Kam Fats of this world

Kam Fats of this world



Source : Google photo

Synopsis : There are people you meet for the first time and find them very friendly and sincere if you just say hello. But most people do not take the first step so can not find them and think that people are unfriendly. In this blog I discuss this issue and encourage people to open up and extend a hand in friendship.



Once I was in Sheung Shui which is the last but one station near the Chinese border from Hong Kong where I met with a taxi driver who said his name was Kam Fat. Now I am still not sure if that was his real name or they called him so because he was a bit fat but he was a friendly sort of guy who said that he can bring me to the border to see what we can see. So I went with him while he talked a mile a minute and wanted to know all about me.

So I told him that I was on my way to the United States where I was to go to college in California etc. I had no scholarship so I was on my own which must have impressed him a lot so first he found me a cheap place to stay in that was good and clean and then he invited me to his house for a dinner.

There is an abominable place like a swamp with foul odor coming out of it where Kam Fat lived in a shanty built on stilts so we walked gingerly on narrow planks that led to his house where he introduced me to his family and children who all welcomed me and invited me to join them in a simple but delicious Chinese meal. I still remember their hospitality because taxi drivers who are so nice to an unknown person are very hard to find anywhere so I was amazed.

I don’t remember what we talked about but they gave me a beautiful ceramic eagle as a parting gift. The next day Kam Fat showed up again to see if I needed him again and promptly brought me to a dentist when I said that I needed one. This wonderful fellow fixed me up a nice tooth that fitted with a clip for only 5 dollars.

Kam Fat then brought me to an Indian doctor who happened to be a Bengali gentleman married to a Chinese lady who was very surprised to see me. Hardly any Indian ever goes to Sheung Shui let alone a Bengali so he immediately invited me to have lunch at his place and later showed me around in his car to visit Sha Tin where he had another clinic. I have very pleasant memories of such nice people I have met in my life in many countries reinforcing my belief in the goodness of the humanity no matter how many bad people we meet.

If you have traveled as much as I have then you get to meet all sorts of people some bad and some good like Kam Fat. You tend to forget the bad ones but remember the good people who made an impression on you. One gentleman offered to carry my heavy suitcase to my hotel in Hong Kong out of pure goodwill so I was quite embarrassed.

These days all we hear and see in the news is trash talking politicians who openly encourage hate and racism so some people take their cue and behave accordingly. You will see this upon arrival at any US airport where the impolite immigration people will give you a dirty look if you happen to be a foreigner with dark skin or wearing turban.

You will see this in policemen who will stop you and roughly ask for your ID while keeping a hand on their holster. You will see this in a passing motorist who shouts insults at you just because you don’t look like them. It even filters down to the children who take their cue from the parents. It makes you wonder at the dark side of the human nature and appreciate more the Kam Fats of this world.
Once I was in Messina in Italy where I wandered into a camp ground not knowing that it was where only the Italians went. The camp was full of tents and lots of children of all ages were playing there. At first they did not know what to make of me because they had never met an Indian up so close but they swarmed around me asking all sorts of questions. I did not know their language so could only say “non parlare Italiano” until a teenage girl said that she spoke some English. I then had an idea. I gathered all the kids and asked them to join our hands to make a circle. I then asked them to sit down on the ground.

They were excited and waited eagerly to know what to do next. So I explained to the girl that it was a simple game where I will drop a hand kerchief behind one kid who will not suspect it and come around to find that kid still unaware so I will pick up the hand kerchief and hit him with it to tell him that he is out of the game. If the kid found the handkerchief then I was out and he continued the game.They learned the game quickly and had a great time playing this new game because the girl explained to them in rapid fire Italian.

After playing a while I then sat down in an easy chair under a tree to rest but the kids would not leave me alone. They brought all kinds of food from their tents and started feeding me. Someone would put some grapes in my mouth while others put some cheese. They could not do enough for me while their mothers and grandmothers looked on smiling indolently at me. One old lady asked me to take off my shirt and lovingly fixed some buttons that she saw missing. I could not believe in so much love to a complete stranger in a foreign country.

When it was time for me to say goodbye, the kids shed tears and pleaded with me to stay on and play some more with them and teach them new things but I had to move on. I still remember their tearful beautiful faces after so many years.

I love the innocence of children but also know that this innocence depends upon the environment they grow up in. They tend to lose it quickly in a violent situation like war and famine where nothing is normal anymore or in a situation where parental care and supervision is missing or inadequate like in Algeria.

But first let me take you to Vietnam where a terrible war was being fought in 1967 with no end in sight. You cannot imagine the havoc it caused in the family life and caused so much death and destruction everywhere but I have seen it and felt keenly their agony. The kids lost their innocence during the war and played with toy guns and grenades as if that was the normal thing to do. Some would come up to me in the streets of Saigon and press dirty photos into my hands for some money. One kid opened the hatch of our car and ran away with a duffel bag in the blink of an eye.
Teen age girls openly sold themselves.

Young kids climbed on the back of American trucks carrying PX goods and pushed the cartons off the truck like monkeys while the driver was totally unaware of what was going on. These kids were not innocent and were cunning beyond their age. The war brought a collapse in morality and the traditional values.

Then let us go to Algeria in 1972 where there was no war and the whole country was peaceful but where I made the mistake of thinking that kids were so cute and innocent. They were anything but innocent. They were like little devils in curly hair and angelic faces. Their mothers shooed them out in the morning to do their household chores in peace and gossip with their neighbors so these kids did all kinds of mischief to occupy themselves.

When I played with them thinking that they were kids after all, the word spread fast and more and more kids started to appear. When their sheer number overwhelmed me, I had to stop but they insisted that I play with them and got angry when I would not.

In Italy the kids grow up in a loving environment and are pampered by the parents and the grandparents who shower them with attention but in Algeria this was not the case so the kids craved for attention and love. When they found it, they were not about to let it go so became vengeful and put sand on my motorbike engine, tried to break the mirrors and slash tires. I was quite amazed at their destructiveness.

