Clothes , food and religious taboos

Synopsis : When it comes to clothes, food and religion, there are numerous taboos that people may break at their own peril. Muslims will not touch pork, Hindus will not eat beef  and pork while the Jews will not eat any shellfish. Similarly the religious cultures that are influenced by the tribal culture will determine how people should or should not dress. We look at these taboos clinically.

Clothes, food and religious taboos




Source : Google photo




Source : Google photo of an African woman

It is quite interesting to study the evolution of clothes, food and religion in different parts of the world over a long period of time and it is still ongoing.

The humankind descended from our ancestor called Lucy whose skeleton or parts of it was found in the rift valley in Africa purely by chance and established the fact that we all are Africans no matter where we live today in this planet called earth.

The humans migrated from their place of origin to many parts of Europe and Asia a very long time ago and adapted to the climate and food they found. The marker chromosome is still found in various people living in different parts of the world and proves that eventually they migrated to coastal areas where they could find food from the ocean and stayed but others moved on to other parts.

Some crossed the Bering straight where the water level was lower than what it is today and exposed a land bridge that brought them to Americas from where they spread to all parts. Wherever they went and settled, they felt the need to adapt to the climate and the source of food so over a period of time they formed their unique identity and called themselves Europeans or Asians. The genetics was working overtime during all this time so people shed their pigments in harsh cold climates of Europe and kept most of it where the climate was very hot and people were exposed to the sun all the time.

The fundamentalists hate Darwin and his book on evolution because they can’t imagine Lucy to be the mother of the humankind but leave them aside for a moment and focus on what we do know about us.

It tells us that the Africans did not feel the need of clothes due to the hot climate where most live and wore only muchas to cover their genitals that some even today  use no matter how much the pressure from the white missionaries.

Women were bare breasted because the breast was and still is not considered something to be ashamed of and do not feel the need to cover up. If you go to Mali and other parts in Africa, women still go about bare breasted and cover only their legs with a sarong and girls in villages still go about wearing only a mucha which is to cover the genitals and nothing else. Some wear grass skirts but only during festivals. The definition of modesty in African villages has a very different meaning than in other countries.

When the African slaves were transported to the Caribbean islands like Haiti, they brought with them their culture, their clothes and their habits that continue even today. Haitian girls think nothing of stripping nude in public and bathing in streams. No one gawks and looks with disapproval except the missionaries but what do they know? They have been gawking and disapproving everywhere and have forced women to cover up from Hawaii to Africa and even in the jungles of Amazon. Only they can’t gawk at nude women in Bondi Beach or in Copacabana because they will ignore the missionaries to their utter frustration.

The clothes are definitely a function of the climate. The colder the climate more the need to cover up,  warmer the climate more the desire to shed clothes. This is quite natural and has nothing to do with modesty which is an invention of westerners who take it upon themselves to decide how a woman should dress.

Now if you go back several thousands of years, you will find Neanderthals living in caves in France and elsewhere who hunted whatever animals they could find and used the skins to makes their clothes. At first it was a crude attempt to fashion clothes out of animal skins but it protected them from harsh winter weather. Later they developed great skills in making very attractive and fashionable clothes out of leather when they learned how to tan the skins and made beautiful moccasins to protect their feet. The Native Americans were and still are masters in this craft.

Today the climate still decides how much one must cover up so North Europe that has long harsh winter makes people shiver even when they are completely covered up. But if you go down south to the Mediterranean where the climate is mild in winter and lovely during summer, all the beach resorts are booked solid in summer. There you will see the north Europeans, Russians and others happily shedding their clothes often leaving nothing to imagination.

Now let us move on to Asia where you will find a wide variety of clothes people wear that are very colorful as a well as practical. Within India women have a great variety of clothes and styles to choose from.  Some wear lovely 6 yards of material called sari   that come in myriad of colors, material and design over a petticoat and short blouse while others in Rajasthan wear a colorful lehanga which is a skirt of ankle length   and a blouse. They have a scarf to cover their heads.

In Punjab women wear shalwar , kurta and a dupatta which is gaining widespread popularity in India and overseas because it looks very nice and is practical. The shalwar and kurta has many variants so each region has its own style and design. The Kashmiri women wear very decorated and embroidered Shalwar and Kurta and jewelries like in Rajasthan.

The clothing has evolved in India over long period of time judging from the sculptures of Khajuraho when women wore practically nothing except jewelries to what it is today. The sari wrapped over the head in some parts came as a protection from lookers who at a certain period made it their business to kidnap and sell beautiful women so women hid their faces this way.

Men still wear clothes that are plain but comfortable. Dhoti as a garment is just a plain white piece of cloth worn over under clothing and is very practical. You can wear dhoti and squat without any problem but try to do it with tight pants on and you will want to wear dhoti too. Later the British brought their style of clothes to their colonies all over the world so people started wearing western clothes that are unsuitable to the climate in most parts and uncomfortable to boot.

People still wonder why they have to strangle themselves with a tie and why women have to wear tight bras that constrict. There was a time in Europe when women wore what can be construed as scandalous clothes that exposed most of their breasts like in the courts of Tsar or in England, Germany and Spain making Alexandra very uncomfortable in the Russian court. She came from a more orthodox and puritan background in Germany.

