Falsa (Grewia asiatica) - The Summer Superfruit

Falsa(s) fruit, served chilled with slight sprinkle of salt or spices - photo clicked by Author

    Summer months, particularly May and June but also April, provide us with refreshing purple berries known as Falsa or Phalsa. They form part of childhood memories for many children and elderlies alike. The sour-sweet and tangy taste has a lasting impression. These seasonal berries are native to South Asia, particularly grown in India and Pakistan.  

    Scientifically named as Grewia asiatica, these berries are grown primarily in Indian subcontinent. These bushes or small trees are grown in India and Pakistan at large scale particularly in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, West Bengal and in Himalayan foothills.

Beef Over Beef

Farmers at work in Myanmar

The politicians in India are debating diet of nation, some of them with quite loose tongues (Sangeet Som, Manohar Lal Khattar, Assasuddin Owaisi, Mohammad Azam to name a few). Meanwhile, the filth elected by popular mandate has forgot that alternative to beef is pulses, with regards to protein content and as a staple component of Indian diet and at Rs 200/kg those are now costlier than beef. So, while beef is a politically ill-advised diet, pulses are no longer pocket friendly.

This brings us to focus of government in last 1 year and 6 months. Mr. Modi has been on a world tour attracting investment in Indian manufacturing sector, the Make In India programme and his passion for providing Facebook to every Indian is world famous. The effort has attracted investments, albeit it seems directed wrongly. The country needs to focus on infrastructure, but politicians (including Mr.Arun Jaitley) have forgotten the infrastructure is not only railways and roadways (Mr. Gadkari might, dreamily, relay whole Indian highway network and go gung-ho about it). It also includes support and networks for an agrarian economy, alternative energy schemes, housing schemes which are affordable. Clean India campaign is very praise-worthy and some impact is visible now-a-days. Yoga politics is a personal choice with little or no implication outside RSS shakhas.

The current vision and policy seems to be short-sighted and should, probably, be revised to focus on modernizing the farms of India. And modernization is not to be confused with mechanization. The entrepreneurs in India today are well placed to help develop alternative crop collection, storage, sorting and distribution systems and also market them. Replacing red-tape ridden food programmes of governments. With large, educated workforce, a big part of which are engineers, doctors, managers, agriculturists the focus ought to be on incensing them to work in creative endeavours like rural economy and not jumping into urban rat-race or chasing an unreal American dream, loaned by corporations.

There have been reports and observations of a collapsed real-estate sector. The reason for which are misplaced focus on developing luxury housing, ignoring the sustained demands for low-cost housing. An unsold inventory of nearly a million apartments indicates stagnation in demand of such projects and a bad case of hollow urbanization of a truly rural nation, such 'development' is resulting in loss of prime agricultural lands in Doab regions of Ganga and Yamuna and pressurising resources in other parts of India.

Ideas in this post might sound socialist, but are truthfully capitalist and rightist on any economic parameter and if India's right wing fails to steer it forward in those directions, that would be the true failure of the Indian mandate and the Modi government. The beef would be then with the rightist hope and missed opportunity of a global scale.

A New Delhi...

Image courtesy : laszlo-photo on Flickr, check usage terms before using the image.

Born in Delhi I am a proud pro-Delhi turk. And it automatically translates into the fact that the person in question loves urban enthusiasm. This is essentially the reason why I hear so many say, "...I wouldn't mind appreciating the beauty and exclusivity of many small towns, but when it comes to live in metropolis like Delhi or Mumbai, it is a lifestyle, an addiction to be precise". It is not me but people who say that a person used to living in Delhi or Mumbai has little chance of getting anchored elsewhere, they are not an adaptive breed then.

As of Delhi, I find it to be a total delight, an excellent one. Have always been here, though travelling is something I kind of love. This city is something I breathe, I tease, I wish to hold in my embrace and I wonder, whenever on rare occasions I get serious about a girl (...which is something that once started never ends, I just never give up...), this is the city to romance her. Some things that differentiate Delhi from others are - its horizontal expanse, a cosmopolitan cauldron which is co-operative yet rowdy, this city symbolises contradictions and thus it manages to appeal to almost everyone.