So the sweetness and innocence in kids depends upon the environment they grow up in. If the kid experiences domestic violence common in many societies or lives in a community where drugs, violence and death are common then it has the effect of taking away the innocence quickly.
I have written elsewhere that the kids are like sponge. They absorb good as well as the bad things they observe specially the language and act accordingly when there is no loving parental supervision.

Ten year old children are now forced to carry automatic weapons and asked to kill people by the jihadists and other such groups so they turn into real monsters at a very young age. Girls as young as 13 or 14 are forced to sell themselves just so that they can earn a small sum to feed their orphan siblings. No one cares for them and no one helps them so they do what they can just to survive.

As long as people can remember, there has always been war, famine and pestilence brought about by people who still insist on forcing their will on the people in the name of ideology or mistaken beliefs so people suffer. The UN now says there are more than 80 million people who have been forcibly displaced due to war in various parts of the world with no end in sight.

There is a movie made called The kite runner which shows how children used to fly their kites in Afghanistan until the hard core jihadists came to power and turned that country to ashes. Dancing, singing, playing, kite flying and all the normal things in life that you and I enjoy in our own countries were banned so deprived people of their simple joys in life in the name of a mistaken belief. It is a country rife with drug addiction, domestic abuse of women, depression and suicide where people see no future.

When the war ends someday, people may have the opportunity to go back to piece together a normal life so that their children can fly kites again. I have seen this in Vietnam that is now growing and prospering where children play in the beautiful parks instead of selling dirty photos but they paid a very high price to have peace.

We as humans have been killing each other since a very long time and still do but this world of ours is truly a beautiful planet where the nature is generous and can feed everyone given half the chance. If you travel, you will see how beautiful some countries are that are so green and rich in resources where people live in prosperity and peace, where people are kind to strangers and offer any assistance they can. Kind and wonderful people raise kind and wonderful children who later become the Kam Fats.

So I have not lost faith because of the Kam Fats of this world.

Note : My blogs and biography are also published in the links given below.

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A child prodigy called Antara

A child prodigy called Antara



Source : Google photo

Synopsis : This blog is about a child prodigy who sings very well and was trained by her famous father. It is a video that gives the lyrics in English so that you can understand.



Antara Chowdhury is a household name in India but very few outside India have heard of her and her songs. She is the daughter of Salil Chowdhury who is a legend in India. He wrote songs and created the tunes for numerous movies and made numerous hit songs that are popular in Bengali and Hindi.

He was a poet, playwright and the well-known music director who wrote the lyrics of the song below that Antara at the age of seven sang and it became an instant hit.
She recorded many children’s songs that her illustrious father wrote for her and left a lasting legacy in the music world in India. Salil Chowdhury is no more but his music lives in his pretty daughter who is now a young lady.

I now give you her most popular song called O sona Byang O kola Byang and give you the line by line translation in English. Just copy and paste the video link given below into your browser and listen to her songs and follow the English translation.

Lyrics of O Sona byang O kola Byang

O sona byang O kola byang 
O Golden frog, O kola frog
O sona byang O kola byang
O golden frog ,O kola frog
Sara raat hende golai dakis ghangor ghang
you call all night in bad voice ghangor gang
Tora ki gola sadhis ni tora ki nara bandhis ni
Have you not taken voice lessons
Ay chole ay amaar katche sikhie debo gaan
Come to me I will teach you how to sing
Balo to balo na balo to
Say now, say now
Pa pa dha pa pa pa dha pa re ga ma dha pa  pa
Pa pa dha pa…
Ba ba re ba ba re baa
Bah bah re bah
Music
Sarata din lompo jhompo bondo kore dao
Stop jumping around whole day
Tanpuratay surti bendhe rewaj kore jao
Practice singing using the tanpura
Ma bolbe bhalo meye sona kola bang
Ma will say  sona bang is a good girl
Ta jodi na koro tobe bhangbo tomar thang
I will break your legs  if you don’t
Balo to sa re ga ma pa pa dha pa
Say sa re ga ma  …
Ba ba re ba ba re baa
Bah bah re bah
Music
O sona bang O kola bang ( refrain)
O sona bang O kola bang  ( refrain)
Balo to balo na  pa pa dha pa
Say it say now  pa pa dha pa….
Ba ba re ba ba re baa
Bah bah re bah
Music
Sammelane gaiben khan sagid sona bang
Sona bang will sing in a concert
Sangate sangite thanken pundit kola bang
Pundit Kola bang will accompany with beat
Tomra sobai sunte esho kola banger gaan
You should all come to hear the songs of Kola frog 
Are sunbe gaaner sheshe nana rokom taan
and will hear many tunes at the end
Sunie dao sunie dao
Let them hear you  let them hear you
Dha dha dhin dha ….   
Dha dha dhin dha….

The video link     Just copy and paste into browser or click the link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTB8qf9g_Bo

Note : My blogs and biography are also published in the links given below.

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Anil’s biography in English.
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An addiction like no other

Source : Google photo

Synopsis : An addiction like gambling destroys lives that the blog discusses in some depth.


Today I would like to start this blog with a story. It is a very long story but I have to tell you only the shortest version of it because of space.

There was this gambling joint in San Francisco where all kinds of people dropped by to try their luck at various forms of gambling offered there not to mention the booze and the women who were also there to lend a hand if needed all with the sole purpose of getting your money. It was a very disreputable place as such places usually are where sometimes fights over money broke out with tragic consequences because it was frequented by disreputable people.They were inveterate gamblers who always thought that the next roll of dice will bring them the fortune that always eluded them.