The Puritanism that followed the early white immigrants to the United States still pervades in their society so a woman who breast feeds in public is still shown disapproval but these puritans have been steadily losing ground in their fight to keep women modest. You only have to go to any beach in southern California where women wander around wearing next to nothing and ignore the puritans just like the Bondi girls. There is less social pressure to conform.

Now we will examine the evolution of clothes in the Middle East where there was a time may be several thousand years ago when women wore gorgeous clothes and jewelries especially in Afghanistan that was a part of Maurya Empire. They say that Gandhari was a princess from Kandahar which proves that they were Hindus. She played a major role in the battle of Mahabharata but that is another story may be I will write someday.

Then came a harsh religion born in the desert of Arabia called Islam. They say that the desert people cover up completely because of heat and sand storms. Their loose garments are cooler and very comfortable prompting Lawrence of Arabia to wear it. But they also say that the desert people are horny most of the time so they get very excited if they see any woman who shows any part of her body.

So their religion made a few strict rules regarding female clothing. They must cover up and wear hijab that has only two holes to peep out of. This must have been tough on women who before the advent of Islam were so free to wear what they liked. Were men less horny before Islam? I don’t know but the fact is that these edicts of Islam have a profound effect on how women dress.
I have seen Malian women in Sikasso wearing black hijab of synthetic material in the sweltering heat while other women go bare breasted. A particular branch of Islam is harsh on women while women in other Muslim countries like Indonesia, Pakistan and Malaysia wear what they like. They cover their heads with a scarf which looks very nice. In Algeria where I used to work, women wear a cream colored or white silky veil with only one eye uncovered.

But the evolution of clothes continues. Now the Hollywood movies are shown in many countries with traditional values like in India where young women have started to wear blue jeans and tee shirts. In the Philippines where women always have a head start on fashion, they wear shorts that are so short that it redefines the word. Low cut blouses showing a good deal of breast is also worn. They have discarded the more prudish Filipiniana dresses they inherited from the Spaniards in favor of skimpier clothes and only wear traditional clothes on special occasions.

The import of second hand clothes that sell for a fraction of the cost of new clothes has also an impact all over Asia. Poor people can’t afford highly priced clothes so they prefer cheaper second hand clothes.

Food  and its evolution :

Now let us talk about food that is just as important as clothes perhaps more so. The evolution of food from the days of Neanderthals and even before has taken a very long time to come about and has not stopped. Many tribes in Africa still do not like to do agricultural work and prefer to hunt for food although hunting in many parts is severely restricted. The Zulus were cattle herders just like the Masai and Matabeles and used the cattle for meat milk and hide as they still do. But gone are the millions of cattle and immense grazing lands so they live with just a few heads of cattle, goat or sheep and try to supplement their food with what their women grow near their villages. The food growers are mostly women who use hand hoes but men help in plowing and harvesting.

They eat only what they grow so the choice is rather limited. They do raise few self supporting chickens in their villages if they can keep the foxes out but in general their food is mostly what they grow. The smoked dried cat fish is popular because it keeps but stinks to high heaven. It is not for the sensitive nose but the Africans don’t mind because it is a source of protein. They do not have spices and aromatic herbs that the Asians are spoiled with.

In Asia people are really spoiled when it comes to food. They have been experimenting over thousands of years with new recipes and new herbs and spices that they grow in abundance. Remember that the Europeans learned about spices when they came to Asia and started sending shiploads of it back home where they sold it for the price of gold.

The Asian immigrants who settled in England and elsewhere brought with them the food and the spices so now you can find Asian food in many countries. The Vietnamese and Chinese are masters in their own right and prepare delightful food although they also eat rats, spiders, snakes and dogs that may make you squirm. Man is truly omnivorous and will eat anything.
In India the import of Persian and Middle Eastern cuisine recipes during the Mogul period enriched the food so now it is widely used. The biriyani was once a royal food but now even I can cook it in the Philippines although I am no cook.

The coastal people are fish eaters because that is what they catch. Inland people eat meat because fish is not available everywhere although that is changing now because frozen fish and meat is being shipped by air and land to all parts. You just have to pay the price. The Africans did not invent dry fish or smoked fish. Just visit any market in the Philippines and you will know which section sells it by the stink of it.

One can write a great deal about food in many countries but I am no expert on food so I will limit myself by saying that the food is still evolving. People in Bengal now like to eat chow mien albeit the local version although it was not known a few years ago. The internet has zillions of recipes for those who like to cook.

The religion and taboos:

This topic is really not about religion but the role religion plays in what people eat and what they do not. I have mentioned earlier that religion like Islam has a profound effect on food but many other religions dictate what people should eat and what they should avoid.

Most Indians are vegetarians which is a carryover from the Buddhist period so they will not eat anything other than vegetables although I know a few vegetarians who eat eggs. Moslems will not touch pork and Hindus will never eat beef. Jews also ban certain food I am not sure which and Moslems will not eat any meat that is not halal.

