Leaving a light bulb on

Someone has left a light bulb on
in the staircase of our block of flats
shining bright day and night

two days ago there were frantic efforts
to find out who had forgotten to switch it off
the person has gone off traveling
and now its been over five days

in the age of climate change
i set out out calculate
how much energy
has been wasted uptill now

BSES tells me a 100W bulb consumes about 0.1 units per hour
and using that figure
i guess the we have already used up about 20 rupees of electricity (100 hours)

in fact if the bulb had been a CFL one
the savings would have been up to five times
but then leaving it on throughout the day is still a stupid idea

how many times do we leave light bulbs
or other devices on in the house
and it sneaks up into our electricity bill
at the end of the month

TERI has a good (but complicated)
energy calculator
for your house
and since the programme calculates
the usage in each room
you can use it monitor your consumption patterns
and even reduce it

the flip side of this bulb staring at us
each time we down the flight of stairs
is that it is an excellent advert for the
bulb company
(although in Turkey, I am sure the
Election Commission would pass an order to put out the bulb)

i am waiting to see when it will explode or die out