to give the exact sequence of events that led up to my best gourmet experience in Chennai thus far. In retrospect, I would like to say that there was a positive aura when I set out from home yesterday. Let me list out all the “positive and good” things that happened en route-

• I was taking a walk after a long time (Yes, finally I can come out of the guilt trip)
• I was walking to the beach (yippee!)
• On the way to the beach bought a book for a good bargain (a real good omen, isn’t it?)
• First visit to a temple after coming to Chennai
• A quiet and peaceful half a kilometer trek along the serene coastline
• Sinful cup of chocolate mousse at a French bakery

Now the moment arrived! I was on the walk back home with the friend and we just spotted this funky and riotously colourful signage – Mast Kalandar, the name did it. We decided to check it out. I have to admit that I liked it from the word go, the spacious interiors, peppy colours of the walls, the comfortable seating, the LCD screen displaying the Italy-New Zealand fixture and the aroma of dal-makhni and paneer curry.

We ordered the quintessential North Indian fare – butter naan, dalmakhni, paneer – the food was lip smacking and along came the complementary raita, which had just the right amount of salt, sugar and spices and a smattering of coriander. After finishing the meal I had a beatific smile on my face. I didn’t know what I had been missing so sorely until I stepped into Mast Kalandar. Finally I can recommend a restaurant to my colleagues (up until now I was always bugging them to suggest decent places). Mast Kalandar, you surely have found a new patron!

Ecosystem based Adaptation – a new approach of adapting to climate change?

1. Environmental flow assessment (EFA) to evaluate the ecological, social and economic impacts of alternate flow regimes to build an evidence-base for water allocation decision options in Tanzania.
2. A systematic conservation plan on marine protected areas and mechanisms to support the development of communities based on explicitly modelled analysis of climate change at a local level in Papua New Guinea.
   
   These are instances of Ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA). International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) defines EbA as the use of biodiversity and ecosystem services as part of an overall adaptation strategy to help people adapt to the adverse effects of climate change. Ecosystem-based adaptation uses the sustainable management, conservation, and restoration of ecosystems to provide services that enable people to adapt to both current climate variability and long-term change.
   
   On the ground it translates among other things into diversification into sustainable livelihoods for communities which are currently solely dependent on climate sensitive resources. This would in turn discourage the unsustainable exploitation of natural resources and concomitantly increase the environmental resilience and thereby the ability of the environmental system to adapt to climate change.
   
   For the developed countries and even developing countries to a great extent, adapting to climate change has so far meant retrofitting of built environment, climate proofing of coastal infrastructure etc., but the EbA approach strives towards increasing the climate resilience of communities by decreasing their vulnerability to climate variability and climate change by strengthening the ecosystems. A functionally robust ecosystem with its allied ecosystem services can itself prove to be a bulwark between potential future climate disasters and the humanity. According to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment study the ecosystems provide us with a multitude of services classified as provisioning, regulating, cultural and supporting services.
   
   Already we have many projects being piloted in different parts of the country by many non-profits and research institutes which can be classified as EbA. Ecosystem restoration taken up by Green Coast through the plantation of 3,45,000 saplings of tropical dry evergreen forest species, economically important species and mangroves in 125 hactares, and the conservation of 15 hactares of sand dunes in Manakudi estuary, sustainable agriculture through System of Rice intensification (SRI) and concept of coastal bio-villages promoted by M.S.Swaminthan Research Foundation (MSSRF) to name a few. International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) with its partners has developed tools like CRiSTAL and SLED to help Community based Organizations (CBOs) and communities to plan, strategize and implement EbA. What is required at the moment is a more planned approach and institutionalization of the concept. EbA should be a process rather than a fragmented project based activity occuring in different temporal and spatial scales. It has to be a concerted effort between the multiple stakeholders viz. the state, the private sector, the civil society and above all the communities to realize the true potential of EbA.
   
   The draft on Green India Mission (a part of India’s National Action Plan on Climate Change) released recently by the Indian government extensively talks about eco restoration and the importance of holistic improvement of ecosystems rather than greening per se. This Mission could be a great precursor on our path to a new systems thinking called the “ecosystems approach”.

New (& single) girl in the city!!!

