Speak It out

How my blog post helped me lose 21 Kilos.

noreply@blogger.com (Delson R.) — Fri, 18 Nov 2016 16:40:00 +0000

Some time in May, I had written this post on my blog, about how water intensive, sugar cultivation is. As my contribution to our country and this planet, I decided to go off sugar and all food items containing sugar.
I did not however expect one side effect of this decision. A surprising weight loss .
I weighed about 94 kilograms when I wrote that post (with a overweight BMI of 29.4) today as I weigh myself the scale shows 73 kgs (BMI at 23.0). All I did was go off sugar (which includes jaggery and juices).

Prior to this, for the last 5 years I had made various attempts at losing weight, cutting down on oil, fats, starches, exercise etc etc.. perhaps other than taking medication, there was no stone left un-turned. I yo-yo'd between 80 kgs to 94 kgs during these years. During these years I also realised that diet, starving, fasting and all other fad methods are just temporary and perhaps work for only a few. Until a few months ago, I always believed that I consumed very little sugar- a couple of teaspoon in my tea and "occasional" dessert after a meal. Never did I realise how much of an impact those few teaspoons made.
Was sugar the culprit all these days- I think so.
In fact other than causing large scale environmental turmoil, sugar can wreck havoc in our bodies. Sugar is addictive and it is so addictive that it is called the new age cocaine 1. It is hard to get off it- but it is possible and one should.
First of all, the sugar industry is a big lobby with a massive political clout. It is so powerful that in 1960's it paid researchers at Harvard to show that fat and not sugar caused heart disease.
These reports then shaped nutrition requirements for years and most of them continue to be used. So whatever value that is considered as 'safe sugar intake' all require a re look.
As newer research is pouring out, sugar in our diet is shown to cause heart disease; cancer; eye, kidney, and nerve damage; and more than 100 other health hazards.
Quite surprising however is how sugar promotes cancer. In his book "Life Over Cancer", Keith I. Block, M.D and a renowned integrative cancer-care specialist and medical director of the Block Center for Integrative Cancer Treatment says "most cancer cells thrive on a high sugar diet…if you strangulate the supply of sugar to the tumor, it may actually trigger a form of biological suicide among the malignant cells…very few cancers can survive without a steady supply of glucose.” he also adds "... all your cells need glucose (blood sugar), but cancer cells are “glucose guzzlers,”

You need not even read too much of research reports to know what sugar is doing to our body- just see the people that are following the Standard American Diet, which has the world's highers per capita sugar consumption. Slowly we all are heading that way.

Its never too late- Stop sugar, save your body and save earth too. The first 7 days are hard- it then becomes easy and by 21 days, you will never want sugar.

Extra Notes:

So how does sugar make you fat? Here’s what happens: Normally, when you eat sugary food, your body’s digestive system breaks the food down into glucose, a simple sugar that is your body’s main source of energy. Glucose is easily absorbed into your bloodstream. When your blood glucose (also known as blood sugar) rises, that’s a signal to your pancreas to release insulin, which regulates your body’s blood-sugar levels and escorts glucose into your cells, where it’s used to create energy.
Now, when you consume sugar in any form all day long, your body produces excess glucose (anything you don’t need immediately for energy), which is first converted into glycogen, the storage form of glucose. Your body can only store a limited amount of glycogen, so excess glucose is stored as body fat.

1.William Dufty declared in his landmark, best-selling 1975 book, Sugar Blues, “the difference between sugar addiction and narcotic addiction is largely one of degree.”
He goes on to explain: “After all, heroin is nothing but a chemical. They take the juice of the poppy and they refine it into opium and then they refine it to morphine and finally to heroin.
“Sugar is [also] nothing but a chemical,” Dufty continued. “They take the juice of the cane or the beet, and they refine it to molasses and then they refine it to brown sugar and finally to strange white crystals.”

Wheat Cheats

noreply@blogger.com (Delson R.) — Tue, 24 May 2016 09:34:00 +0000

The news is out on papers today- the bread we eat contains cancer containing additives says a study by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). Not just that, they include one additive that can cause thyroid disorders too. So why will any one add such chemicals in our bread? How do they benefit? I had highlighted this issue in one of my blog post three years ago- it went unnoticed. Now that the issue is in news- I felt it's time to reiterate this fact.

Wheat is not the healthiest of the grains available. Despite all the millions spent touting wheat to be a wholesome grain, nutritionally it is just a mediocre grain. Finger millet (Ragi), Sorghum (Jowar), Pearl millet (Bajra ) etc are much more nutrient dense than wheat.

Wheat however has a protein that makes it a delight for bakers and makers of food to use it- that protein is called 'gluten'. Gluten, is a protein that can link up with neighboring gluten making a long chain of gluten proteins . Because of this property, wheat has a stringy texture and one can make lovely shapes out of it. You can make stringy noodles, crispy thin crackers, spongy breads, soft cakes, the list is endless. Hence when you visit a supermarket- more than 85% of the food products have wheat in some or the other form. All thanks to gluten.

Like I mentioned earlier, the gluten proteins need to link with each other. To make a link like this gluten requires oxygen. Traditionally, after wheat was milled, it was aged in air for a few weeks. As the flour aged in contact with the air, its gluten and baking properties improved. Then came the time of fast paced production and cut throat competition. Bakers and manufactures where looking for methods to fasten production of their products and soon they got their answers.

Ageing wheat required space and time- both a premium in today's world. So to save time and money, millers began artificially oxidizing (adding oxygen) their flour. Oxidisers like Chlorine gas, pottasium bromate and others. It not only improved that binding of wheat but also saved a lot of time and ultimately money for the bakers.

These additives are given very neutral sounding names in the list of ingredients. They may be called dough improves, dough conditioners and so on. But the harm they do to your organs are conveniently brushed off.

