The arteries of Life.

Last time when I had been to my home town, as I was approaching my ancestral house, I looked up to see if the mango tree was still there and found this wonderful sight. The leaves shimmering in the afternoon light. Later while looking at the photograph I was wondering if my grandfather too looked at the same tree early in the morning while dipping his hand in the uri. (an uri is a pot that is hung in the courtyard which contains coarse coal particles. This was used for brushing the teeth - before people could afford toothpaste)

Rarely do we stop and gaze at the trees. There is a lot of history written there. Its the mute spectator to all that's happened under its shade.
Recently while passing through one of the roads in Pune, I had to stop at a signal. A sideways glance showed this huge Canopy covering a huge space. Welcome shade for many. (the title of this post was derived from this picture)


Imagine if your city is covered by trees like these it could reduce the threat of global warming. (will it? I am no authority on that)
Luckily for Pune city, we still have many of them (and hope it remains that way)
The best is the road connecting the Kirkee War cemetery and the Holkar bridge. The trees on either side are huge and it is just wonderful to drive down. I clicked this on a rainy day.

Another place is the entrance road to the Agriculture college in Pune.
Very few know that this was used as a War Hospital from 1916 to 1919



On my way back from an overnight picnic near the Khadakwasla Dam I saw this lone Banyan tree, with its prop roots almost kissing the water. It made a perfect frame.
Incidentally this picture is used in the Wikipedia with proper credit.



Other one on the way up to the Singahad fort. With greenery like this around, I though its better to be at the foothills than climb the fort.



Then there are these trees with roots and roots hanging (you can hardly see the tree) These are the ones lining the race course road. Must have witnessed a lot of betting I suppose.



With the onset of spring in Pune, one can see some trees beautifully decorated with golden coloured flowers. This tree (Tabebuia Aurea) is a native of Argentina and Brazil in South America and it was brought to Bangalore, Calcutta and Pune. To know more about this tree, click on the picture below.



Rubber trees are seen mostly in the south and the procedure of extracting rubber is lengthy but its good to know.(click on picture)



A trip to the Vineyard is a must for those who visit Nasik which is about 190 kms from Pune. You get to learn a lot about Grapes and wine and Table Grapes. We had a good time there, apart from tashting a lot of...... hic, a lot of . . . . . . .hic, you know those colourful things in the colourful wine glass......hic.


OK coming back to Pune, nothing like having a view of a tree from the kitchen window.


(one of the reasons why we did not put up a frilly curtain there) but there is an added bonus when you have a good view of an eagle's nest from the kitchen window.
But more on that later in my next post (hope the eggs will hatch by then)

Courage

If only we could get past our fear of being involved in police cases, and pluck up our courage to do what is right, we might be able to save a life.
Many a time we drive past an accident thinking “this is nothing to do with me”. Sometimes, the people injured may be critical, but we don’t want to get “involved” with the entailing hassles, at other times we salve our conscience with the argument “who has the time?”
This reminds me of the story where a doctor drove past a crowd gathered around a seriously injured boy. It was only later that he discovered that the boy was his own son and he could have saved him had he stopped.
But there are some people who work hard to ensure that the injured get immediate medical assistance. Bharat Pawar, a young boy working in my office is one such person.
On December 10 he was traveling back by bus from his home town. At Wai, the bus tried to overtake a milk tanker, and unfortunately crashed into its rear. A passenger sitting in the front seat bore the brunt of the accident and was badly crushed. The other passengers were relatively unhurt, except for the shock. As the door was jammed, Bharat and his friend jumped out of the window and assessed the situation. When he saw the injured person, he was initially paralysed with shock , but realised that something has to be done to save him.
In the stillness of the night, he tried ringing the bus depot and the police station but there was no response. With the help of his friend and the driver (who was miraculously unhurt) they managed to extract the injured passenger from the mangled twisted metal. It was unfortunate that none of the other passengers came out of the bus to help. He tried to flag down passing cars, but none would stop, while the ones who did stop took in the scene and fled. Finally a good Samaritan stopped and agreed to ferry Bharat to the nearest police station. There he had a tough time convincing the police to call an ambulance and accompany him. He says “I realized that the only way to save the passenger was to get the police involved and move him quickly to a hospital”
The injured passenger was in the ICU for about a week before he was moved out, when we last heard.


If we could only overcome our initial fear of getting involved, then the mortality rate due to road accidents can be reduced.
The above picture is a silhouette of Bharat.