Lots of newspaper columns and blog posts have been filled in the past about the trials and tribulations of single (working) women in the big bad cities - well, this one is different. For me relocating to Chennai has been a pleasant and smooth transition. I had heard horror stories about how haunting the house hunting expeditions could be. My first day of Mission House Hunting henceforth referred to as MHH was hilarious to say the least.

Just walking across the road from the office guest house where I was temporarily put up, I sighted this small sticker on the wall advertising “decent furnished houses for rent” with a contact number. That’s it! No name, no information on the location of those “decent furnished houses” on the ad sticker. With all the enthusiasm of a person freshly into MHH I immediately punched the contact number.

A Tamil voice responded from the other side, very businesslike. Yes, he was a real estate guy he said and asked me how I had gotten his number. I tried to explain to him my exact coordinates (with my dubious knowledge of Chennai roads and streets) to the best of abilities and with each of my attempt he grew happier and told me that he was somewhere nearby and asked me to reach a prominent landmark of that locale within 15 minutes as he had just the perfect place for me. Now came the sticky part, how were we supposed to identify each other. He said he was wearing this orange shirt with white stripes and a black trouser. I reached the mutually agreed upon place much before him and while waiting had a panic attack. Should I get onto the bike or car of this stranger to go and see this “perfect place”? Hadn’t I been foolhardy in my rush to find a place? But thankfully “the perfect place” was just round the corner and we walked to that place.

The house was fine though the building was tellingly old. Most disappointingly the landlady had stuffed the place with all the unwanted stuff from her house and the place looked like a humongous godown. Muthu (the real estate guy) read the disappointed look on my face and started making placating noises and I decided to keep this place as a backup if the worst came to worst. The MHH ended on a happy note a week later with me finding a house in a locality near the office. The icing on the cake was I didn’t shell out a penny on the brokerage, as the house was discovered by me through an online advertisement.

Getting my own place in the city was really a big relief. It was nothing short of cathartic, what with MHH taking a toll on my nerves and trying to figure out a decent and pocket friendly eating joint everyday (remember this is was before I got my first pay cheque) was turning into a pain. With managing a household, came along the responsibility of stocking it with the minimum essentials, buying groceries etc. The first week went off in a blur. But the location of my new house I must say is really strategic, on the one side are these really big houses with well tended lawns and gardens and the adjoining road leads up to this market place with all the big shops with swanky brands and on the other side are the modest houses and they too have their own small market to serve their requirements. I like to call these the BoP (Bottom of the Pyramid) markets that serve everything from salt to sugar and tamarind to all kinds of spices in quantities customized to cater to the customers’ needs. This market has been my mainstay in the past two months. I like both of these markets. The former for its huge “window shopping” value and my occasional buying sprees and indulgences and the latter for its high utility value in my day to day routine.

Now a word on the attitude of Chennai people. I found them very forthcoming especially when it came to helping me with directions whenever I lost my way in the city. I remember one of the Reader’s Digest surveys some two years back ranking cities by their friendliness to strangers etc. Chennai surely gets my vote on this one.

But it is not all goody goody though. On the downside I can’t bear the humid weather here. Worst, it stays the same all through the year. Two minutes out of the door and you are sweating buckets! I also have a huge issue with the city public transport system – the bus stops just aren’t marked / named, how is a person supposed to know where to get off?

Still the overall Chennai report card is in the green for me and I hope it stays so for the remainder of my stay in the city. Amen!

Inane chatter...

Only the self absorbed and the self obsessed narcissists blog. Not me, NEVER. Those were my thoughts not long back. Understandably things have pretty much changed since then. But still this needs lot of "getting used to". I will keep my first ever blog post short and sweet. My course of work these days involves lots of reading and this set me thinking that I should share my reflections on what I read, with the larger world out there. This is the raison d'etre for Gaia Gander.

The story behind how this blog came to be named is interesting. I had sent in "Gaia Gander" as a competition - title entry for the new office newsletter. But fortunately my carefully thought out gem lost in the rat race and as a consolation today I hereby, christen this blog "Gaia Gander". Now a little bit of gyan on the etymology. Named after the Greek goddess of the earth and the innate desire to visually perceive things that happen in the surroundings, through this blog I will strive to put forth my humble views on all and sundry with special focus on all issues "green and blue".