Think!! Eat!! Save!!!

It was not a usual day for Rahul. The school had arranged for special classes for 5th standard, which has to be compulsorily attended by the students. Finally, he reached home by 5 PM. He was very much hungry and felt as if he had returned from a hunger strike.

“Am feeling very much hungry”, Rahul told his mom, while he was grumbling about the special class.

“Just give me 5 minutes. Will prepare hot and spicy bread pakora”, replied his mom and took the bread packet out of the refrigerator.

Unable to sustain the wrath of hunger, Rahul entered the kitchen straight-away to consume it at the place of production.

Feeling restless, he was monitoring the process of making the pakora. She has kept a tawa with oil on the stove and was cutting the bread slices. He realized that his mom had perfectioned the art of cutting the edges in the bread slice.

Rahul tried to understand the logic behind cutting the edge, but having realized that the hungerness is not allowing him to think, he asked the reason from his mom for cutting the edges. Though the question seemed irrelevant, but feeling the need to answer, she replied that cutting the edges would help in frying the pakoras better and making it tastier.

Immediately his thoughts went back to school, where his teacher was discussing about the food wastage.

Food is one of the basic needs for human beings.

We consume food to ensure that we get enough strength to carry our day-to-day activities and live a healthy life.
We are blessed and lucky to have breakfast, lunch and dinner on any given day.

Is this the case with everyone??

We call the first meal of the day as breakfast, since it breaks the long fasting we have (time gap between dinner and our first meal in the morning).

There are people on the planet, who do not even get food once a day and whenever they get to consume food, its sort of a breakfast for them (BREAK-THE-FAST). Several factors could be spotted for these imparity – economy of the country, earning potential of the people, status in the society, rising commodity cost.

Though most of us hear about the poverty across the world, or for that sake, see it in our day-to-day life, what have we done to overcome it, except for leisurely using the facilities. When the facilities are abundant, we are not even bothered about saving it.

How many of us have faced situations, where we do not like the food in a hotel/home and leave the food plate as it is, without eating?

How many of us have liked the food and ordered for more and then have wasted it for the sole reason of not able to consume further?

Have we ever realized the efforts taken and number of parties involved in getting a sack of rice to the market? The farmer sows the seeds, wait for months protecting the crops from insects and have to withstand the natural calamities too. 

Also, rain plays a major havoc, wherein less rainfall means under-supply of water to crops and more rainfall leading to destroying the crops. Then comes the harvesting season, where sky-rocketing efforts need to be put in to get the final output (rice). Not all the outputs are rewarded, as they have to encounter the middle-men to sell it at a decent price. Then it goes through a long exchange process between multiple parties, before it enters our households.

This is just the shortened explanation of one commodity. Similarly for each commodity, the efforts are many-folded to get the right output.

And what we do then. We do the easiest job. We waste them, without even bothering about the hard work that has been put by those mighty souls (or) not even bothering about the millions of souls who stay hungry without having access to food.

Few Facts that provide a better picture

• Undernutrition contributes to 2.6 million deaths of children under five each year - one third of the global total
• One out of six children -- roughly 100 million -- in developing countries is underweight.
• 66 million primary school-age children attend classes hungry across the developing world, with 23 million in Africa alone
• WFP (World Food Programme) calculates that US$3.2 billion is needed per year to reach all 66 million hungry school-age children

As the facts were slowly running in his mind, Rahul was brought back to the kitchen by the smell of pakoras. While he was feasting the pakoras, his mom asked about the day’s proceedings in school and Rahul smelled the right opportunity to enlighten his mom about food wastage.... 

Even that edge of the bread slice could have been a meal for someone.....

If Rahul can visualize the impact of food wastage, why can’t we????

Well, if still you are not interested in saving the planet, here is what lies in future for us: 
Can we consume Insects?????

Most of you would not be aware of the "World Environment Day". It falls on 5th June of each year and the theme for this year revolves around food wastage....For further details, log on to World Environment Day

Water Water everywhere, not a drop to drink

Well, I was riding back to home from office and I noticed a confused crowd running here and there. Curious to know what has happened (as I always intend to do), I stopped the vehicle and walked toward the small narrow street, where I saw a water tanker that has just arrived.

People have thronged the tanker like a swarm of flies to fetch water. Not to mention about the queue, as it was not maintained as always. The crowd ranged from 7yr kid to 60yr elder persons. People were fighting amongst themselves to get a pot of water and none of them were even given a second chance. After half-an-hour of fast-paced drama, the tanker has been drained completely from its last drop of water.