Whenever my mind goes on a Delhi walk (a slow stroll in cityscape, it generally happens twice a month or more...), it most of the time overlooks the old Delhi by-lanes and disciplined DDA squatters and straight away flies to Lutyens' Bungalow Zone, Delhi Cantonment, many beautiful and institutionalised places which generally do not feature on tourist maps.

The city, as we all know, has gone drastic and excellent changes in the last decade and this brings this historic city to its latest incarnation, which boasts of a robust infrastructure (still improving), a demanding populace which is ready to fight for almost everything, a jolly diaspora and lot more.

The city once held by creative Urdu elite was taken over by hardworking and somewhat crude on outlook Punjabi tribe after 1947 partition. Though Punjabis still tend to be biggest stakeholders in the city, but time ticks, change takes control and now Delhi comes into a new play becoming a kaleidoscope of what can be called an exuberant bunch of ideologies, mindsets.

Six universities within city limits make it a students' heaven and we all know what 'young' is about, hot-blooded move forth ambition, we-leave-our-mark thoughts, and youth create revolutions. Being political centre has made it a power centre, the satellite cities and the centre live in symbiotic association. It feels like organic evolution in play. 15 years back it would have been outrageous to be out on streets after 10, but now the city never sleeps. The race to become "First City", a "World City", live upto the reputation of being capital of world's largest democracy has done tremendous good to city and we see a New Delhi shaping up...

I wonder if the ancient ideas of city states do good to growth of the cosmopolitan cities, we still remember Athens, Sparta, Babylon, Cairo, Alexandria, Harappa and Mohan-jo-Daro, don't we? Across the world, cities independent of state jurisdictions (at least having privileged statuses) have done excellently well -
> Tokyo,
> Hong Kong (the city probably should never be retrospective about being in foreign control for 100 years),
> Singapore (a city state in true sense),
> New York (probably one of best users of public transport and everyone knows it is one of major main-stay of world economy to date.),
> Washington D.C.,
> Los Angeles (must say money comes into play),
> Dubai (an excellent display of quick wealth, sustainability is questionable after the debt fiasco)
> London (capital of the island nation, in whose empire sun never set barely 100 years ago. This city terms itself cultural and economic centre of world)

How about going for a competitive growth spurt within India. It has always been a question of tussle, which is better? Why not let these megapolis in India with funds and ambitious targets to meet their aspirations and compete for being the best (nothing less does today) on one front or the other.

Euthanasia - Suicide Crippled?

Image courtesy : Lord Jim on Flickr, check usage terms before using the image.

Disclaimer and Content Advisory : The content below deals with a subject of controversial nature and represents author's take on it. Further it is advised that you avoid reading beyond this line if you are not OK with content heavily descriptive and heavy on intensity, specially the questions part of the post.

Suicide - (noun) the action of killing oneself intentionally.

Euthanasia - (noun) the painless killing of a patient suffering from an incurable disease, this generally is done to prevent the person in question the suffering he is going through and is by his/her consent only.

In republic of India Euthanasia is not a legal act. People suffering several unimaginable, painful, extensively shaking, horrendous and disturbing situations (words are not enough to explain these) are now raising voice in favour of something loosely termed as 'Right To Death'. They, and me too, are of the opinion that ultimately when one has to die, why not choose it now and save oneself from a life which lacks dignity and is extremely painful. The 'destiny' has made it a rather exaggerated form of punishment for them to live.

I in my personal opinion consider it as a suicide, difference being person him/herself is not able to execute it and therefore needs external help. The empowered class at top brass of the country should come out of their euphoric idealism of 'Chance To Life' and take an approach which is practical and empathic towards the suffering soul and so provide for a legal framework to do the inevitable, because many a time one has to overlook emotions to express extreme degree of compassion, and feel what the victim is going through. It is irony that the person in this case has to suffer and go through a slow and decaying process of elimination, just because an idealist order and nature itself has gone against him/her to the extent of crippling him/her from making a choice between life and death, which would have been just a matter of suffering a fall from floor 10 or popping few extra pills given he/she was able to act. Horrible must be chaining a brain and heart, unable to anything.

