Satyajit Bhatkal

Hello, I'm Satyajit. I live in Mumbai, India, and it's a pleasure and a privilege to have the opportunity to speak at the Creative Society Conference. 

No external agency, no technology is going to be able to solve our problems unless and until we're able to solve the basic problem which faces mankind, which is that a social factor that unless we are able to realize that we are essentially all one. 

Yet all of us today are divided. We are divided in our long multiple axes. And that is the fundamental crisis that confronts us. If we are able to solve that, we’ll have a fighting chance to solve everything else. 

If we are not able to solve that, you know, science and technology, I don't believe, it’s going to be able to ever lead us out of the crisis, absolutely, the edge of the cliff that we find ourselves on. So I think it's wonderful what is being attempted and it's a privilege to be a part of this conversation. 

The central concern at every immediate level is, is climate change. I think climate change is the elephant in the room. It's going to... it is already unraveling very, very rapidly.

It's not something that is going to happen in the future. It is already happening. We are literally like the…You must be familiar with the story of the frog in the water. So the story is this, that essentially you put a frog in hot water, it immediately jumps out, because it knows that the water is hot. But if you put the frog in water, which is at room temperature, and you gradually boil it, you know, it's enjoying the temperature of the water. And by the time the frog realizes that the water is dangerous, it's too late. It doesn't have the ability to jump out. 

And I think that we are very close to that boiling point now. And it would take all the ingenuity of man to pull us away from the brink of the abyss because that is where we find ourselves today.  

So no matter whom we might consider powerful. The greatest military superpowers of the world, also at some level, ironic as it may seem, perceive themselves to be helpless. 

And that's true because the Earth is going through a crisis in which unless all of mankind comes together and has an agreement, at least on this, we're really not going to be able to extricate ourselves from this crisis. 

But as human beings, our wiring has not taken place to commensurate with that. So we have kind of conquered the laws of nature, but we do not know our own natures as our own beings. Who are we? 

As a species, we are already on borrowed time. Now we're seeing how climate change is passing the tipping point in many countries. We can see how the environment, which each of us lives in, deteriorates and turns more and more unpredictable. We have hurricanes in Bombay which we never had. So at multiple levels, I think every person everywhere in the world can feel that we are living in a period of uncertainty that is unprecedented. 

All national solutions are failing. And they will fail, whether this happens as far as health is concerned, whether global warming is concerned, whether it’s as far as the economy is concerned. And they don’t know how to... people are able to articulate it. 

I personally am deeply convinced that the entire survival of our species depends on us coming together, on us finding a way based on dialogue, on kindness, on love, on overcoming fear of embracing differences. 

We are either able to do that and survive or we will certainly, certainly perish as a species. And no doubt this is not something which is at all unpredictable. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to predict that.

Well, obviously the role of media is heightened because media has the ability to reach many, many more people in one go. 

This level of urgency can only be acquired if it becomes the dominant emotion of civil society. We have not been able to give it that level of urgency, that level of awareness in the public consciousness. 

Certainly, one part of it is the role of the media, but it is obviously the power of every section of society. It is what parents need to do. It is where schools and colleges need to do, it’s what the politicians in power need to do, it’s what every single one of us needs to be doing.  

This is my first interaction with the Creative Society, and I'm absolutely... I love the idea of, you know, people across, you know, all kinds of circles of life coming together in order to open up a conversation about the common problems that face us as humanity, or as part of nature, or existence -- which way you will choose to look at it. So I think it's an extremely, extremely important initiative.