One day a ship docked nearby so some passengers got down and ended up in the gambling joint for a drink and nothing more. That was on the mind of a young German boy who had just gotten off the boat and was thirsty so he ordered a beer. Soon a fellow approached him and asked if he had some money on him that he could bet because he was feeling very lucky that day.

The German boy had never gambled in his life but for some strange reason agreed to give this fellow whom he had just met a good chunk of his money and asked him to write on a napkin the terms if he won and how much and watched with great trepidation his money being used for gambling. To everyone 's surprise the fellow kept on winning and betting more until the German boy got 20 times what he had lent.

He then promised himself that he will never gamble again in his life because he realized that he could have lost it all that day. He used this money to buy some sheep and started a sheep farm in a rural area and over the years prospered and kept on increasing his farm and the sheep and worked very hard to become a well to do sheep farmer. He married and had a daughter.
His gambling friend too prospered because his luck was with him for a while and settled on an adjacent property where he built a nice house, got married and also had a daughter so these two children often played together and became friends.

But he was a born gambler and could not stay away from the notorious gambling dens so lost a great deal of money again. His wife was so unhappy that she died of grief leaving the little daughter called Poppy in the care of the gambler husband.

Thus the life of misery started for the little girl who was dragged all over the country from one poor flop house to another by her father who always told her that he will get back all his money  but never did and one day did not come back. Poppy did not know what happened to him and what to do so she grabbed her pet parrot and stowed away on a freight train not knowing where the train was going and ended up near the wharf in New York. She was only a child of 10.

She saw huge ships and climbed aboard one and fell asleep in one corner hidden on that big ship. The captain eventually found her when the ship was nearing France and let her go ashore and washed his hands off her. What happened to Poppy is another story that I need not write about here because this blog is about a deadly addiction called gambling and how it destroys lives.

Of all kinds of addictions, gambling surely is a destroyer of lives because a gambler can not be rehabilitated easily. I know a case where a fellow who worked in an aircraft factory in India and was in a good position and with a good salary had this addiction so kept on losing and borrowing more money from very bad people to gamble more. He managed to buy a lot and build two rooms making his wife happy for a while but it too did not last and was sold to pay for his gambling debts.

His wife and three children suffered the consequence because one day he ran away and abandoned his family because the bad people were pressuring him to pay up his huge debt. The poor wife did not know what to do so she went back to her parents asking their help to track this fellow.

Eventually he was found hiding in another town from where  he was brought home and his gambling debts were paid off by her sister and brother to save their marriage and their family. He promised never to gamble again and somehow kept his promise. It is so rare to find a gambler who reforms. While the story of Poppy is fiction ,this story is not which goes to show how some people get so addicted to gambling that they literally lose their head and end up in a bad way. This fellow was lucky that his in laws came to help at a crucial moment although it is not known if he ever paid back his debt to them .

If you go to Las Vegas in the United States and spend just a few hours in a casino there, you can watch how people gamble enormous amount of money there in a short time and destroy their lives. The casinos are rigged in their favor where they always make money while they pay out small amounts once in while to show that their establishment is all above board but is it?

At first it was the mafia that set up the casinos in Las Vegas which is in the middle of the desert and was just a place to stop for gas on the way East or West but that changed when a gambling town was established there by the mob bosses who raked in millions and killed anyone who stood in their way. The Godfather movie shows it all. Then they hired singers like Sinatra to sing in their nightly shows that made him famous.

Later they moved into what they called legitimate businesses using the money they made in the  casino business but gambling is a dangerous business because of the amount of money involved so you will see hundreds of security cameras everywhere watching everyone including the professional cheaters and armed security people with  walky talkies everywhere.

In Texas. a sheriff who wanted to keep gambling and prostitution out of his town made life difficult for the casino operators so one day they tampered with the brake of his sport car that killed the sheriff clearing the way for the crooks to make a come back.

In America, gambling starts early in their life. If you go to any bar where people are watching a ball game on TV while drinking, someone will shout saying "20 dollars say the batter will make the home run". Someone says" you are on" and the money is then collected by someone for the bet for or against . This is the simplest form of gambling that goes on everywhere. Later some of them graduate to more serious gambling and head for Las Vegas , Reno or Atlantic city.

Men and women take part in gambling and quarrel later on when they lose every thing they had. How many marriages fall apart due to gambling is not known but the consequences of losing money by gambling can be very serious indeed. That fellow in India was lucky that his in laws came to help but not everyone has such in laws.

In Italy, you will see the con men with three little cups and their pea which they expertly move around between the cups right before your eyes and always win. Then there are card players who with poker face will take all your money if you fall into their trap. There is a Kenny Rogers song that says "you never count your money while sitting at the table, there will be time enough  for counting when the deal is done". Most people never get to count their money at all. It is the cashier who gets to count it.

People have invented many forms of gambling but the most notorious of them is the roulette where a wheel turns and stops at a  number or not where people put all their chips and lose big amounts in a few seconds. The dice throwers are also seen cheering or losing surrounded by onlookers who egg them on to bet again and again. This sort of drama plays out in all casinos worldwide making gambling a multi billion dollar business.

If you go to Japan, you will see the pachinko slot machines where people are playing whole day feeding the machines with endless tokens hoping they win something. One fellow said that he makes enough money everyday to pay for his cigarettes. He did not say how much he loses.

Once I was on a boat to Macau from HongKong which was filled with the Chinese who were all going to Macau to gamble but could not wait to get there so everywhere on that boat there were mahjong tables where the gamblers were hitting the board hard with their mahjong pieces and shouting. It is good that I was not allowed into Macau for political reasons but I was not going there to gamble. Macau now rivals Las Vegas where casinos are very big business. One casino tycoon even brought a floating casino to Manila bay to start his business here but towed it back to Macau when the local officials started asking for huge bribes.