Not just to improve binding, but also to make wheat look white- wheat is bleached with chlorine. This process has a side-effect of producing a chemical called Alloxan (No one checks for it- but you can be assured your flour has it). Alloxan selectively destroys the insulin producing cells (beta-cells) in the pancreas- which causes diabetes. Studies so far have observed this in rodents and many other animal species. Although I could not find any study done on humans- there is a very good possibility that one day news may break out that wheat can actually cause diabetes.

Meanwhile , India allows wheat makers to use potassium bromate and pottasium iodate in the making of wheat. There is absolutely no need for it, other than for the profitability of bakers.

Not just breads- rest assured these residues will be present in noodles, biscuits, cakes and all other wheat products. Finally the choice of consumption is in our hands- in a country like India where we boast of a plethora of grains, do we continue remaining blind to the hazards of today's wheat production or do we choose to care for ourselves, our children, our loved ones and switch to the alternate grains available to us. Our choice will determine the future of not only our health, but of our children too. A choice that is in our hands.

The Cost of Sugar.

noreply@blogger.com (Delson R.) — Fri, 20 May 2016 14:00:00 +0000

Yesterday I posted on how we made sun evaporated sugar at home. One of the reasons why we felt the need to stop using processed sugar and use our own sugar was because consumption of sugar and jaggery come with a price tag- that of our health. But that is not what this post is about- Sugar production comes at another great cost- that of environment and our nation.
When the country is facing an acute water scarcity- sugar is something we cannot afford to produce and export. But we do it and continue supporting a luxury that we cannot afford.

It takes 2100 liters of water to produce 1 kg of sugar. This means that in a state like Maharashtra, which is facing acute drought, sugarcane occupies 4% of the cropped area but consumes 70% of irrigated water.
So every gram of sugar requires 2.1 liters of water, which means- A 330 ml of Coca-Cola can, which has 35 grams of sugar (7 teaspoons) took 73 liters of water just to make it sweet. An India Today report points out that the daily requirement of water in Latur is 85 liters per person. So every time one drinks a can of coke- crudely putting, one is robbing a person's entire day's supply of water !!!
Now that's how demanding our sweet tooth could be.

In 2014-2015, India produced around 28 million tonnes of sugar- 3.7 million tonnes more than demand. This excess sugar was exported and when we export sugar, we are essentially exporting water. A commodity that we are facing acute shortage of.

Like I mentioned above it takes 2.1 million liters of water to produce one ton of sugar. So when we exported 3.7 million tonnes of sugar we exported 7770 billion liters of water. Assuming a district like Latur requires 209 million liters of water a day, we exported 37,177 days of water requirement of Latur. To put it in simply, "India's one year of sugar exports, took away a districts century worth of water supply"

So not just your health- sugar can strip away a nation's vital resource too. Take this challenge- Try and see if you can completely stay away from processed sugar. If you can, you will be doing a great service to yourself and the country.

Sun Evaporated Sugar.

noreply@blogger.com (Delson R.) — Thu, 19 May 2016 14:27:00 +0000

How would it feel to use locotarian, organic, sustainably grown, free from processing, free from added chemicals, nutritious and wholesome sugar. Hard to believe such a thing exists! especially when it concerns sugar which has now earned the moniker - white poison.

Well, we we just managed to make such a batch of sugar right at our home. All it required was patience.

This April we harvested a small crop of sugarcane, organically grown in our backyard. It turns out, sugarcane is quite un-fussy and easy to grow. It just needs a lot of water and manuring. After eating some, giving it to friends and keeping aside a small portion for the next round of crops we managed to get 2.5 liters of Sugarcane juice.

We planned to make sugar out of this juice and employed mother nature to do all the hardwork. We spread the juice over 3 large tarts and started to evaporate it under the harsh April and May summer sun of Goa (Surprisingly this summer has been much pleasant than last year- or perhaps our plants have grown bigger) .

After 15 days of evaporation, during which the liquid had to be protected from ants, bees, birds and other sugar deprived creatures, the colour slowly turned reddish-golden from the original olive green. The volume had substantially reduced and the entire juice now could be accomodated in a single tart.

Another 15 days of drying and the rate of evaporation had substantially reduced. The liquid had become so viscous that I could hold the tart vertical without actually spilling the juice. It can perhaps be called molasses at this stage.

Another seven days of drying I realised that there was no reduction in the volume of liquid- The sun had finally given up.
I tasted some of our lovely sweet nectar and it tasted great. It initially tasted like dark jaggery and has an after taste of honey and the flavour lingers for quite sometime.
Sugarcane juice is very nutritious but the process of manufacturing sugar and jaggery robs all its nutrients making it a junk and harmful product. Considering the temperature may never have crossed more than 40 degrees during the making of this sugar, I believe it retains most of sugarcane's nutrition (the inevitable loss due to degradation by time is always there). What more could I ask for.

We gently poured and bottled the liquid sugar and managed to get about 250 ml of sugar. (Ah! I lost about 300 ml of sugar, when a naughty bird toppled one of my tarts). All said and done this should last us for 8 to 9 months (Nope! our sugar consumption is not low, its quite normal. Anything more than this is excess sugar in your life.)

Meanwhile the next batch of sugarcane has sprouted this time all going well- expecting a larger batch of the golden syrup.

Recipe from a Bouquet

noreply@blogger.com (Delson R.) — Mon, 16 May 2016 17:02:00 +0000

A tree that grows fast and gives abundant flowers is the drumstick tree. Said to bear nutritious leaves, seeds and flowers the tree is a favourite to a lot of creatures. Many birds especially the Parakeets, Orioles, flowerpeckers visit it and squirrels enjoy the abundant flowers it gives.
The flowers make a very tasty dish- you just need it to eat once and you will forever fall in love.
So when I gave Aarina a bouquet of drumstick and banana flowers she cooked a delicious dish from them. Well this is how she did it.

The red banana inflorescence, which is removed as the bunch grows to optimum size has small florets in it.

