Go anywhere everywhere.

They go anywhere. Often they have to as they have no where to go. I am talking about toilets or the lack thereof in India and shit. There must be amazing amounts of shit in the soil, air and water in India.

Did you know that toilets on trains in India drop shit directly down to the open ground below the running train. Billions of Indians shit a gazillion microbes traveling in trains.  And the trains disseminate them widely throughout the land! India has the largest passenger train system in the world.

What about those fancy western style toilets in cities used to flush shit out of site.  Most of that likely goes as untreated sewage into open drains thence to streams and rivers. Everywhere!

Maybe this shit everywhere is the hidden attraction of trips to India. Could it be that subconsciously we want to be exposed to this vast microbial cocktail.

Next time you eat a green leafy salad in India, think of shit.

Because its likely there. 

20 pounds/ 9kg in 10 years.

You are angry at yourself. 20 lbs! How did that happen.

Be kind to yourself. Since 3500 kcal equals 1 pound wt gain you only had 20 extra calories a day...(20x365x10divide by 3500=almost 20!). Just 140 extra a week!

How much stricter could you be with your eating. Though we all need to pay more attention to what we drink. 1 can of sweet drinks such as Coke, Pepsi, etc contains 140 calories. So just 1 a week could give you 20 pounds/ almost 9 kg in 10 years.

Weight gain is very hard to understand. Brown skin, dark skin people genetically do not  seem to handle sugar as well as Caucasians.  Thus for most Asians, Hispanics and Blacks as well as Native Americans sugar is a slow poison. The record numbers of diabetics in India since the TV marketing blitz for Coke, Pepsi and similar drinks is sobering. 

The power of multinational corporations using TV to change long held eating and drinking beliefs and culture in India and China is indeed fearsome. 

After turning America into an obese nation in 30 years Coke and Pepsi have to make profits on the people's of Asia and Africa.

As Gandhi said to change the world begin with the children. So these corporations did. Money was given to Schools for the well to do to sell soft drinks on campus and competitions were sponsored. Money was being invested to change the next generation into lovers of Coke etc. By 2003 WHO had declared that in emerging economies such as India it was the children of the well off who had become obese.

Rural folk have been targeted now. In the Golden Temple in Amritsar on my visit in 2008 Coke was cheaper than milk! And a blatant campaign at the holy KUMBH Mela Khushion ka sangam. Equating drinking Coke with Happiness and the rivers confluence.

Caveat emptor! Buyer beware.

The world is too flat.

Balance is a problem as we get older.

Many fall too easily.

I think our world may be just too flat. We do not exercise our balance (proprioception)system on a daily basis. Wherever we walk or run is so very predictably flat, what with concrete or asphalt everywhere.
Challenge yourself on rough terrain or just walk on grass or gravel whenever possible.

Your knees and ankles would be happier too.

For Cricket Lovers "World Cup a Photo Journey" by Kamal Julka

For all you lovers of cricket.

Exciting collection from Kamal's collection of photos and memories from his years of covering the World Cup personally over the years. Unique & Beautiful book for your drawing room table for guests to peruse.

Watch the video of the launch by Kapil Dev himself.

http://nareshsagar.blogspot.com/2011/03/kapil-dev-book-launch-kamal-julkaworld.html

Do you want an autographed copy from the Photo artist himself ? Email Kamal ....julkakamal at gmail.com to buy a copy or go to the Rajasthan Patrika website.

Aruna (Julka) and Vinod

Lies, Damned lies and Medical lies

Fascinating reading, about accepted medical research proven wrong a few years later and the subtle lies that went into the, the $$ in drug and grant moneys made in the process.

From the Atlantic Magazine, the story of a Harvard trained Greek who returned home to Greece and built up an organization to carefully document research these lies.

Vinod


http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/8269/

The Glass Wall - Musings from India travel

We drove to the Cineplex on a hot January afternoon.

Chatting, animatedly. Us four.

People in the thousands on the sides of the road, just milled about. Shopkeepers if you could call them that, showed their wares on tattered cloth, some spilled out directly onto the asphalt. Rickety thelas -a far cry from the elaborate cappucino carts, (they call them "thelas") going up in swank urban areas - crowded the roadside. Pedestrians too jostled for space.

They all breathed the exhaust from our cars and the dust from our tires. They suffered our horns. They would not move out of the way! We had to get to the Cineplex in the Mall on time. The movie you know.

We did not hear them.

We chatted animatedly, us four.

Our air was conditioned, cleaned and filtered. Our ears, our lungs, our noses were protected by the glass windows of our car. We were safe. Our hearts protected. Was it not just a movie we were watching, though the glass? It felt like it.

We chatted, animatedly. Us four.
We had cool, clean air in our car that our driver drove, and cool filtered water to drink. Let them drink coke. We were different. Them and us. Paths, theirs and ours. Fate, theirs and ours. Different. Separate.

Community, in the movie. We did feel it. Yes, we did.  Though there were only 5 other people beside us four in the conditioned air, in the plush seats.of the large theatre. Not our driver. The car needed watching.

Emotion, we felt it. In the movie. We could feel, in the dark. We shed tears in the dark.

In the car, on the road again, we sat in the light coming through the glass.

We chatted. Animatedly. Us four.

The driver earned his family's daily bread. Quietly.

Outside, a silent movie, played on.

21 Bum Salute - We Gotta Go Too

When you gotta go , you go. Just down the hall to your bathroom, sit down with aplomb on the throne and shortly thereafter flush IT down. You give not thought to what happens to the shit laden water. Neither do most cities in India . Seventy per cent of the total municipal sewage and effluent from over 900 cities and towns are being discharged untreated into rivers which are a major source of drinking water, a recent study by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has said.

This is the shit (and toilet paper) from those of us with the luxury of flush toilets.

But millions worldwide do without adequate sanitation. But they gotta go too. And that gives us the 21 Bun Salute easy to see steps from the multi - million dollar state legislature in the Lal Kothi area of Jaipur just as day begins. There as in urban slums worldwide people hope to salvage what dignity they can by sitting in open fields to go, hoping for the help from the morning haze. Others both male and female, end up having to go when they gotta go, often in the full glare of the harsh midday sun, with nary a bush to hide behind. The 21 Bum salute.

But why should we care.