Maha Shivratri in India:

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It’s Maha Shivratri in India today. The festival is observed not only in India but also in different countries of the world by the devotees of Lord Shiva, the God of Gods according to Indian mythology. The day is also observed remembering Shravan Kumar, a great son who took his parents in a kanwar (a duet sort of a weighbridge) on his shoulders to pilgrimage to fulfil their desire as such as they were too old and weak to walk the distance. It was too tortuous a task for him to carry them like this from one pilgrimage centre to another but he did make it as faithfully committed a son. These devotees of Lord Shiva symbolically repeat the exercise by using ornamentally decorated palkies known as kanwars and those who do so are known as kanwarias travelling long distances from place to place. Like every culture has some ill or the other associated to it, this practice has it in abundance and the kanwarias are seen more as a nuisance than the faithful devotees. They disrupt the traffic at times resorting to manhandling with the other passersby. Several of them are virtually scoundrels behaving as goons. They behave nasty at the first available opportunity. Most of them are not really faithful to their parents, they instead take the ritual as picnic and a pleasure trip. Reports are that they even ill treat their parents at home as against telling the whole world as if they are most faithful and obedient to them in all respects. How very nice it would have been if they  treated their parents really faithfully as their son(s) instead of ill treating them. Maha Shivratri, let us wish, bestows upon them the bliss of love in the real sense instead of playing a mockery of it.**

** This post is dedicated to Shri DN Sharma, a close relation of mine, who inspired me to write it.        This one is the first dedication on this blog.

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Food habits–Is rice really harmful to health?

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There are many a myths in medical area on food intake and so is in relation to use of rice in meals. True, it increases fat and weight but that happens when the intake is too heavy. The digestive system demands that the intake of any kind of food has to be tasty and rice has it in abundance. Tasty food is helpful to health. The need is actually to avoid starch. The ideal way of cooking rice is in the ratio of 1*6 i.e. one cup of rice to be boiled in 6 cups of water without mixing it with any kind of oil or butter. This should be just plain and pulpy without allowing it to get much dried up. The Aayurvedic discipline of medical therapy prescribes that it is better to take rice in meals during day hours avoiding its intake during late hours in the evening or night. Once admitted to Jaslok Hospital in Mumbai for an operation the dietician invariably added rice  to the menu prepared for me. I told her that I was diabetic to which she replied saying that some intake of rice is necessary for health even in the cases of diabetes as the very body needs it because of the rich properties it has. In any case the advice is not meant for those in the habit of taking over heavy meals and is practiceable by the moderates.

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Holi in India:

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Holi is considered to be a pious most festival in India. In certain places in the country it continues for several days starting from Holika Dahan to Holi Milan. The festival relates to the story of a boy named Prahlad, a great devotee of the God whom Hirnakashyap, a demon, wanted to do away with as he didn’t like him to worship the Lord whom he considered a foe. He took the help of his sister Holika who had the bliss of never to get harmed by fire. She hatched a plan to take the child Prahlad in to her lap as a dodge and plunge to the flames of fire with the belief that she would come out of it as per the bliss she had but Prahlad would perish in the process. What happened was just the reverse. Holika was burnt to ashes and Prahlad was rescued by the grace of God a great devotee of the Lord as he was. To religiously commemorate the event Holika Dahan takes place every year culminating in to Holi Milan a day later.The clear message this festival directs is that of love and communal harmony and even the people opposed and inimical to each other meet heart to heart with an affectionate embrace. This year it is due the next month on 17th of March. Let us wish that the message gets flourished and flashed to the nook and corner of the country, nay the world as a whole.

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Demand based railway fare–a way to facilitate fare hike:

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Indian Railways are introducing more of Premium trains which are supposed to have much better look and space for the passengers. These faster trains are designed on the pattern of aircrafts with similar look and comfort. The main feature is that the fare of these trains would be determined based on demand as from the passengers obviously meaning more the demand more the fare. There is no hike in passenger fare in the new budget presented by the Minister of Railways, Mallikarjun Khadge, but it is taken care of by introducing demand based fare applicable in the case of Premium Trains to start with. What can impliedly be understood is the fact that if this experiment of fare on demand succeeds, of which there is enough of possibility, this parameter may well be applied in the matter of fare in general in all other trains. Formation of Rail Traffic Authority of India is the significant move in this direction. This interim railway budget had to be a populist one in view of the coming general elections but the idea of demand based fare is the one in the direction of creating a platform to enhance the fare subsequently.

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Every things boils down to money:

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No kind of service or some relaxation is available without paying something extra for it and this has become the routine trend of the financial institutions. Know Your Customer (KYC) is the scheme launched in banking industry exclusively for generating awareness amongst the customers in relation to keeping necessary information on their accounts duly updated and there is actually no reason why there should be any charge for it but now they are levying a charge as a penalty. State Bank of India claiming to be “the banker to every Indian” has levied it at Rs.112/. In a way this is a customer service and this was and should be without any extra charge. This way or that, the motive of the bankers is to earn profit without really being serious about an adequate service to the customers. This is discouraging and warrants to be withdrawn.

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Narendra Modi’s popularity graph:

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After Namo (Narendra Modi) was declared a Prime Ministerial candidate by Bhartiya Janta Party he is acquiring thumping laurels from not only his party, supporters and followers but equally from all and sundry in the country as a whole. People are using his image on their caps, shirts and other wears. The latest instance is that of a fan of his printing his photograph on their invitatiion card for marriage in the family. Judged by the practical developmental work done by him as a Chief Minister of Gujarat for the last one full decade, Narendra Modi is the one who fully deserves love and support displayed like this. People of the country actually like real work and not merely lavish talks on issues confronting India.

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What a hell they are teaching in schools!

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Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation, was assassinated by Nathuram Godse on 30th January 1948 and that is the history but what is being taught in the primary schools in Uttar Pradesh (India) is that he was killed on 30th January’1941 as it finds place in the relative text book. The glaring irregularity was traced in Etawah, the home town of the Chief Minister of U.P. Akhilesh Yadav. Since the books are supplied in massive quantity in the primary schools in Uttar Pradesh uniformly, thousands of primary school students are imparted the teaching on Gandhiji’s death as 30/01/1941. The most surprising fact is that none bothered to notice the irregularity for quite a long time during which who knows what could have been the number of students who might have enriched their general knowledge with false information like this. This shows the level of education in Uttar Pradesh and also the seriousness on the part of the teachers who didn’t bother to check what they were teaching. Hell with the relative system of administration. This requires a stern most action against the people so involved.

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