This scourge of gambling is spreading worldwide with severe consequences socially and destroying people's lives. If you remember the movie Deer Hunter with Robert de Niro, in it, you will remember the scene of the Russian roulette when a loaded gun with just one bullet is given to someone to see if he will kill himself . People stood around betting on whether or not he will die. If the fellow died, they shoved the body into the river.

This sort of death game was actually played in the shady quarters of Cholon which is a part of Saigon during the war but now the government cracks down on such illegal games hard in Vietnam. In China the gambling is banned for good reasons so they go to Macau where gambling is allowed. Many gamble secretly playing their favorite Mahjong games or cards anyway.

My Ma was against any form of gambling and forbade us to play with cards so I never learned to play cards or any card game. She also taught us that we should be frugal and always save a part of what we earn. This was very good advice from which I benefitted in my life and now I tell my children to do the same .

But people pick up bad habits like gambling from people they associate with at school or later at work where a gambling culture prevails in their society. Parents have  no influence over such people. I have seen some people of my age in our community who have destroyed themselves with this vice and another deadly vice called alcoholism.

I appreciate the Moslems who are forbidden to drink and gamble so by and large they obey and follow the dictates of Koran.  But in other religions they do not have such strong dictates.

One must understand that gambling is not a matter of pure luck because the gambling houses make sure that they always make money no matter what. How do they do this? You may have heard of loaded dice or secret buttons that stop the roulette wheel at a certain spot so that the house wins and bettors lose. The slot machines are their biggest money makers that are rigged in their favor. If someone wins big then they say that the machine is defective so they will not honor the win. This is an addiction that people can't beat no matter how hard they try.

The question to ask here is why the governments allow gambling in the first place knowing how it destroys lives. You can also ask why they run lotto in every country? It is because it earns them a lot of revenue in taxes. It is like alcohol that is easily available everywhere that the governments make money out of but no one is asking you to drink. It is your choice just like gambling.

If you go to Monte Carlo , you will be surprised how people gamble there with abandon making the King of Monte Carlo very rich. Gambling and prostitution are closely linked so where you find one, you will find the other.

I am lucky that I had such good parents who taught me good values but not everyone is so lucky. Hope you will teach your children that any form of gambling is evil that they must stay away from.

Note : My blogs and biography are also published in the links given below.

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Blogs in Spanish
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Blogs in Japanese
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Anil’s biography in Japanese
Anil’s biography in French.
Anil’s biography in English.
Anil’s biography in Spanish.
Anil’s biography in German

Allure of vanity

Synopsis : The vanity is found in all people everywhere. Only the method of showing the vanity varies that makes it interesting. From primitive adornment in Africa to expensive cosmetics elsewhere, vanity is explored in this blog and what it attains.

Allure of vanity



Source : Google photo of African woman

I am often amused at the sheer vanity of women in general and some men in certain countries. Here in the Philippines just like in so many other countries, the TV is full of ads that promote skin whitener, shampoo and numerous other products 24/7  because to serve the vanity they produce a mind boggling array of products that rake in billions of dollars worldwide.

They are the sponsors of TV programs so the telenovelas are called soap operas in some countries. This ceaseless advertisement of products to serve the vanity of women and men has its desired effect so you can see how people believe in these ads where beautiful women show off their shiny hair or their skin color. They too want shiny hair and fair skin to look like an American girl who is their ideal.

It does not stop there. They have a zillion shades of hair colors they offer you to choose from so that you too can have flax colored hair like an European, never mind if you happen to be ugly and short. So you see men and women with flax colored hair who are anything but.. in Asia of all places.
To top it off here comes the offer of colored contact lenses so that you can have blue eyes just like the white people. This sort of behavior is promoted by the TV  personalities who have a tremendous impact on the population because they saturate the air waves with this sort of vanity products day and night. They fail to promote good values because they themselves are vain and think nothing of flax colored hair and blue contact lenses no matter how incongruous they look with their short height, dark skin and bulging legs.

Once I saw grp ( grass root people)women walking by with burns on their cheeks so I asked someone what it meant and why these women had such burns. The answer surprised me. I was told that these poor women who are squatters and work as maids or washerwomen or in such menial jobs do not have the money to buy expensive skin whitening lotions so they rub acid on their cheeks to make them appear pink but are ignorant of the effect of the acid. I have seen hill women in India who have very fair skin and get easily sun burned so they have sun burnt cheeks but here women rub acid on their cheeks to look fair. The TV women are their role model who in their turn imitate Caucasian women shamelessly.

I call these women vain and ignorant lacking self respect. GRP means grass roots people who are poor but who also watch tv all the time. I see this sort of vanity in people giving rise to a huge increase in parlors where the transvestites and others shampoo the hair, dye with any color a woman wants, offer manicure, pedicure, massage, hair cut and numerous such services to men and women everywhere. It is not at all unusual to see a man getting his nails done or getting a facial massage because the vanity dictates their behavior. There is a great tendency among them to show off.

Now I am not against personal grooming. I think everybody should do personal grooming so that they do not offend others with their bad body odors, unwashed clothes or unkempt looks. It makes sense to appear in public looking well groomed and with clean clothes. Dirty people are not taken seriously in offices or shops.  In many places they have strict dress codes so people must be attired normally and properly meaning no shorts and flip flops. The churches and mosques have strict dress code as well although many women show up there in inappropriate clothing especially in churches.

The Mollahs are less tolerant of such behavior and will not admit people who do not follow dress codes.

Among the primitive people specially women adorn themselves with whatever natural products they can find in order to look pretty and attract a potential mate. They paint their faces with white paint, decorate with beads or colored pastes of some kind while others may even subject themselves with welts caused by cutting the skins on their face and breast just to look attractive. Jewelries made from seeds or cauri shells are also used by them. Among the Fulanis in West Africa, it is men who adorn themselves to attract mates and are quite vain about their appearance. These adornments are done on special occasions like festivals or clan gatherings but normally you do not see men and women showing off the way some people in Asia do so I will not call them vain.