Woman's day

This picture should bring a smile on everyone's face.
It's a photograph of the alumni of 1944 which was clicked in 2004. I have no idea which school or college they are from, but to be together once again after 60 years is a big achievement. (just pause and look at the expression on each one's face, and then let your imagination take you back to how that face would have looked sixty years ago)


Today is International Woman's Day. In many countries it's a national holiday (in China it's a holiday only for women )

The 1932 Soviet poster below is dedicated to the 8th of March. The text reads: "8th of March is the day of rebellion of the working women against kitchen slavery" and "Down with the oppression and narrow-mindedness of household work!".


A granny takes a penalty during a training session in Nkowankowa Township, about 600 km outside Johannesburg. World Cup fever has spread to South African grannies, with hundreds of poor, elderly women in aprons and skirts fighting for the ball in township games. Twice a week they swap domestic chores for football, donning soccer boots instead of their usual rubber sandals to play in local matches.


But the photograph that takes the cake is that of Dorothy De Low, 99, from Australia who participates in table tennis practice at the World Masters Games at Sydney Olympic Park October 15, 2009.


(All the pictures in this post has been picked from the net)

Wheat Grass

Came across a small cartoon which said “of course I use fowl language, what other language do you want me to use?”

Talking of Fowls, Schnabel, an agricultural chemist, conducted his first experiments with young grass in 1930, when he used fresh cut grass in an attempt to nurse dying hens back to health. The hens not only recovered, but they produced eggs at a higher rate than healthy hens. Encouraged by his results, he began drying and powdering grass for his family and neighbors to supplement their diets. The following year, Schnabel reproduced his experiment and achieved the same results. Hens consuming rations supplemented with grass doubled their egg production. Schnabel started promoting his discovery to feed mills, chemists and the food industry. Two large corporations, Quaker Oats and American Dairies Inc., invested millions of dollars in further research, development and production of products for animals and humans. By 1940, cans of Schnabel's powdered grass were on sale in major drug stores throughout the United States and Canada. This is as per what is mentioned in the Wikipedia
From what I have read , the three most important effects of wheat grass on the human body are: blood purification, liver detoxification and colon cleansing.
Some have even done studies on this to claim that it enhances the Hb level in your blood.
I have been extracting the wheat grass juice and using it at home
The procedure is simple.
Take a handful of wheat, tie it in a cloth and hang it for a day till it starts sprouting. (ensure that the cloth is always moist but not water logged)
The next day sprinkle these seeds in a shallow pot with ¾ mud (like the one in the picture) and cover it with a thin layer of mud so that the sprouted wheat is not visible.
On the seventh day cut the grass (which will be about 3 to 4 inches long) wash it and grind it in a mixer (with a little water)
Squeeze out the juice and it is ready to be consumed.
If you want to have it on a daily basis, have seven similar pots so that you can keep repeating the cycle.
Recently I realized that the wheat looses its nutritional property 72 hrs after it is planted.

Off late a pigeon has been troubling me. It started like this. After I water the plants in the morning, this bird used to come down, (when he was sure that the coast is clear) and have his fill of water. One day he discovered the wheat grains in the shallow pot and started weeding out more. Now he swoops down with his whole extended family !!
I don’t mind them using my place as a watering hole, but having the wheat as breakfast is putting a wrench in my cycle of extracting wheat grass juice.
I am trying ways and means of keeping them away.

Funny, I started this post with a bird and ended with a bird.

Kitchen Garden

After the last post there were many who were fascinated by the kitchen garden and wanted to know how we managed it.
Frankly speaking we did not take any special effort to grow these.
Some of the things that we have are:
Ginger, Curry leaves , Mint, chillie, tomato, ladies finger, beans (chowli).
We had some excess Ginger so we buried a small piece (about an inch). Within 6 weeks it yielded about half a kilo of Ginger.



It was actually growing in our curry leaves pot so I had to remove it w/o damamging the roots of the curry leaves.

Pudina (mint) is something we always have in our garden, and when it grows in excess we have pudina chutney.

The procedure is simple.
Wash and dry the pudina leaves and mix it with grated coconut, small onions and garlic. Wrap it in Banana leaf and heat it over a pan. Once cooled, grind the whole thing in a mixer. Delicious and healthy.



Oh yes then there is a papaya tree growing in a sack !! Not that we are expecting to see papayas hanging there one day, but its nice to see a tree making a humble effort to grow like a normal tree. The tree helped me in giving our son a quick practical lesson that the stem of a papaya tree is hollow, absolutely hollow (something he did not know) You can use it as a pipette or as a snorkel. (simple information like these are always handy)

Vanilla (a creeper) is growing wildly and unless it is pollinated manually it will not yield the pods. So we just allow it to grow like a decorative plant.
Tulsi (Basil) is another medicinal plant that we always have and I add a few leaves while brewing my morning tea.