Keep the yellow stamens and discard the outer calyx.

The drumstick flowers are much easier to clean. Just pluck the flowers from the branch.

One branch gave quite a bowl full of flowers.

The recipe is quite simple. Take oil in a vessel and heat it up. Splutter some mustard seeds, then add curry leaves.
Add both the drumstick and banana flowers and salt. Add a little water and close and cook for 5 minutes. Then add freshly grated coconut and cook for another 5 minutes.
We also added fresh greenpeas along with the flowers and they do go well with the flowers.

Oh yes- that's it, serve hot; it's pretty darn delicious.

Banana Stem Cutlet

noreply@blogger.com (Delson R.) — Mon, 09 May 2016 15:43:00 +0000

It is always a pleasure when your plants fruit- we recently had one such delightful moment when we harvested a big bunch of banana. Once the fruit ( banana is botanically a berry, but still...) is harvested, the banana plant (which is technically a herb, but still...) is chopped off. One edible, tasty and nutritious part of the plant is its inner core. We always make it a point to cook it and this time we made cutlets; that made a perfect breakfast for us.
So below is the recipe for Banana stem cutlets:

1. Cut the inner core of the banana steam into small pieces and keep aside. Similarly chop, onion, garlic, ginger and green chillies. ( I'm not mentioning quantities since you can vary it as per your taste)

2. Pressure cook and mash potatoes and keep aside.

3. In a vessel take oil and splutter mustard seeds. Then add curry leaves and the chopped onions. As the onions start to discolour, add the ginger, garlic, green chillies and fry. (We also added turmeric, coriander, cumin and Garam masala for a heavy body flavour. We have even skipped these spices out, and the cutlets turn out to be equally good)

4. Once these spices start to give out aroma, add the chopped banana stem and little water and cook for about 15 minutes.

5.Cook till the water is fully evaporated, then cool it. Once cooled, put it in a blender and grind it to a fine paste.

6. Take it out of the blender and add the mixture to the potato (equal quantity of potato and mixture). The mixture will turn out quiet watery, since the stems release water when grinding. To make it more pliable add gram flour. Add salt and mix well. In case your mixture is quite dry, we still recommend adding gram flour, since it gives a nice umami flavour to the dish.

7. Take very little oil in an iron girder, put a blob of cutlet mixture and gently spread it into cutlet shape. You can even shape it in your hands and place it on the girder- however use wet hands and that makes shaping easy.

8. Fry till the crust turn dark brown and the cutlets are firm. Serve hot- makes a tasty, wholesome breakfast.

Once bitten twice shy

noreply@blogger.com (Delson R.) — Thu, 05 May 2016 16:00:00 +0000

In one of previous post on harvesting a beehive from our garden, I mentioned that I was stung by one of the bees. This time, I went prepared- completely covered with head to toe.

As you can see, the hive was smaller than the last one.

But the honey quantity was larger, since the hive was younger. But the beeswax quantity was much smaller.

Why investing in LIC is a very bad idea….

noreply@blogger.com (Delson R.) — Fri, 29 Apr 2016 16:03:00 +0000

Long time ago, when I knew money needs to be saved, but cared little to know about finance or economics I had purchased a pension plan from LIC. Swayed by a sweet speaking, erudite LIC agent I took in a 25 year pension plan (only thing I knew those days was that investment had to be long term). The monthly premium was quite small- it was a stepping stone after all, out from Post office savings and banks FD’s to the exciting world of equities and bonds.

With monthly SIP’s automatically getting deducted, I did not follow up on the performance of my investment for years. As years passed on and when my interest on all things finance kindled, I remembered my first LIC investment – How was it doing? What were the returns? And many such plethora of questions rushed to my mind. After many years, I logged into my account and checked the values. Well the balance was more than the investment. That was a good sign.

Then I plugged in the numbers and the preliminary returns turned out to be a measly 4.1% ! I wanted to calculate the exact returns on my investment (XIRR) for which I needed to know the monthly deductions (various charges levied by LIC), NAV at which the units were purchased and the date of purchase every month.

So I called up the agent and asked him to give me these details. He was flummoxed at my request, looked at my numbers and told me- “well you have for a 5.5 % return.”. I told him “That is simple interest, what about compound interest, or what about IRR, XIRR?”. To which he replied my LIC app. Does not give those details!! Realising that it was a futile endeavor, I decided to write to the LIC’s regional office to give me the NAV details. After beating around the bush in a couple of mail’s, LIC finally admitted that they had NAV details of only 1 year and they can’t find the other 6 or so years.

“The details are not important, they are required only to calculate your returns you see… “ was the indirect message that was being conveyed.

With so many people investing in LIC, I wanted to know how good their investments are doing. Are they making justice to people hard earned money? So I began my research- it was pretty simple, I only had to read LIC’s balance sheet.

This is what I discovered.

Year	Income from Investments (Crore)	Investments (Crore)	Returns	Average return on a Bank FD during the same period	Difference
2005-06	35,479	524,017	6.80%	8%	1.20%
2006-07	40,572	613,267	6.60%	8.20%	1.60%
2007-08	47,999	756,891	6.30%	8%	1.70%
2008-09	56,583	815,484	6.90%	8%	1.10%
2009-10	67,198	1,095,841	6.10%	7.80%	1.70%
2010-11	77,667	1,266,539	6.10%	8.20%	2.10%
2011-12	90,267	1,349,532	6.70%	8.70%	2%
2012-13	103,882	1,486,457	7.00%	9%	2%
2013-14	118,097	1,684,690	7.00%	9.20%	2.20%
2014-15	135,483	1,946,249	7.00%	8.50%	1.50%

As you can see, LIC has done a pretty miserable job when it comes to managing people’s money. It has been lagging behind even bank FD’s by more than 150 basis point and in some years even by 200 basis points. If one had kept their savings in a banks FD, they would have generated better returns.