The irritation in their faces were visibly seen as they were allowed only one pot. There were angry faces also and I realized that these lot were not lucky enough to get even a single pot of water. The tanker comes only twice a week and sometimes, it tends to carry half the tank of water due to water shortage in the city. Then I realized, its better to start before the crowd’s angriness turns violent.

As I was heading back to the bike, I wondered on the pitiful life of these people, who had to wage a battle to get a pot of water. What a life, where people has to fightt for their basic needs.

But, does the entire society faces the same problem?? No.

Take our daily life. How many of us have faced these problems??? Atleast 90% of us would say “NO, NEVER”. Reason being money does the trick as we buy water incase of shortage. As we are not aware or even bothered of the scarcity, we tend to waste water knowingly or unknowingly.

Sometimes, we tend to keep the tap open while brushing or we tend to keep the tap open while washing vessels or bathing. There are still ample scenarios to be mentioned.

Just because we don’t feel the pressure of water shortage, doesn’t mean that we can spend water lavishly. We need to understand the difficulty around us and try to preserve water in all possible ways we can, as the situation cannot remain same always.

Just think of the reasons for water shortage. A root cause analysis would say 100% of the water shortage is due to human beings. We don’t seem to preserve rain water. We like destroying trees and never bother about planting it somewhere else. And a lot more could be added to this kitty....

Out of the total quantity of water in the world, more than 95% is sea water leaving a very little as consumable for human beings. This little cannot last long and before this little becomes tiny, its high time that we act, before we start fighting to get even a half pot of water.

A day would come where water becomes more precious and cost would be equivalent or more than that of gold (not to mention that the rate is declining, though its for a different reason)

If we are neither saving water nor recycling it, sooner the human race will end up in a big mess facing water scarcity, wherein it will be “(sea) Water water everywhere, but not even a drop to drink”.

அழகே நீ!!!!!!!!!!

மேற்கு நோக்கி பவர்ணமி அன்று பயணித்த மன்னவன்
நிலவொளியே வெட்கி தலை குனிய காரணமான தலைவி அழகை கண்டான்!!

அவள் அழகில் வீழ்ந்த அவன் எண்ணியது,

அவள் கண் விளித்தால் சூரியன் உதித்து போன்றாகுமோ,
அவள் கண்களை மூடி உறங்குவதால் தான்  இரவே வருகின்றதோ!!!!!

அவள் கூந்தல் அசைவதால் தான், தென்றலே வீசுகின்றதோ,
அவள் சிரிப்பொலி தான் புத்துணர்வூட்டும் இசையோ!!!


பாவையின் கூந்தல் மல்லிகை சொர்க்கத்தை அடைந்ததர்போல,
பாவையை கண்ட மன்னவனோ, சொர்கத்தை கண்டது போல் உணர்ந்தான்!!!

The Unsung heroes

It was just another sunny day in Pune. Unable to bear the heatwave, we slipped into E-sqaure and booked tickets for the movie - Paan Singh Tomar. Well, I didn't even had the faintest thought of writing a review for this movie, until I saw the message at the end of the movie – “The movie is dedicated to the unsung heroes of Indian sports”.

The story revolves around the life of Paan Singh Tomar (played by Irfaan), who turns from an army man to a sportsperson to a famous rebel. Paan Singh is an innocent, straight-forward person, hailing from Morena district of Madhya Pradesh. Even though he owns land in his village, he joins the army with the sole purpose of serving the nation. Soon his commander realises his talent in sports and sends him to the training academy. 

Everyone including the coach was surprised at his energy and stamina as he wins the 5000m trial in the very first go. But, he ends up in 3000m steeplechase at the request of his coach, as his coach’s daughter is married to the family of his competitor in the 5000m event. He takes the new game sportively and proves his mettle by winning the National event, due to which he gets the nod to participate for the Asian championship in Japan. 

Though the movie revolves around his athletics, the director has taken his time to not to miss on the village romance between Paan Singh and Indra (played by Mahi Gill). May be, this is how romance still exist in village.

His love for the nation is seen from the fact that he argues with his commander to send him to the 1965 war, as army rules doesn’t allow a sportsperson to take part in war. But the fire inside him to serve the nation makes him to win the 1967 International steeplechase event.

Being an International champion, his life goes for a toss when the situation in his native worsens, as his relatives occupy his land. Having left with no choice, he resigns from the army to take care of his family. After seeing his son getting beaten very badly and his family being chased away by the relatives, with no support from the local police, the army man cum sportsperson turns a rebellion.