Would like to close this post with few questions -
1) Abortion, why not 'Chance To Life' in this case?
2) Why not there be 'Right To Die'?
3) Would you consider it just to make someone live a life - tied to bed, gasping for breath, unable to eat and drink by self, help him/herself of cleaning (I don't know those technical and medical terms in this case and I know you get what I mean to convey...), feeling hapless seeing those dreams and ambitions die within themselves, still not loosing faith in that 'almighty' despite him breaking them in every possible way, treating them like flesh and not humanity. In the process breaking a hundred around, seeing the pain of unimaginable degree and still denying it the relief.

Having written the last para I have nothing but a head hanging loose in the silence with a glowing laptop screen, gathering voices of the taps of fingers on the keyboard moments before. Hope this 100th post of mine helps India come out of a state of denial and brave the challenge of doing something painful yet epitome of love, legalise mercy killing. Pardon me, I might have deviated a lot because of my inexperienced age and shallow and extremely emotional nature.

Time To School

Image courtesy : mckaysavage on Flickr, check usage terms before using the image.

Admissions? Not for me. I have completed my schooling and currently pursuing graduation degree, so not a case with me, lest I make mind for a master's degree which going by my current thinking patterns and requirements is highly unlikely. Coming to the actual story, when your cousins are married and have nice families (I mean kids), it is inevitable for you to visit them - for society's sake and sometime you too like to communicate with kids 17 years younger. And when you visit them you learn that these days admissions are no cake walk, parents got to pass interviews, try to live as near as possible to the school they wish their kid to study in, a girl child is always preferred in schools!

In case you thought you had tough time getting admitted to your college a year or two ago consider this -
to get admission in a school in Delhi for 2010 session procedure begins from Dec 15' 2009 and continues till March 31 next year. Parents can fill in forms till Jan 15 and schools will scrutinize them till Jan 30. First list of successful candidates will be put up on Feb 01 and they are then free to party, which is defined as getting prepared for the session which begins 2 months later on April 01 - babies ageing between 2 and 3/4 years and 4 need to dress up proper; white shirts, grey tunics, properly worn socks and black-polished bellies! Accessories can be anything like red-yellow tiffins, sip-from-the-tube water bottles. Assorted collection of glossy magazines, books, glittery pencil boxes and flashy notebooks are all indicators of level of accomplishment of child's family! All right! Schools too are not spared from the gruesome schedules and are pushed hard to limits with 2nd, 3rd and 4th lists following latest by March 15.

As I see the kid in front of me. I wonder how they so easily get accustomed to the routines of waking up early to catch that 6:30 am bus to a school 1 hour drive from their home and then mingle with all the small heads their. There would be regular morning swarms of properly uniformed kids, gathering for an assembly. And at the home same 3-something would quite innocently yell that she desires to grow her hair long! Its nice to revise those Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck days with this new breed, I tell you it is refreshing even for me! And the naming exercise for the kid continues even after 3 years of the birth, providing the parents with activities that keep them from being bored, at least so it seems on the outside.

Innately, unknowingly and somewhat in agreement to our happiness the environments, facilities, situations and several such things beyond our control and many a time object of our curse have been successful in carving us into citizens who are positive, good and think responsibly for the future that lies ahead...

Challenge!

Image courtesy : 1Happysnapper(is trying to catch up ) on Flickr, check usage terms before using the image.

Well Today is Dec 13' 2009! Anniversary of attack on Parliament, that is all that comes to my mind right now. Am not a great patriot but like any other person I too love my country and wish it to have a peaceful course. Am not writing this post to show my anger against terrorism or my love for my country but simply to complete a challenge thrown to me, by my friend.

But still there is a point I want to show through this post and that I don't want to coat or mask under any cover. And the message simply says, "Terrorism probably roots out of identity crisis. People tend to think of political ways for carving niche for themselves and tend to take offensive paths and thus end up being terrorists and the important thing is that people like me are not affected by this thing and most of the time use it for some small tasks like completing challenges, meeting deadlines and things...."

Wordle - Digital Grafitto

Well the title and the image tells it all! I like this art called Graffito (plural Graffiti) a lot. It is an expression of masses, willing to leave their impression on things they consider to be theirs but probably lack resources and means to claim them and thereby resort to getting hold of them by means considered unethical and anti-social but still exceptionally creative and eye-catching!