Also, as you can see from the above table, the money people are investing in LIC is certainly growing. Thanks to the “Govt. backed up” tag it has got. Government has been milking its cash cow for many years and will continue to keep doing so. Well as long as government interference continues, all your hard earned money in LIC is certainly doomed.

Well, LIC is anyway a poor investment disguised as an insurance, which is generally inadequate. So to all my friends reading this get wise and forget LIC…

Honeycomb adventure

noreply@blogger.com (Delson R.) — Thu, 28 Apr 2016 14:54:00 +0000

There was a honeybee hive growing on two of our chickoo (choko, Sapota, Sapodilla) trees and with the fruits ready to be harvested, it was quite tricky to pluck them without disturbing the hive. So we finally decided to remove the hive. With no idea how to go about it- the general consensus was to burn the hive down.

This is something that really bothered me. One is, bees are in decline and although they are not classified as endangered they are rapidly falling in numbers (thanks to all the chemical farming methods and climate change )

The second reason being, it is these bees that had pollinated our fruits and vegetables and we need them to continue pollinating them- How could I burn them ?

Fortunately for us we came across an elderly acquaintance of ours ,who just knew the technique of harvesting a honeycomb without killing the bees. Just what the doctor ordered.

So below is the video of how he went about it and he took me along (the trainee) to teach the method. It was simple, take a sharp knife, tie it to a long pole and cut the branch on which the bees have built a hive. Then run...

Well, we just did that, and a few minutes later, most of the bees had abandoned their fallen hive. The few remaining ones were not just bothered as we picked and handled the hive.

I must admit here that although no bee stung the master- one bee did sting the apprentice. It was darn painful. Well initiation ceremony perhaps. But I was happy to know that no bees were killed in making of this story (except the one that stung me )

The bee hive was quite old, so the bees had used about 85% of the honey they made. So despite the size of the hive we only managed to squeeze out about 45 ml of pure wild honey.

Well now we had a big hive to take care of and a hive has something very precious in it- Beeswax.

Beeswax is used to make premium candles and pure natural beeswax also gets used in the making of high end cosmetics. Most of the off the shelf cosmetics use paraffin a much cheaper option.

Gram for gram bees wax is many times expensive than honey itself.

So this is how I got the wax out. The hive was placed in a cotton cloth and a bundle made of it. The bundle is tightly knotted and put in boiling water. I used an old vessel, since once the process is over, the only thing the vessel can be used again is to make more beeswax.

I boiled the entire thing for 10 minutes constantly pressing it with a spatula to squeeze out the molten wax from the bundle.

10 minutes later the water turns brown and yellow waxy stuff appears. Take out the bundle and squeeze out all the water with a pair of tongs. All that remained in the cloth were dead bees and unhatched eggs.

Let the water cool down. Since it was a hot day, I refrigerated the vessel for 1 hour and the wax solidifies.

The wax formed a nice rim and is smooth and can form a lovely salve for dry-skin in winter.

Well enough adventures for the day- the next honeycomb- for another day. This time the apprentice will be the master.

More precious than gold !

noreply@blogger.com (Delson R.) — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 11:33:00 +0000

We have been growing turmeric organically for a couple of years now. Mostly for its aromatic leaves, in which we use to wrap and steam cook quite some delicacies. This year, we decided to go a step ahead and make turmeric powder from the rhizomes.

After the green leaves wilt the rhizomes are generally harvested. Although our plants wilted in November itself, due to lack of commitment from our part we left the rhizomes in the ground. Mother nature takes care of them. Finally in April, we dug out the Rhizomes and manged to get about 4 kgs of them. We kept aside 250 grams of healthy looking rhizomes for the next crop and washed the rest of the turmeric rhizomes thoroughly to remove all mud.

Next we boiled the turmeric for about 45 minutes. This boiling makes the turmeric yellow in colour and floods the kitchen with turmeric aroma. (my previous experiment with a small batch of unboiled turmeric gave me dark brown turmeric, instead of yellow ones.) I boiled the turmeric till I was able to easily poke a fork them.

I decided not to peel the skin of the turmeric. Since our turmeric is organically grown, the skin can have only valuable nutrients, without any pesticide residue and it is too precious to be chucked away. On the other hand, the colour of the turmeric will not be bright yellow-orange, something that we can live with.

We then broke off the fingers that are attached to the rhizomes into individual bits and once boiled they easily snap off.
The turmeric was then dried in the scorching April sun and after two days of sun drying, they shrivel up quite a bit.

We then took a hammer and pounded the rhizomes flat. The increased surface area helps in drying of the rhizomes. See the photograph below of a well flattened batch of once juicy, plump turmeric.

A couple of days more of sun drying and the turmeric is completely dry. It feels as hard as a stone.

Now comes the powdering part. Instead of giving it to a mill, we decided to use our normal mixer to grind it. Although it meant more work, we did not want to contaminate our organic harvest with other unknown batches.

15 seconds of grinding, at the lowest speed, gave quite good results. I sieved the powder through the finest net and and residue was put in the jar again for another round of grinding.

After two rounds of grinding and sieving, nearly all the turmeric was converted into a fine powder.

The powder was as fine as the ones made commercially.

It took me 2 hours of grinding in small batches, to grind our entire quota of turmeric. 4 kg of rhizomes gave us 650 grams of turmeric powder. The colour may not be bright like the commercially available variety, but the aroma is as powerful if not more than any turmeric powder that I have seen.

Free from pesticides and adulterants, this jar should last us for six month. The next time we aim for a quantity that is enough for one year.