Curry leaves is the one which baffles me. It neither grows nor dies. I think it does not like the idea of growing in a pot. (they need lots of soil I suppose)
Once upon a time we had these round chillies which when ripe, was good for tadka.

Talking of chillies, the world's spiciest chilli, Bhut Jolokia is grown in Nagaland / Shillong.
It is interesting to note how the spiciness is measured.
It seems Scoville Scale is used to measure the ‘hotness’ of a chilli.

Originally, a solution of the pepper extract is diluted in sugared water until the heat could no longer be recognised by a group of five tasters. It was the degree of dilution needed that designated its place on the Scoville Scale.
For example, a sweet pepper has no capsaicin and therefore no detectable heat even when undiluted, resulting in a Scoville Heat Unit (SHU) rating of zero. The fearsome Bhut Jolokia, on the other hand, had an SHU rating of 1,001,304
No wonder it costs 400 rupees per kilo.

Vegetables and the market

The other day I had been to the super market (Reliance Fresh) and bought some vegetables. Real fresh vegetables.
At home wifey asked "what is that I see there, is it Brinjal?"
Me "Yes real fresh ones"
Wifey: “But are they Bt Brinjal?”
Me “Bt Brinjal? What is that.”
Wifey “See this is what happens when you don't watch NDTV 24x7 and CNN or for that matter you don't even read the papers”
Me “So tell me”
Wifey: “Well frankly speaking we are not supposed to eat these as they are genetically altered”
Me: “But a brinjal is a brinjal, some may call it aubergine or eggplant but it is still a brinjal”
Wifey: “and those tomatoes, are they the ones that shrink after 15 days or did you buy the ones which shrink after 45 days?”
Me “Now which channel said that ?”
Wifey “No not channel. You should be net savvy and keep browsing to get the latest developments. Today I read on the net that scientists have blocked the two enzymes, á-mannosidase and â-D-N-acetylhexosaminidase by which the tomatoes remain fresh for almost one and a half month”
Me “That long eh? So then what about Reliance Fresh ? Poor guys they will have to close shop. At this rate we won't be able to buy anything from outside. As for tomatoes we will have to wait as my garden fresh tomatoes are still green and its not yet time to pluck it"

Wifey: “Yeah, and I did see some bitter gourd in the same pot”
Me: “Yep, I too noticed that. May be some seeds found its way into the same pot. Any way I don’t like bitter gourd. Its very bitter.”
Wifey: “These dark green ones are only good for frying. You should get those big light green ones which we get in Kerala. They are hardly bitter and very good for making curry”


Wifey: “Why don’t you grow those nice big red tomatoes like the one you photographed in the market ?”
Me: “Oh that, . . . . yes I remember how the shop keeper was keeping a hawk’s eye on me, as if I was going to topple his pyramid”


Me: “OK, how about growing water melons?”
Wifey: “Like the one you grew last year ? You put it a hammock and it got so lazy lazing around that it refused to grow any further. More over water melon is not a vegetable”




Me: “This is all going crazy. I think the best option is to put off the TV, read the paper only when Obama gets his next noble prize and buy vegetables from the subzi mandai (local market) like in the good old days”

Gurukul

While surfing the net, I came across a photograph showing a class room. This may look like a scene from a period film by Steven Spielberg.
I like that single seat and desk system and the earnest look on the children’s face, all ready to answer the question.
But in Pune there is a school in which the classes are held in the bogie of a train.
The story goes that due to lack of funds, these bogies were bought at an auction held in Bombay and then carted down to Pune where it was given a face lift and converted to class rooms.


Had visited this school some years ago and had clicked some pictures there. As seen above some kids were all ready to pose. One wanted to show off her swinging skills on the make shift swing.


The teaching method too is quite different from the normal school, and hence the school was appropriately named as Gurukul. The land was donated (on a temporary basis) by the Agriculture college so the view from the school too is fabulous.


The physical training class in progress (the movements were that of a mix between dandia and legim)


Nothing like a game of kho kho to hone up your skills on reflex action




The kids have the meal that is provided by the school and I observed that each student washed their own plates after the meal.


Here is a view of the “Drawing Class” that is being held in one of the “Class rooms”



Later on with contributions, a proper school building was erected but they build it over the train, maybe as a reminder of the humble beginning.



Teachers at the lunch break in one of the bogies:


The desks in the class room too were designed in such a way that they formed a hexagon when assembled together, by which the students sat facing each other for group discussions.


They even had a sign board (like on a railway station) indicating the height from the mean sea level.

Thought for the day on one of the black board: click on the picture to see the complete writing.


Some of the girls were bashful and coy when I clicked them.
By the way, how many of you visit your old school once in a way? If you don’t, please do and see how it rejuvenates you.