He creates his own group and trains them to fight against police or any intermediaries who come on their way. As every revenge movie would go, he takes his revenge by killing his relative. One of his famous dialogue in the movie – “Life is a race, whether you win or lose, you still got to complete the race”. This suits his life in the movie accordingly, as after becoming a rebel, he did not have the choice to lead the old life, but to continue the life of a rebel.

Slowly, his group started kidnapping people for ransom and he becomes very famous after the killing of policemen and his front page interview in a local newspaper. Whenever someone calls him a dacoit, he used to correct them saying, “Don’t call me a dacoit, am a rebel”. He is vigilant all the time, seen from the fact that he makes his servant to taste the food before consuming it.

Seems everything that has a beginning comes to an end someday. A new inspector takes charge, who goes on a day-night hunt for Paan Singh. Being betrayed by his group member, Paan Singh was finally shot down by the police, but he ensures the death of traitor before his. 

Just when the movie got over, a message appeared on the screen - "The movie is dedicated to the unsung heroes of Indian sports". This made me (hopefully everyone) to realize the true essence of the movie.

I wondered as how sportsperson leads their life?  Looking at the real scenarios in India, the movie is not completely wrong. Our country has changed in such a way that we bother only about the 11 players on the field. 

What about other sports?

The importance given to one sport has taken away all the credits that should have obtained to other sports. How many people amongst us are aware of the name of the sportsperson or even the sports other than that single game?

Whom to be blamed? 
Is this the incapability of the people or the government?

“Better late than never”. Its high time that our country recognizes other sports and provide facilities and develop personalities in various fields. 

Hope, in the future, our country creates Paan Singh Tomar as a sportsperson and not as a rebellion!!!!!

My Dear friend, This is India

This blog is a collection of events that happened during one of my longest train journeys.

I was waiting for the Nagarcoil express - 16351 (Mumbai to Nagarcoil via Pune via Trichy) at the Pune station, feeling irritated thinking of the long journey ahead. As the train arrived, I checked the charts eagerly to see any female companion of my age near my seat. 

Having been disappointed again, I cursed my luck, boarded the train and arranged my luggage. 

The train started at 5.00 PM and within minutes of start of the train, a family approached me and requested  me to shift to the other 3AC coach, as they had got tickets split in both of the 3AC coaches. Thought lazy to change the coach, I still felt happy as I realized that there might be a chance to meet a female companion next to my seat. Seems unlucky guys are always unlucky, as the scenario remained the same in other coach too.

It was 9PM in the night.

Having chatted with the family for a long time, I went out to stand near the door and was just listening to the chat between the coach attendants. Hope most of you know that 3AC coaches are accompanied by coach attendants, whose responsibility is to give the bedding items.

The lady from the family came out and asked the attendant for a bedsheet. As the bedsheet was handed over to her, she started arguing with the attendant to give a neat and clean bedsheet. It was a white bedsheet, but due to repeated usage, the colour has slightly faded from it. But it was fresh and neatly ironed; still she wanted a fresh white bedsheet, not like the faded one that has been given to her just now.

The lady passenger argued and added that she would complain to the TC (Ticket Checker) for not issuing a fresh one. By this time, the attendant lost his patience and told her to go ahead and complain. As the lady passenger realized that argument is of no use, she took the besheet and went to her seat.

Her actions took me by surprise, as while we were talking inside, she was complaining that it is difficult for India to develop because of unwanted behaviour of people and now she is doing exactly the same!!!!

Isn’t the lady passenger asking for too much of comfort when travelling in a public transport? She could have paid money for her travel, still she should not have argued, as this is the maximum care that the railways could provide. She could have easily taken the bedsheet and left the scene at the very first moment, rather than having an argument.

Oh man, now I realized. We are living in India and it is not an unusual thing, if people speak in one way, but behaves in a completely different manner.

As I entered the coach, a passenger approached me enquiring whether the plug point near my seat is working or not. Even though I didn’t use the plug point till that point of the journey, I assured him that it would work and plugged his charger. To my dismay, it didn’t work and told him to try charging in the next coach.

Instead, he called the attendant and asked him to repair the plug point. The facial expression of the attendant showed the shock he had just got by such a request. As the attendant was explaining that he do not know how to repair, the dissatisfied passenger immediately replied, “I am going to complain to the Ticket Checker (TC)”

This time, it was me who was shocked rather than the attendant. What on earth an attendant who deals with bedsheet has got to do with electric repairs. The person who was arguing with the attendant looked like an educated guy and doesn’t he have common sense to think that an attendant cannot deal with this electrician type works.