The GDP Obsession

noreply@blogger.com (Delson R.) — Wed, 10 Feb 2016 11:37:00 +0000

A few days ago the Central Statistics Office (CSO), declared the GDP for the period October to December 2015. India grew by 7.3% they said. Looking at the quarterly results of listed companies, it's hard to believe the 7.3% number, but that's another story for some other day. This post is to express my views on the concept of GDP itself.
The gross domestic product, (GDP), is today blindly used as a standard measure of success by every one- from the economist to the politician. It can be such a misused tool in the hands of the politicians, that the Indian government last year tweaked the formula to calculate the GDP so that the numbers showed the government performance in better light .
GDP counts the value of goods and services made in a country each year. But it has a glaring problem, it leaves out some really important facets of reality. For starters, GDP doesn’t account for the unequal and unfair distribution of wealth or look at how healthy, satisfied, or fulfilled people are. That’s why the GDP of India has grown at more than 5% and China's by more than 10% for years while the incomes of its workers have not grown in the same time period—the wealth has got stuck at one spot in the system.
But the biggest problem with how the GDP is calculated is that the true ecological and social costs of growth are not accounted for. Industries are usually permitted to “externalize costs,” which is a fancy phrase economists use to describe the fact that, while companies are busy producing and selling goods, they’re not paying for, or even tracking the side-effects they cause, like contaminating groundwater, exposing communities to carcinogens, or polluting the air.
So GDP counts activities that cause pollution and cancer (such as factories making pesticides or PVC) as well as activities to clean up that pollution and treat the cancer (such as environmental remediation and medical care), there is no deduction in the GDP for the pollution released into the air, soil or water or the loss of a forest.
I read a very interesting, but true story in the book Deep Economy by Bill McKibben which highlights the failure of GDP to measure success: "for years in Africa, the non-native water hyacinth was clogging waterways, and herbicides had done nothing to solve the problem. Then someone discovered that dried water hyacinth made great material for growing highly nutritious mushrooms, and that when the mushrooms broke down the cellulose in the hyacinths, it made a great medium for earthworms. The worms chomped that down and created high-quality fertilizer, then were themselves feed for chickens. The chickens, of course, provided people with eggs, while their droppings could be used to fuel biogas digesters that produced power, and this reduced the need to cut down more trees for firewood from the already deforested regions in that part of Africa. Because monetary transactions—like the purchase of fertilizer—were reduced, a solution like this actually shows up on a measure like GDP as diminished growth"- Shocking, but true. Yet it’s clear to anyone with eyes, a brain, and a heart that the hyacinth-mushroom-worm-chicken solution is true progress: healthy and sensible.
So in a blind race to compete for a higher GDP we are completely ignoring the effects it is having on our environment. As I experienced the air in China, during my short visits there, I have come to believe that GDP is gross destructive product rather than gross domestic product.

Have a nice day.

Philately - 1953 - The year of the railways

noreply@blogger.com (Delson R.) — Fri, 06 Dec 2013 03:30:00 +0000

5 Commemorative stamps were Issued in 1953. One to commemorate the Centenary of the Indian railways, two for the Centenary of Indian telegraph and two to commemorate the successful conquest of Mount Everest.
This Railway centenary stamp, has been a part of my collection ever since I remember collection stamps. Not really sure who gave it to me but I did dearly treasure it. The stamp was 2anna black and white issue

A bright violet and a brown stamp, commemorate the ascent of man on Mount Everest.

Blue-green and a blue stamp were released commemorating 100 years of Indian Telegraph. 60 Years later on 15 July2013 Ashwani Mishra sent the last telegram to Rahul Gandhi. Just like this stamp the 163 year old Indian telegraphs, passed into history this day. Like I have said before, philately gives one the satisfaction of treasuring this small part of Indian history.

Philately 1952- A poetic Year.

noreply@blogger.com (Delson R.) — Wed, 04 Dec 2013 03:30:00 +0000

In 1952, the post office released six stamps. All stamps depicted Indian saints and poets.
In bright emerald-green, costing 9p was the poet Kabir.

Tulsidas, considered as the reincarnation of Valmiki and the author of Ramcharitamanas, cost 1anna and coloured caramine.By choosing to write the story of Ram in Awadhi, a dialect of Hindi, Tulsidas made the holy book accessible to the common people thus breaking the hegemony of the Brahmins.

Meera bai, from the 16th Century, was probably was the forerunner of women's liberation movement. She fearlessly broke with tradition and resisted feminine stereotypes, Meera is also an enduring symbol of a liberated woman who risked all to protect her independence, freedom and happiness. The stamp was orange red and cost 2 anna

Surdas, costing 4annas was coloured bright blue. Surdas was a blind singer and is said to have composed over 1,00,000 songs, though only about 8000 exist today.

The first four poets are considered the most prominent figures of the Bhakti movement. It upheld a path to salvation through a personal relationship of love, devotion and surrender to, usually, a particular deity. This form of religion could be practiced by anyone, irrespective of sex or caste.

4.5anna, Ghalib was coloured bright mauve. During the anti-British Rebellion in Delhi on 5 October 1857, three weeks after the British troops had entered through Kashmiri Gate (Delhi, some soldiers climbed into Ghalib's neighbourhood and hauled him off to Colonel Burn for questioning.He appeared in front of the colonel wearing a Central Asian Turkic style headdress. The colonel, bemused at his appearance, inquired in broken Urdu, "Well? You Muslim?", to which Ghalib replied, "Half?" The colonel asked, "What does that mean?" In response, Ghalib said, "I drink wine, but I don't eat pork."

The most expensive of the lot was Rabindranath Tagore in Brown and costing 12 a. ( Today a mint stamp will cost anything upwards of 2000 Rs- A compounded annual return of 14%!!)

The value of these stamps can double, if you can find a pair.

Philately- 1951, Play the game, in the spirit of the game.

noreply@blogger.com (Delson R.) — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 03:30:00 +0000

Three stamps were released this year, and delightedly I have all three of them.