So no matter where you go, you find that vanity in men and particularly women is prevalent irrespective of their social class and status because it serves the purpose of attracting a possible mate. This is a very basic biological reason that is hard wired into their brain. The TV ads just take advantage of this human desire to look pretty and sexually attractive to the opposite sex and is a worldwide phenomenon giving rise to a multi billion dollar industry.

In India where people have dark skin, the rise of skin whitening products is astounding because they believe the TV commercials. The Indian women of marriageable age rub their skin with a mixture of cream of milk and a bit of turmeric powder in it to look fair especially if a party is coming to interview the girl. If they fail in the interview then there is perhaps the next time so they go back to rubbing more cream of milk with turmeric again. In the arranged marriage system, the girl has to look presentable.

In the western societies where the marriage depends only on the girl and the boy, there is added pressure on the woman to look her best for her date which may or may not lead to marriage in the end so here one can see that the vanity serves a purpose after all.

If a girl shows up with uncombed hair and shredded jeans and a loose blouse that looks second hand then it perhaps does not make an impression on her date. If the fellow does the same while the girl is nicely dressed and smells of expensive perfume then he too fails to make an impression. Who says the first impression does not matter? It always does. Most people judge you by how you dress before they get to know you as a person. In India this is particularly true where the shop owners judge you by how you dress so they treat you accordingly. A fancy car parked in front does not hurt either which can even excuse simple clothes of the client because an expensive car is a symbol of wealth.

I am always impressed by the natural beauty of women in any country who do not burn their cheeks with acid and who do not color their hair just to look like a western woman. Their healthy skin glows without make up of any kind and their natural dark skin glistens with health that does not need whitening. I also like the self confidence in such women who are proud of being what they are and do not feel the need to use cosmetics. You will find such women in  Africa who are tall and have very good posture. They walk so gracefully and look majestic in their simple attire or without. Some are bare breasted but look naturally elegant.

You have to go to Vietnam to see how beautiful women look in their plain Ao Dai, shiny black long hair that they don't braid and glowing smooth skin. They are born pretty so do not need a lot of make up , lotions or other cosmetics . You hardly ever see a fat young woman there because their food is very well balanced with lots of green vegetables, shredded meat and noodles. It is not only delicious, it is very healthy so they do not gain weight like those women elsewhere who eat junk food all the time and swell like hippos. But natural beauty and stature is often a matter of superior breeding.

The adage that one cannot make silk out of sow's ears is very true. It is not rocket science that beautiful people make beautiful children who later pass on their genes to the next generation but to grow up beautiful also depends on healthy food and good environment and that depends largely on the economic status of the people. Poor people eat unhealthy food and live in squatter colonies so they try hard to look like the TV models ignoring the fact that they come from very poor breeding stocks where ugliness prevails generation after generation.

In any society the really tall and beautiful people are a minority because they come from aristocracy and very selective breeding so they stand out in the crowd of the ordinary people. The rich people are not vain because they don't have to be to look good. It is in their genes. They look good no  matter what they wear . But the vast majority is not so blessed so they are the customers of the cosmetics industry.

I have written elsewhere that the island people who were isolated for a very long time from the rest of the world tend to be very homogeneous in their looks because of their restricted gene pools so they may look uniformly short in height and ugly. This changes when they open up to the world and new better genes are introduced into their pool. You will see it in children of mixed races. They are tall, beautiful and stand apart from others who all aspire to be like them. They become models selling cosmetics products on TV or get into the show business.

In India where inter-racial marriage is still not the norm, you will see the Anglo Indians who are the  legacy of the British raj. They are handsome , tall and with fair skin who stand apart from the crowd anywhere although the puritans look down on them as the progeny of mixed race they do not approve of. But in other countries , such people are looked up to.

So I return to the issue of vanity and how it consumes some people in some cultures while elsewhere people do not really care about vanity because they do not need to be vain to look good or they believe that vanity is a sin that the padres talk about all the time from their pulpits.

If you visit the Amish communities in the Eastern part of the United States, you will find these simple people living in rural communities and working very hard to meet their daily needs. They are healthy, tall and handsome people whose women do not use any kind of cosmetics because they see vanity as a sin but in their simplicity their women look beautiful in their glowing skin and very clean clothes. Men also look very handsome in their simple but clean clothes and well groomed beards.

But the epitome of vanity is found in women who stand in front of their closet full of new and wonderful clothes and say I have nothing to wear. They must have new clothes for every occasion no matter how trivial and will not dare wear clothes they have worn before lest someone make a remark like Oh I have seen that dress before on you. This sort of vanity is not limited to those who can afford to buy new clothes all the time but also found in the middle class because they imitate the rich.

At the bottom are the grp ( grass roots people) who buy second hand clothes so these second hand clothes stores are found everywhere now. Huge containers full of used clothes  are coming into the port cities all over Asia where there is a great demand for used clothes. In Rome there is a Thieves market just near the river where used clothes are sold in great volumes. A beautiful sheep skin jacket that costs 300 dollars in Australia or New Zealand sells there for only 5 dollars. You just have to be careful about your five dollars in your pocket because it is not called thieves market for nothing.

The second hand clothes therefore are a boon to the poor who can not afford expensive clothes and  are not vain enough so they  buy them. Then there is cheap acid they can always rub on their cheek so the market offers everyone a choice. Just don't be too particular.

Then I come to Asia where I see the craze of cosmetics as if it is going out of style soon. They can't have enough and often look ridiculous. If you are dark then be proud of your skin color and your shiny black hair no matter what the TV ads tell you. They are out to make money so they promote their products but you don't have to be so gullible.

This vanity leads some women to go to the extreme of injecting Botox into their skin to firm it up or undergo cosmetic surgery to make a fold on their eye lids or enhance their breasts. This is popular in Korea or Japan where they go for this sort of thing although I find nothing wrong with their eyes or their body but who am I? If I am a plastic surgeon, I will find many things wrong with them that I can then "correct" for a big fee. Who is foolish enough to chase away a milk cow?