Just because we have paid money to travel, it doesn’t mean that we own the train and can complain about anyone, for whatsoever issues we have. Feeling exhausted on just looking at the two incidents, I just wondered at the plight of attendant as how many passengers he has to encounter in his train journeys. It seems he is used to it and takes everything as just another argument and moves on.

May be none of the passengers has really complained to the TC or even if they had complained, it didn’t bother him much!!!! 

I was curious and asked the attendant whether he is not irritated by these incidents. He smiled and replied , "My Dear friend, This is India"!!!!

I went to sleep, awaiting eagerly for the next day expecting some interesting incidents.

Day2

As I was listening to songs, the train halted at Tirupati. I got down the train to stretch a bit to get rid of laziness. 

People got down from the train hurriedly and swarmed the dosa shop on the platform like a swarm of flies around a fruit. Everyone was busy buying dosa and few of them told the vendor to pour additional sambar.

While the passengers carried the paper plate to the coach, sambar started spilling on the platform. Even though the passengers are aware of this, they just didn’t care about it and started walking away. It was not the case with few passengers, but with more than 75% of the passengers, who got down from the coach.

The way the people behaved made me to think whether they are trying to clean the platform with sambar.

If the same thing happened in their home, wouldn’t they clean the place immediately? Just because it’s a railway platform, it doesn’t mean that they have all the rights to dirty it.

Why don’t they understand, that they have equal responsibility in keeping public places clean? The looks given by the people around conveyed the message, "My Dear friend, This is India"!!!

As I was looking at the dirty platform, the train started moving again. I entered the train and took a paper and a pen and started scribbling the rough draft of this blog. I got down at trichy, feeling happy to have added one more blog to my kitty.

It took me two months after the train journey to convert the rough draft to a fair one, after looking at the competition (Around the World with Expedia!) conducted by Expedia (http://www.expedia.co.in/)  in Indiablogger.

திருமணம்

கதிரவன் மெதுவாக எட்டி பார்த்த வண்ணம் இருக்க

பறவைகள் இறை தேட கிளம்பிய வண்ணம் இருக்க

அமைதியின் உருவமாய் இருந்த அந்த வீதியையே 

உலுக்கி எழுப்பியது அந்த கல்யாண மண்டபம்!!!!

ஒரு பக்கமோ உற்றார் உறவினர் கூடிய வண்ணம் இருக்க

மறு பக்கமோ நண்பர்கள் கூடிய வண்ணம் இருக்க

மணமகளாக தங்கள் குழந்தையை பார்த்த 

பெற்றோரோ, எண்ணற்ற மகிழ்ச்சியுடன் நின்றிருந்தனர்!!!!

மேலத் தாளங்கள் முழங்கிய வண்ணம் இருக்க

கடிகாரமோ முஹுர்த்த நேரத்தை தொட்டிருக்க

கெட்டி மேளம் என ஐயர் குரல் எழுப்ப 

மன்னவன் அவள் கழுத்தில் மாங்கள்யம் கட்டினான்!!!!

As you like it!!!!!

Life is the most precious gift given to a human being. It depends upon the perception of the individual to make it easier or difficult to live in. Even though each individual has their own way of pursuing his/her life, the competition of survival plays a spoilsport upon these thoughts. We try to imitate others or live the life of others, thereby making one’s own life miserable. 

The tagline “Survival of the Fittest” has taken deep roots in everyone’s mind and this act as a trigger in all the activities done by an individual. What has started as a healthy competition is slowly affecting the individual psychologically, which automatically increases the already existing mechanical life.

Every second that got over just now becomes past. It is good to remember the past but bad to live life thinking about the past. Life is full of challenges that include both positive and negative sides. Accept the negative feedback and work upon them to make them positive and try to capitalize upon the positive feedback. Think of the future. By future, I mean the very next second. Does anyone know as what is going to happen in the future? Does anyone have control over the future? None other than the maker can control it.

It is time for each individual to take a break and think about their life. Every individual is the owner of their respective life and responsible for his/her well being. 

Who else is better to judge an individual other than the self? Rather than living a life by thinking about the past or by thinking about the future, the essence of life can best be understood by living the present in the way he/she likes it.

Be optimistic. Accept the failures and weakness. Accepting the weakness is in itself an added strength. Never allow criticism to affect your mind. Be ready to face criticism. Be yourself. Every individual has a unique quality which can best be understood by behaving in their own, rather than imitating others. We are waging a war against time, by sacrificing the happiness in one’s life. Before acting upon others advice, analyse whether the change is worth taking.

It’s our life. Making it good or bad depends upon our reaction towards various situations. Do not live for others. Live the life as you like it.