The first one was released on 13th Jan and commemorated the centenary of Geological Survey of India. The Black and claret, 2 anna stamp depict two Extinct Stegodon ganesa, a first ever reconstruction of a pre-historic creature on a stamp.
In 1928 century 3 metre long fossil tusk of an elephantine mammal Stegedon ganesa found in India by Dr. Darashaw Nosherwan Wadia. In 1984 the postal department released a stamp commemorating Dr Wadia's contributions to Indian geology and in 2001 another stamp was released to commemorate the 150 years of Geological survey of India.

The two other stamps released were for the First Asian Games, which were held in New Delhi. It must have been quite an amazing feat to do, considering that the country was still dealing with the after effects of partition and the decision to hold the games in New Delhi was done just three years earlier. For a young nation, it was truly a event to be proud of.

Philately- 1950, India becomes a Republic.

noreply@blogger.com (Delson R.) — Sat, 30 Nov 2013 03:30:00 +0000

1950 is a landmark year for India. This is the year, when India adopted its constitution and what a constitution it has been. It has been very successful in keeping a diverse nation united and managed to prove all pessimistic pundits wrong. In commemoration of the coming in-force of the constitution, 4 stamps were released. These were the only commemorative stamps that were released that year.

A 2 anna, scarlet coloured stamp depicting rejoicing crowds. Two children are seen viewing a procession of cavaliers carrying flags and blowing trumpets which herald India’s attainment of full Nationhood.
A 3.5 anna Ultramarine stamp depicting Quill, Ink-well and verse. The background shows Mahatma Gandhiji’s favourite hymn “Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram.”, symbolize Nation’s Education.
A 4 anna Violet stamp with a ear of corn and a plough
The 4th stamp was a maroon 12 anna Spinning-wheel and cloth.
The stamps were designed by the British ad agency D.J. Keymer & Co. This is the same company that Satyajit Ray first worked for. Coincidentally, it was this year (1950), that Ray was sent to England by the company, where watching about a 100 movies in six months Ray got motivated to be a film-maker.

Philately - Year 1949. an archeological expedition

noreply@blogger.com (Delson R.) — Thu, 28 Nov 2013 03:30:00 +0000

In the year 1949, 4 Commemorative stamps were released. I do not have any of the 4 and my hunt is on for them. However, 16 definitive stamps were released that year and and 3 more in 1951, making it a total of 19 definitive stamps. At this point, before I proceed, I own you an explanation of what is Commemorative and definitive.

A definitive is a stamp that is a part of a regular issue of a country's stamp available for sale by the postal service for an extended period of time. Hence these 19 stamps were available until 1955 at least. They are also called 'regular issues'

Commemorative on the other hand are issued to honour a person, place, heritage of the nation or an event and available for a limited time. Both the 'Definitive' and Commemorative stamps have postal validity.

Now these 19 stamps issued are together clubbed together as 1st Series of definitives. They are also called the Archeological series, since they feature historic monuments.

I have 17 of the 19 and the monuments represented are.

From top left to bottom right, the stamps are.

Elephant Motif from 'ajanta caves'.
The Horse from Sun temple of Konark.
Trimurti from elephanta caves. Though this one is reduced to the size of a small stamp, the original is about 20 feet in height.
Bodhisattva . There are two stamps, which are mirror image of each other. The second is the correct posture of the image.
Nataraja from Thiruvelangadu.
Mahahbodhi temple (Bod gaya)
Eastern gate of sanchi stupa.
Lingaraj Temple , Bhuvaneshwar. In 2 colours; Lake and Bright blue.

Tomb of Md. Adil Shah ( Also called Gol Gumbaz in Bijapur)
Kandarya Mahadeva Temple in Khajuraho.
Golden Temple in Amritsar
Victory tower in Chittorgarh
Red Fort in Delhi
Taj Mahal in Agra

The two that I do not have are;
Qutab Minar
Satrunjaya Temple.

These stamps replaced the existing issues of King George VI series, which were still valid and commonly used even after Independence until their stock were exhausted.
P.S. Apologies for the badly arranged stamps on the photographs. They are not mounted, but I placed them from my stock album to photograph.

Philately- 1948, The year of the Mahatma

noreply@blogger.com (Delson R.) — Tue, 26 Nov 2013 03:30:00 +0000

If 1947 was a year to cheer, then 1948 was the year to mourn. Mahatma Gandhi, was murdered by a nut-head. Hence on 15 August 1948, on the first anniversary of Independence, the postal department released 4 mourning issues of the Mahatma.
A total of 5 stamps were released n 1948, other than the 4 mentioned above, on 29th May 1948 a Stamp featuring a Lockheed Constellation aircraft was released. This stamp was meant for one day use only i.e. for the first flight of India-U.K. on 8th June 1948. A total of 0.57 million of these were printed and the once that have cancellation, are quite treasured by stamp collectors and history buffs. Being a small collector, I have only managed to get an un-cancelled issue, nevertheless its quite a treasure for me.

On 15 August 1948, 4 stamps featuring the Mahatma were released as mentioned above. They were printed by Courvoisier, La Chaux de Fonds, Switzerland. Today these are the most treasured stamps of any collector. These 4 stamps in any condition can cost between 10,000 to 20,000 Rs. If they have the words 'specimen' overprinted on them then the cost is not less than 5 lakhs. These stamps prepared by the Indian embassy in Switzerland were mounted on a golden foil and presented in a black velvet folder.

The first is a 1.5 anna Brown stamp, 25 million of these were printed. This is the most common of the 4 stamps.

These 3.5 anna Violet is quite a pretty shade and 2.5 million of these were printed.

3.75 million of these 12 anna Grey-green stamps were printed.

Now for the most soth after stamp, the jewel of a philately collection, the apple of my stamp collection. Since it was a 10 Rs stamp, the sky high cost of the stamp automatically put it out of reach of most Indians.