I therefore come to the conclusion that if you are born beautiful, you don't need anything to look better. On the other hand if you are born ugly then no matter what you do to make you look good is not going to work for you so why throw away your hard earned money on superficial things they promote on TV? Just be proud of who you are and walk with your head high just like the African women. It is the inner beauty that counts.


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The sacred cow

Synopsis: The common perception that cows are sacred to Hindus is a fallacy that originated during the Buddhist period in India when most of the population followed Buddhism and when any animal slaughter was banned in the country. The vegetarian diet is still practiced by the millions but the Hindus ate beef and other meat long time ago during the Vedic period.

Sacred cows



Source : Google photo

Scientists  tell us that we descended from apes long ago when we used to survive eating wild fruits and roots just like the apes today and we were essentially vegetarians. Later as humans started to live in communities, they needed a steady source of food so started agriculture and animal husbandry when wild animals were domesticated for this purpose.

Humans also hunted for food when wild fruits and roots were not available so they started to eat meat and used the animal hides for clothes and bones for tools. This was before the advent of agriculture and animal husbandry.

The domesticated animals like cows, goats and sheep  gave man plenty of meat,milk and hides where the supply was assured. The domestic animals multiplied on their own so there was no need for hunting for them in the wilderness like their ancestors did. Those who did not stay in one place like the Native Americans did not practice agriculture so essentially they followed the herds of wild animals and hunted them for food and clothing.

But the settled humans developed flourishing communities everywhere and produced enough food for themselves and lived comfortably if not in prosperity in the modern sense of the word.
Then came a period of religious upheaval where a new religion like Buddhism came into being long before Christianity and started to spread slowly through many parts of Asia bringing with it the idea that violence done to all animals to obtain food and hides must stop. It started in India that was populated by meat eating Hindus who switched to Buddhism in large numbers at a certain period of its long history so the sacred cow was born. Throughout the country, the slaughter of all animals was banned by the order of the king .

The Hindus by and large became vegetarians and remain so even today although Buddhism as a religion has waned so hardly a few Buddhists remain except in a few small areas of the vast country and yet their non violence tenets have not only remained but have become deeply ingrained in the Hindu culture.

However, a percentage of the Hindu population always remained non vegetarian and obtained their protein from meat of goat, sheep , fish and poultry but not from cows or buffaloes although in Nepal which is a Hindu country, people eat the buffalo meat because in their logic buffalo is not a cow so can be eaten but not the cow. This logic is quite interesting.

Recently there has been an outcry throughout India to ban the slaughter of cows nationwide so laws are being promulgated to this effect and the abattoirs are being shut down. Behind this movement are the hard core vegetarians who want to go back to the era of Buddhism when there was a total ban throughout the empire but that was a long time ago.

In the mean time millions of Moslems, Christians and also meat eating Hindus clamored for beef so the slaughter of cows and buffaloes continues in various parts of the country even today where majority of Moslems and Christians live thus putting them at odds with the strict vegetarians.
In some states the ban is absolute where people suspected of killing cows and eating beef are beaten up and even killed by the angry mob.In other states vigilante groups stop any truck transporting cows or buffaloes and drivers are beaten up because people think that they are transporting the animals to the slaughter houses.

The slaughter houses are run by Muslims so a large section of the beef eating population is affected. Meat sellers are closing shops and their livelihood is disappearing.
But here lies the dichotomy of Hindus. They will not kill a cow but beating a cow mercilessly that has damaged a farmer's crop or vegetable patch is allowed and quite normal. They really do not venerate a cow  as much as some people believe so to them a cow is not holy as portrayed in the western press but just an animal who is not beefsteak on four legs. This notion is vehemently contested by a few die hard vegetarian Hindus who bow down in front of a cow chewing cud just to show how pious they are. I suspect it is mostly for public consumption.

India is home to the world's largest cattle population and they are multiplying at a fast rate so the government does not know what to do with the millions of cows that roam the streets to find food because their owners have abandoned them. They cause traffic jams, accidents and some die on the streets creating big health hazards. A cow died in front of our gate one day that made such a mess that people were in panic as the animal started to decompose in the 40 degree Celsius heat rapidly .The stench was unbearable until some untouchables came and carted it away

If you travel in India, you may find such animals rotting by the side of the road and being shred to pieces by hundreds of vultures. They are the real janitors in India and believe me they render a service. People just pass by and cover their nose. To them it is quite normal to see such things.
India is also the largest exporter of beef, hides and live animals but they have to compete with Brazil or other cattle exporting countries  so the market is quite competitive.There is a huge leather industry that employs millions of people so you will see international brands like Hushpuppies making quality shoes in India because of cheaper leather price and skilled labor force that works for low wages.Bata has built a city around its factory in East India where they make very good shoes.
All these industries are now affected because of the ban on cow slaughter so they are not happy. People get very angry when their livelihood is in jeopardy so a political storm is brewing in India with uncertain outcome.

The government often does silly things just to placate the vegetarians  so they have started to pick up roaming cows from the streets of the capital and elsewhere and transport them to a pound. They insert a tracking microchip into the animal and can trace where it has been and who is the owner but I think it is just for show that they are doing something. So who feeds these animals in the pound and how long can they keep them there?

Some are brought to forests and released but a cow is a domestic animal that can not survive in a forest.India does not have millions of hectares of grazing land like in Africa where animals can survive. The pressure of the population is so great that the wild life in restricted forested areas are under tremendous pressure from human encroachment. On top of that you have millions of cattle everywhere so it is a huge problem.