Above you see a Wordle created out of my Twitter posts! Click it to have a better view. You can also create your own at - Wordle.

Another Interaction With Delhi.

Last Sunday, I had my engineering and architecture entrance exam. But the post will loosely move around the proceedings of the day. I almost didn't sleep the whole night. In the morning, we took bus till Dhaula Kuan and then an auto-rickshaw to the exam centre. the auto-rickshaw driver zipped it along the southern boundary of Delhi's central ridge reserved forest. The ride extended into the beautiful by-lanes of the New Delhi. Mesmerising roads lined by a large number of trees and a lot of infrastructure development projects underway. I got few glimpses of the under-construction Airport Express Link of Delhi Metro, the line is supposed to provide fast access between New Delhi Railway Station and Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport with top speeds reaching 120-135kmph. Further we moved to Connaught Place, the central business district of Delhi. It wore a deserted look on early Sunday morning. Next came ITO, crossed Yamuna and then the ride along eastern bank of the river. A lot of activity is taking place along the banks of river, majorly in view of coming Commonwealth Games of 2010. Across the road opposite the river front stands the exam centre. A filthy smell disgusts me throughout the tests. And yes the top floor syndrome continues here also! Add to this I got to sit on the first bench in the paper one. In the paper two the room changed to my happiness, I was no more on the first bench and the pesky smell was gone. Paper two had three drawing questions and the last one was to create a colourful composition of some season. But as I started attempting the question I realised that time was very less and I will have to make something very quickly, so I just didn't gave a thought and started sketching a girl, I think as she would be about 20-22 so girl would be appropriate word, followed by a tree then her companion to fill the space. I just started filling the colours, but soon realised that two eyes were glued to my creation. Oh this was the invigilator, to make it less obvious I sketched two kids, giving the hint that they are Mom and Dad and not some romance ridden couple!In the meantime I completed the exam in the best possible way. after the exam I was not in mood of a bus-ride so went to take Metro. About 2-3 km from exam centre was Shastri Park Metro station. I reached there by Rickshaw and the Metro station was one of the best in Delhi. More importantly you get to see a lot of hip crowd, air-conditioned travel and all the best facilities at almost no cost. For the first time I used Metro to transverse across Yamuna and reached first interchange station and so passed about 20 stations and I was at my destination Tilak Nagar. The whole way I kept on thinking about a lot of stuff including web-pages, evening with friends and more. At home I took some rest but could not resist calling up a friend to meet soon, later in the evening we enjoyed browsing on net, some PC games and a little walk. Rest is only schedule, but living in Delhi is a bliss!


All Images in this post are taken from Flickr. Click on respective image to access respective original location and owner. All these images can be re-used following these terms.

Pink Panic

Image Courtesy : Gabe Photos on Flickr, check terms before using image.

Last evening my friend came to my home, simple regular rides and strolls. A kick and scooter starts, we perch on it and it move out in lanes around my house. A few metres and he throws a straight question, "what is menstrual cycle?" Firstly am taken aback, nothing but, "what?, who?, why?..." to answer him. He tells asked just because a friend asked him. By now ready to answer the question I start reminding him of class X biology chapters, and all the itsy-bitsy details. Though being a purely scientific topic, it was a bit awkward to talk about; each line ended in a "ummm...", "hmmm..." and such words giving away my awkwardness. Somehow I managed to explain to him and move on and what followed were jokes from his mobile inbox, some laughs and giggles and we ride to our friends house, like zip zap zoom flying dust off the road and feeling ourselves to be kings of streets, remembering scenes from movies like The Fast and The Furious...

...and life moves on as pink panics don't leave us.

Lorem Ipsum

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aliquam tempor tristique turpis. Nunc tincidunt vulputate ligula. Mauris tempus porta magna. Integer et risus ut felis sagittis viverra. Quisque quis lorem. Nam tempus lorem. Donec bibendum, orci vitae tincidunt lacinia, leo massa faucibus eros, quis gravida massa sem id lectus. Proin.