The stamp had the words 'bapu' printed in hindi and urdu as a symbol of communal harmony. The stamp created a bit of controversy anyway, since bapu was not shown in his customary dhoti.
100 such stamps had the words 'SERVICE' overprinted on them. These became the worlds least printed stamps. They were meant for the use of C Rajagopalachari, the governer general of India. Today it is estimated that only 18 such stamps exist in the world.
On 5th Ocotober 2007 it was auctioned for 38,000 Euros and on May 19th 2011 re-auctioned and sold for a world record price of 1,44,000 Euros making it the most expensive modern stamp.
Unfortunately my collection does not have the 'Service' overprints, but at least, I feel good to own the 10 Rs Gandhi stamp.
Any of you, who collected stamps in childhood, or acquired a collection or know any one who has a collection of stamp- do keep a look out for the precious 1948 Gandhi's .

Philately - India after Independence - 1947

noreply@blogger.com (Delson R.) — Sun, 24 Nov 2013 03:30:00 +0000

When India won her Independence, the Indian government had to deal with a lot of problems; Starting with the refugees, to handling peoples mails. The postal system was already in place, the stamps though had to be designed and printed by the Indian Government.
The tri-coloured Indian flag, featured on Independent India's first stamp. It was printed on 21 Nov. 1947 at Indian Security Press in Nasik. It features the words "Jai Hind" and cost 3.5 annas. This was the cost of an International mail.

The next stamp features the Ashoka capital and cost 1.5 annas. That was the cost of a local mail and 22.7 million of these were printed. Guess people wrote a lot those days, considering the poor rate of literacy.
The next two stamps were printed in Dec 1947, and are thus the second stamps of Independent India.

The final stamp released that year cost a whopping 12 annas. It was meant for International mail sent via air. Hence it aptly features a Douglas DC-4. Despite the cost, 2.4 million of these were printed.

Though I mostly collect cancelled stamps, i.e. stamps that have been used in postage, at some stage of their life- Being the first 3 stamps of India, I was truly delighted when I came across three un-cancelled stamps and decided to make them an exception.

Philately - The Monarchs.

noreply@blogger.com (Delson R.) — Fri, 22 Nov 2013 03:30:00 +0000

It is called the 'Hobby of the Kings', but today it appears to be following the kings- Philately, which is a fancy name for stamp collection, happens to be a hobby which I picked up during my childhood and has stuck with me all these years. Philately is not only a window to history, it is also a very easy and inexpensive way (most of the times) to keep with you a part of that history. In the coming days, I will share with you my small little collection of stamps and post some of the interesting things that I have learnt from these small bits of papers. I will endeavor to take the jargon out of philately and get some much needed factoids into it. I will only showcase the stamps that I have and since I collect only stamps of India, it will only be Indian stamps. Both prior Independence (15th August 1947) and after India won her freedom.
So lets start with a small post on stamps of the pre-Independence days. The stamps of British India period, feature the profile portrait of the ruling monarch. Four Monarchs feature on Indian stamps- any idea who they are?

From 1st October 1854 ( the day the first stamp was released in India) to 1902 ; the stamps carried the profile of Her Majesty Queen Victoria. She is the only Queen, to feature on British India stamps and so is quite easy to identify.
This first stamp, which reads "East India Postage" was released prior to 1882, after this year, the British crown took over from East India Company ( because of the Sipoy Mutiny or first war of Indian Independence).

From 1901 to 1910 it was King Edward VII. He is shown with receding hair and appears without a crown.

From 1910 to 1936 it was King George V. He appears with a crown and has a well kept beard.

From 1937 Until Independence it was King George VI. He too appears with the crown but has a clean shave.
So I hope after reading todays post, you will be able to identify a monarch with a glance at the stamp and approximate the time period. Hoping you will all enjoy this fascinating window into Indian History.

'As blind as a bat'

noreply@blogger.com (Delson R.) — Wed, 20 Nov 2013 04:16:00 +0000

Is a bat blind and needs echolocation like how we are taught?

Nope, bats aren't blind at all!! There are about 1,100 species of bats in the world and not one is sightless. The fact that bats are blind and use echolocation or 'sonar' is completely bunkum. Fruit bats don't use echolocation at all. Their favourite food (yes, you guessed it right- Fruit) does not move much and they use their colour vision and keen sense of smell to locate it. For navigation, they use their large eyes. The Common vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus) is the only bat that feeds on mammal blood; it has a vision that can rival our night vision devices. It can see a cow 120 meters away; in pitch darkness (try beating that). Microbats that eat insects do use echolocation to hunt.However for all other purposes (avoiding obstacles, spotting landmarks or calculating flying height) they use their eyes. Unlike Fruit bats though, microbats see in black and white. There are fish eating bats too, like the Greater Bulldog bat (Noctilio leporinus), which again uses its keen vision and big feet to scoop out fish from water. Lots of bats around your home means a lots

of less mosquitoes to deal with, because one hungry bat can munch up to 200 mosquitoes per night. Burrp!

A chemistry of two leaves.

noreply@blogger.com (Delson R.) — Sat, 16 Nov 2013 03:30:00 +0000

My wife and I were visiting a nursery when we came across an amazing plant. The nursery lady, told us that it was called “Basmati grass.” When crushed the leaves smell like basmati rice, and if you add it to rice when cooking, even ordinary rice can have the aroma of basmati rice. After a bit of research, I have learnt that the shrub belongs to the lily family and is native to Indonesia. It is called the ‘Screwpine’ or Pandan. The strap like leaves have the same volatile compound that gives basmati rice its distinct, nutty, aroma; 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (also contributes to the aroma of crabmeat and popcorn).

Seasoning of Indian curries is incomplete without the all important ‘curry leaves’ The curry leaf plant, ‘Murraya koenigii’ belongs to the citrus family. The leaves have subtle, woody fresh notes and are either simmered or briefly sautéed in cooking oil. These leaves contain a remarkable alkaloid called ‘carbazole’ – which is not only an antioxidant but also has anti-inflammatory properties. This molecule is also used as a precursor for anti-HIV, anti-cancer, antibacterial and anti-fungal drugs.