In Japan beef is so expensive that the returning Japanese tourists bring home beef as a gift for their loved ones. They only shake their head in disbelief that beef is such an issue in India. My American friends can't believe it either. I once told an American woman who was arguing with me about this issue that food is what people eat. The beef is not food to most Indians because they do not eat it no matter how much you appreciate a huge steak.

It is true that India has a great dairy industry so cow and buffalo milk is available everywhere so the milk cattle are raised in the city or in the outskirts to be near the consumer. This means there are thousands of such animals living in the cities creating a stench that is sky-high but it is good business so mayors can do nothing about it no matter how many laws they pass. It cannot be implemented and the animals cannot be moved out.

The cattle population is also the largest emitter of methane gas that goes straight up into the atmosphere. You and I know what that means. One can only visit a country like Denmark or Holland to see how they manage their beef and dairy industry. The Americans have turned it into an art so efficient they are in their beef and milk production. I am sure India could learn a lot from them in the management of the industry and bring the clean animal husbandry practices to India.

You don't see animals roaming the streets in America or Europe or anywhere for that matter except in India but they are the quality producers of meat and milk products . But India is mired in the politics of cattle because of its wider implication .Any one who supports cow slaughter is booted out of the office by the vegetarian voters who number in millions so the politicians do what they have to do to get their votes.

India can solve its cow problem by exporting cattle on an industrial scale even at a discounted price to earn revenue and buy back the processed leather later to supply to its industries. This will eliminate the slaughter houses and placate the large vegetarian population.

It can concentrate its effort in modernizing the dairy industry by learning from the Swiss or the Danes to bring it at par with the international standard.

It can eliminate all roaming cattle from the streets in every city which will be a highly popular move and will earn the politicians great dividends.

It can promote the improvement of the dairy breed of cattle through breeding program so that they give more milk. India has some of the outstanding breeds of cattle known for their high milk production but limited to certain states like Punjab.

It can promote an alternative to beef by encouraging production of mutton that come from goat and sheep that non vegetarians prefer and even beef eaters like. The poultry industry is still primitive so there is great scope there for modernization and improvement.

If the government has the will, it will find the resources needed to solve the cattle problem in India. Otherwise the vigilantes will roam the streets instead of cattle and that can mean only one thing. It is not good.


Note :  My blogs are also available in French, Spanish, German and Japanese  languages at the following links :

Blogs in French
Blogs in Spanish
Blogs in German
Blogs in Japanese
Anil's biography in Japanese
Anil's biography in French.
Anil's biography in English.
Anil's biography in Spanish.
Anil's biography in German

The curse of plastic

Synopsis : The curse of plastic pollution is a very serious matter because it is increasingly becoming a menace to all living beings in many parts of the world where no effective measures are taken to control it. In some countries the waste plastic is put to innovative use that is discussed in the blog.

The curse of plastic



Source: Google photo

When I was growing up in India, I was always asked to run errands for the family. I had to fall in line early in the morning to buy subsidized wheat, rice and sugar. I had to buy kerosene and I had to go to the central market every month to buy a long list of things that the family needed. I had to even fall in line at 4 am in the coal yard to buy 20 kgs of coal that was allowed per family per week due to an artificial coal shortage.

But what I remembered most was that I had to gather all the cloth bags I could find in the house before I went to buy things. These bags were made of old pants and discarded clothes so came in very handy for marketing.

In every shop I went to, I was given the goods in a paper bag made of newspapers. In fact the old newspapers were never thrown away by my father but a fellow came every month to buy them at the rate of 1 or 2 Rupees a kilo who then resold them to the people who made paper bags out of them so the paper was recycled this way. This practice is still in vogue in India and gives employment to many people who make paper bags for the shops.

Someone also came to buy used clothes and shoes or glass or metal and my Ma got ceramic jars for her pickles in return so everything was recycled although I still do not know what they did with used clothes or shoes. I did not know the scale of this recycling nationwide until much later and was very impressed. If someone could make money out of recycling, it was done.

The municipal trucks came frequently to collect the household garbage which consisted mainly of vegetable peals and such and dumped the truck loads of garbage in low lying areas of the city and slowly filled them up. It served the purpose of garbage disposal and the land was reclaimed that became a valuable property where new residential houses came up later. If you go there now, you will never realize that 50 years ago this was a low land full of water and a breeding ground of mosquitos. Now there are beautiful buildings and paved roads with neon street lights. My town went through this magic transformation over a period of time using garbage as filler.

With this background in mind let us fast forward to the present day and see the proliferation of plastic in a way beyond belief although India has taken drastic steps to curb this menace of plastic and banned their use outright in many states.

When I lived in Sudan, I was shocked to see the barbed wire fences for miles stuck with plastic that flew in the wind everywhere. There was plastic in the streets, in the fences, in the garbage piles, in the farms and even in places where you should not expect to find.

As soon as you arrive at the market to buy a few things, you will be assailed by the Kish boys who hang around with stacks of plastic bags in their hand and want you to buy them. Plastic is called Kish in Arabic.

I saw no one going to the market with a bag in hand like we used to so they buy the plastic bags from the kish boys and throw it away as soon as they get home. It then proliferates and covers the land like a scourge. What is worse is it finds its way to the river or water source and pollutes them as well.
The problem has gotten so out of hand that now plastic materials float in the vast oceans and cover the size of Texas in the Pacific creating enormous problems for the marine life.

The marine birds like albatross swallow bits of plastic and die in large numbers. The sea mammals get tangled in plastic and nylon mesh and die. There is no end in sight to this massive pollution and there is no international effort to clean up the oceans. On the contrary, more countries are dumping their plastic wastes surreptitiously into the water or dump them in a third country where corrupt officials take bribe to do so.

When I go to the supermarket here, what I see is shocking. I see every bit of vegetable wrapped in cellophane that we have to then unwrap and throw away so it all ends up in a land fill somewhere. The local municipal office has banned the use of plastic bags in the market so now the supermarkets sell cloth bags or bags made of non-plastic material that people are obliged to buy because they go shopping without bags. I suspect that this habit is more cultural than anything else because surely they all have tons of bags at home but always go to market without them out of habit. I should say bad habit.