Just got a random thought, what LOREM IPSUM meant? Quite regular to see these words but still never bothered to find its meaning. And when I did, I was astonished to find that this paragraph, which I found quite troublesome when using many popular publishing wizards, was not that vague as it appeared. Having a history of over 500 years and withstood the changes in printing and publishing industry the paragraph is now a standard dummy text for printing and typesetting industry. The text is used simply for the reason that it is very less likely to distract people focussing on text layout because of unreadability. Moreover it has more-or-less equal distribution of characters and so on.

So fellas, everything is not that vague as it appears!!!

Further reading at - Lorem Ipsum

Suicidal Tendencies Of A Young Nation

Image Courtesy: Nav A on Flickr, check usage terms before using the image.

Happy Independence Day to all Indians on 60 years of Indian freedom.

In past 60 years the country has progressed a lot and is now recognised to be a booming economy, but the reluctantly slow pace of growth is something that bothers all the citizens even on 61st independence day of the country.

In all the sixty years the policies of government have been really conservative and slow in execution. Till date our government hesitates taking many a steps which may prove determinant in country's growth pattern. This can simply be attributed to governments' protectionist policies, which inhibit the development of a competitive market.

Some of the facts that indicate reasons of country's growth are listed below, if frequent policy changes are not made on these topics it may seriously affect social, economic as well as political growth of the nation, called INDIA, which is still in its infancy.

1. The government finance policies are not of the calibre required to compete with developed economies and major threats like China.

a) It still doesn't permit 100% FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) in many sectors and thereby prevents generation of precious revenue.

b) The GDP growth rate isn't able to break 8% barrier for a long time.

c) Major employment is still in Primary sector (about 60%).

d) Per capita income in terms of PPP ( Purchasing Power Parity) is about $2400 which is less than half of biggest rival, China.

e) A whopping 33% population lives below poverty line, i.e. earns less than $1 per day.

2. Social sector reforms are unexpectedly slow.

a) Country lacks in proper execution of population control strategies, while with a whooping 1 billion population and 1.8% growth the nation is the nation is on course to become largest in terms of populace.

b) Female sex ratio at 933/1000 males is a grave threat.

c) A low education rate of about 65% is something not to talk about.

d) And still the governments promote the caste system by planning to execute almost 50% reservation in all centrally funded institutions!

e) Medical facilities in country are not upto the mark as indicated by the facts like infant death rate in country is 63/1000 births and the labor death rate is unexpectedly high at about 540/100000.

3. The infrastructure in nation has just begun to develop and is critically insufficient in meeting demands of the growing economy.

a) Roads are not very well built, highways are carrying loads beyond there capacity, rural connectivity is not of good quality, cities are witnessing a crunch of road length.

b) Power scenario in country is a serious concern. Proper electricity is a distant dream in rural India while urban regions too face acute and frequent shortages, all despite long existence of these problems.

c) Rural teledensity is a serious concern in modern India, Internet and access to modern communication facilities is very low.

4. Insurgency and Terrorism are biggest problems in the country. The government is not strict enough in taking action against these anti-national elements. To this date even Naxalite groups like MCC are threatening nation by bidding for control of states like Bihar. The problems of Jammu and Kashmir are long persistent.

And the list continues...

Facing such grave and very relevant threats country still contents itself by using self-promoting labels like Knowledge Economy, Software Giant, Super Power in making.....

Well it is time for us citizens to re-define our role in our lovely India's development, hoping the best for my dear country on it 61st Independence Day.

A Little Nokia Fact

 
Image Courtesy : KhE 龙, check usage terms before using the image.

No Nokia phone in asia bears a model number with digit 4, simply because it is considered to be a bad omen by many people in the region.
 
Nokia is a Finland based cell phone giant operating worldwide from Helsinki.

Save The Planet

 
Image Courtesy : The Duke of URL on Flickr, check usageterms before using image.

Surely we can make the difference and it is easy, it does not takes too much off efforts and still has many benefits. We together can prevent global warming and it is always a win-win situation. A little extra effort to stand up and switch off the appliances not in use saves us money, can be healthy by including a little physical effort in our daily lives and very much importantly will save our planet from the disaster, the global warming! So why not join hands and play our roles and make that little difference.
 
Some suggestive links for more info are -

Australian Government's Cool It Site

Wikipedia Global Warming Info

Global Warming

Share with us more suggestive links through comments.