Antimony Facts.

noreply@blogger.com (Delson R.) — Thu, 14 Nov 2013 03:30:00 +0000

Nebuchadnezzar, of hanging gardens of Babylon fame, painted his palace yellow by using an Antimony- lead mix. Soon he went mad, sleeping outdoors in fields and eating grass like an Ox. Around that time Egyptian women, used antimony as mascara to decorate their faces. During medieval times, alchemist – not to mention Isaac Newton- grew obsessed with the sexual properties of Antimony. Some insisted that Antimony was the essence of femininity- so much so that the alchemical symbol of antimony became the general symbol for “Female.”

Antimony was also used as a laxative. Unlike modern laxatives antimony pills didn’t dissolve in the intestines, and the pills were considered so valuable that people rummaged through faecal matter to retrieve the pills. In some families the antimony pills were also passed down as family laxative heirloom.

In the 1930’s in

China

, a poor province decided to make money from antimony, since it was the most abundantly available resource there. But antimony coins are soft, easily rubbed away and toxic, all properties of bad money. The government soon withdrew the coins. Though worth just fractions of a cent then, these coins fetch thousands of dollars from collectors today.

Mozart is supposed to have died by taking too much antimony to combat a severe fever.

Today Antimony is used to make custom built acids. Antimony pentafluoride, (SbF5), with hydrofluoric acid (HF), produces an acid with a pH of -31. This acid is 100,000 billion billion billion times stronger than stomach acid (pH 1) and will eat through glass, and dissolve the hand that holds the glass too. (It is stored in special Teflon lined containers)

Ah! This reminds me, although unrelated to the topic. Prior to 1890, scientists judged acids and bases by tasting or dunking their fingers in them.

Tasting time

noreply@blogger.com (Delson R.) — Tue, 12 Nov 2013 03:30:00 +0000

Today if you want to check the time at the middle of the night, you either have a backlit watch or may be a talking clock. Well back in the seventeenth century, when neither of that existed, M. de Villayer, a French inventor, tried using the sense of taste.

He designed a clock so arranged that when he reached for the hour hand at night, it guided him to a small container with a spice inserted in place of numbers, a different spice for every hour of the night. Even when he could not see the clock, he could always taste the time.

Bycatch- An ecological nightmare.

noreply@blogger.com (Delson R.) — Wed, 06 Nov 2013 03:30:00 +0000

When massive trawlers spread their nets, to catch those tasty shrimps or fish and haul them onboard they haul much more than shrimps. In fishing industry it is called a “bycatch”. An average shrimp-trawling operation throws 80 to 90 percent of the sea animals it captures overboard, dead or dying as bycatch. Shrimps account for only 2% of global seafood by weight, but shrimp trawling accounts for 33% of global bycatch. Most of us are unaware about this, since there exists no bycatch label on our sea food. How would you feel, if the shrimp you buy had this tag on it “13 KILOGRAMS OF OTHER SEA ANIMALS WERE KILLED AND TOSSED BACK INTO THE OCEAN FOR EVERY HALF KILO OF THIS SHRIMP”

While catching fish like tuna, among the other 145 species regularly caught the following endangered species meet their end. manta ray, devil ray, spotted skate, bignose shark, copper shark, Galapagos shark, sandbar shark, night shark, sand tiger shark, (great) white shark, hammerhead shark, spurdog fish, Cuban dogfish, bigeye thresher, mako, blue shark, wahoo, sailfish, bonito, longbill spearfish, lancet fish, grey triggerfish, needlefish, blue runner, black ruff, dolphin fish, bigeye cigarfish, porcupine fish, rainbow runner, common sea horse, Bermuda chub, opah, escolar, leerfish, tripletail, goosefish, monkfish, sunfish, Murray eel, pilotfish, black gemfish, bluefish, cassava fish, red drum, greater amberjack, yellowtail, common sea bream, puffer fish, loggerhead turtle, green turtle, leatherback turtle, hawksbill turtle, Kemp’s ridley turtle, Atlantic yellow-nosed albatross, Audouin’s gull, balearic shearwater, black-browed albatross, great black-backed gull, great shearwater, great-winged petrel, grey petrel, northern royal albatross, shy albatross, sooty shearwater, southern fulmar, Yelkouan shearwater, minke whale, sei whale, fin whale, common dolphin, northern right whale, pilot whale, humpback whale, beaked whale, killer whale, harbor porpoise, sperm whale, striped dolphin, Atlantic spotted dolphin, spinner dolphin, bottlenose dolphin, and goose-beaked whale.

So imagine, you have a plate of sushi. Now imagine this plate also holds all the animals that were killed for your sushi. That plate then would have to be 5 feet across to accommodate all the bycatch.

What colour are carrots?

noreply@blogger.com (Delson R.) — Mon, 04 Nov 2013 03:32:00 +0000

Orange you say..? Well for 5,000 years, carrots have been anything but orange. The earliest use of carrots by humans are found in archeological sites in Afghanistan, those were purple in the outside and yellow inside. Next in line are the ancient Greeks who cultivated carrots for medicinal purposes and Roman physicians in

the 2nd century prescribed it for expelling wind. The Arab traders carried the carrot seed to Asia and Africa where it blossomed into various shades of purple, white, yellow, red, green and even black carrots. So where did our orange carrots come from? It was grown in 16th century Holland, patriotically bred to match the colour of the Dutch Royal House of Orange! By the 17th century, the Dutch were the main European producers of carrots and all modern varieties are descended from their four orange ones; Early Half long, Late Half Long, Scarlet and Long Orange. Well non-orange carrots are making a come back, so the next time you see a white , yellow, dark red or purple carrot, don't run away from it, they are natures natural breeds. Anyone for a ' Tiranga gajar halwa' ?