My wife is an exception because she hates plastic and always goes to the market with lots of bags and is very organized. She even gives her bags to someone who is in need but people have bad habits and they seldom learn.

I saw the same bad habit in Australia where people go shopping without bags and are forced to buy the bags from the supermarket at two or three Aussie dollars apiece and accumulate them at home .Still they forget to bring them the next time around.

We all know how serious the matter is when we see a landfill somewhere where the trucks unload their contents daily or even hourly. There you will find poor people including bare feet children scavenging in the garbage piles for anything they can collect and sell for recycling. Often you hear of tragic cases where the mountain of garbage collapses on them burying them alive and yet the pile grows.

We generate all this garbage nationwide and worldwide that we do not care about because the garbage truck comes to take it all away. We do not care where it goes and what people do with it. We do not care if it all ends up in the ocean as long as it is taken away and out of our sight.

Now I appreciate how in India they recycle garbage and plastic and use it to fill up low lying swampy areas and build houses there later. One fellow who recycles metals recovered from the garbage dump in Mumbai and turns them into shiny pots and pans says he makes about 30000 Rupees every month for his effort and he only works part time.

But in Western countries like the United States, people throw away a mind boggling amount of things including plastic that end up in the garbage dump somewhere. Plastic and paper products comprise a big part of what they throw away but glass ,metal and even electronic trash is thrown away not to mention toxic waste that come out of thousands of hospitals.



Source : Google photo of tiles made of recycled plastic in Poland

One fellow in Poland collects the plastic for free because it is garbage that nobody wants and melts it down to a thick paste into which he adds color and injects this colored molten plastic paste into molds that turn out beautiful roof tiles. He jumps up and down on the roof to show how strong the tiles are and how beautiful they look. He is now exporting his tiles to other EU countries and makes tons of money.

So if others follow his example then a very large volume of this unwanted plastic can be reused this way but initially they will need financial assistance from the government to set up their factories and buy the machines needed to make such products.

Poor people know how to scavenge through the garbage pile and pick up a few things they can recycle at a terrible cost to their health but do not have the money or resources like that Polish fellow to set up a tile factory. This is where the governments can play a crucial role. They can set up schemes where they help new entrepreneurs set up plastic recycling plants that can generate employment and income.

Secondly, they must enact laws that prohibit the use of plastic cellophane wrappers in the supermarket or anywhere. If the source of the garbage is stopped then it can go a long way to solve the problem.

I know that in some countries like Iceland, they generate power by burning the plastic but that too has its environmental cost because the burned plastic generates toxic fumes.
Now an Italian scientist has discovered a plastic eating worm that she hopes to extract the plastic degenerating enzyme from and perhaps someday put it to commercial use at a large scale but it is still in the laboratory phase and will take time to make it a success if at all.

In the meantime the scientists need to work on developing self-destructing or degenerating plastic that will crumble into harmless dust after a short time but that is in the future. Meanwhile what to do with the trillions of tons of plastic garbage everywhere? Soon they will run out of landfills because no one wants a garbage dump near their city or town but keep on producing garbage that has to go somewhere.

The only solution as I see it is in stopping making the garbage in the first place. You can do it in several ways.

1. 
2. Stop buying plastic bags and bring your own cloth bag for shopping that can be reused hundreds of times.
3. Stop buying canned products that are made with harmful preservatives that are a health hazard. This will reduce the metal cans in the dump.
4. Segregate your garbage into recyclable bins. Glass, plastic, metal, paper, styrofoam can all be recycled so bring them to the processing centers regularly.
5. Make a pit where all your vegetable peels and other organic matters can be thrown into to make wonderful compost that you can use in your garden.
6. Donate your old clothes, shoes, books, magazines etc. to poor people. Someone will collect them and send them to the children in Somalia or Ethiopia where they will value them.
7. Teach your children not to be wasteful and to be mindful of the environment. If we cannot reduce the pollution then at least we should not add to it.
8. Make an organized effort to gather environment conscious people like children and clean up the streams and parks in your neighborhood by collecting garbage especially plastic and metal cans and help maintain cleanliness
9. Follow the example of Wangari Maathai in Kenya who single handedly organized to plant hundreds of thousands of trees nationwide to make Kenya green again. She did it by asking the village women to collect seeds from the forest and raise their nurseries in every village and plant the trees later. You too can plant trees that will one day grow into lovely forest and clean up the air.
10. People in Uttar Pradesh in India recently made into Guinness book of records by planting several million trees in one single day but for that to happen, one needs to plant seeds on a massive scale in nurseries and then organize thousands of people, transport them and the trees and give them tools to plants the trees with. This massive effort required government assistance but individually you too can do a lot like Wangari Maathai. She received Nobel Prize for her effort of planting trees.
11. Say No to plastic in every country and find a suitable alternative.    
12. Stop buying bottled water because it adds to the problem of the  plastic bottles thrown away. Clean tap water in most countries is quite drinkable unless you live in Flint. One fellow has built a lovely home using large plastic bottles filled with colored water and built the walls with it. The sunlight comes in through the colored water and creates dazzling rainbow colors inside the house in the United States. You too can be so creative if you just try.

I hope this article will somehow make you more conscious of the serious problem created by plastic waste everywhere and take the steps necessary to fight this problem. If I succeed in making you an environmental warrior then the purpose of this blog with be worthwhile. Wangari Maathai is wishing you good luck from her grave.

Note :  My blogs are also available in French, Spanish, German and Japanese  languages at the following links :

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Blogs in French
Blogs in Spanish
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Anil's biography in Japanese
Anil's biography in French.
Anil's biography in English.
Anil's biography in Spanish.
Anil's biography in German