Christians will eat practically anything or will try anything because there is no taboo although Americans prefer certain food and the Europeans have their own tastes which some may say peculiar like horse meat in Germany and cheese with fungus in it in France.

In Japan the whale meat is sold in the market where they will fry it for you to take home while in other countries like Cambodia they munch on fried crickets and spiders and say it is delicious.
So in conclusion I can say that the climate and religion both strongly affect what people wear and what people eat. If you want to be a deviant, you can only do so at your own risk.

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

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Good and bad habits and manners.

Synopsis: There are some universal good habits and manners while there are also universal bad habits and manners that become a part of the culture where they are practiced. I look at some of these habits and manners critically here.

Good and bad habits. Good and bad manners



Source : Google photo

I have been told that habits and manners vary from country to country so there cannot be any universal rule for good or bad habits and manners because they are closely related to the culture of each country.

Try to criticize the culture of any country and you will be immediately branded as biased, prejudiced or worse. It reminds me of a cartoon drawn by Sempe who is famous in France.
It shows a man throws a banana peel on the road on which steps a hapless unsuspecting man and falls that makes the thrower laugh. Then he goes to a movie and cries when someone gets beaten.
Now here is something to ponder on. Someone laughs at the real life misery of another person but cries at the movies that are fake. It really happens so Sempe did not make it up.

It is true that people behave according to their culture because the behavior is usually a learned experience that people learn by watching others from their childhood so later it becomes a habit and is very hard to quit. The manners good or bad are also learned this way. The manners are an expression of one’s behavior.

Once I was in a hospital in India that is run by the religious people. It is a very big hospital where the doctors and other staff are professionals and take great care of their patients. But in one side of the hospital I saw a whole wall from the second floor down covered with spits and was shocked because it was inside the hospital.

People in India have bad habits and chew pan and then spit the saliva out anywhere even inside a hospital so I told the head administrator to do something about it because it was so unhygienic and utterly unbelievably dirty. He promised to do something about it but the point is that people have bad habits and are not going to change unless they are compelled to.

How does anyone compel to change the bad habits of people? You have to visit Singapore to believe how strict the government is on people who litter, spit anywhere and throw wrappers or bubble gums on the road. They are given a hefty fine and a stern warning that they should leave their bad habits behind and keep Singapore clean.

The prime minister of India recently started a program to clean the country and took a broom himself to clean the garbage. May be it was for the TV and the press because people do not change their dirty habits so easily  and keep on throwing banana peels on the road not caring if someone falls and breaks his legs.

Indians call Ganga their mother and venerate it but Ganga is polluted and people keep throwing garbage in it, the chemical companies and tanneries throw their effluents in it and often one can see dead bodies floating by not too far from the ghats where people bathe.
These people adamantly believe that Ganga water is pure so nothing can pollute it but the river is polluted. The government then tried another tactic by saying that if Ganga is your mother, do you keep her clean or make her dirty? Can you tolerate that your holy mother is dirty and do nothing about it ? I don’t know if it worked.

Now I will tell you about Japan. I stayed in Kyoto once and was amazed to see that every morning women and men came out of their houses with buckets of soapy water and brushes with long handles and scrubbed the side walk in front of their houses and shops. In no time the whole lane was scrubbed clean by the people who live there.

No one throws anything on the road and they keep things in their pockets until they find a garbage bin somewhere. In Europe you see clean cities and picturesque clean villages.
In Paris the dog owners who walk their dogs in parks or other public places pick up dog poop wearing plastic gloves and put it in a bin strategically placed everywhere. Switzerland is known for its pristine lakes, parks, villages and cities and very rightfully the Swiss take great pride in their clean habits.

But in Asia the story is very different. In India the pigs and dogs scavenge through the piles of garbage dumped on the roadside that the municipal workers fail to collect regularly. The gutters overflow with sewage because the drains are clogged with garbage. Some manholes have no cover that is dangerous for anyone.

In Manila more than two million poor people squat near the river banks and live in temporary shelters made of cardboard, plastic or whatever material they can scavenge and you can guess where they do their toilet. All the garbage and offal floats on the river and stinks up to high heaven eventually ending up in the ocean but the ocean sends it back to the shore relentlessly.

There have been many attempts made by the government to clean up the river and take all the garbage away but the squatters keep the abundant supply up because they have nowhere to throw their garbage since no one collects their garbage so the problem remains. They do not have toilets so where they will go?

The politicians always make promises to resettle the squatters away from the city but do not have the money to build millions of homes.

One politician’s wife collected millions of pesos that she promised to use for making the river clean and make parks on both sides but no one knows where the money went because no parks were ever built and the river is as full of garbage as ever.

Once my wife and I went to see the famous park in south India called Vrindavan Gardens. It is truly a magnificent park with flowers, fountains and lights but we were shocked to see how people were constantly throwing their garbage on the flower beds that they also trampled while the gardeners looked helplessly. It is because they allow the vendors inside the park so people buy what they sell and throw the garbage right there. This bad habit is tacitly supported by the vendors but I suppose people throw garbage elsewhere as well. There are garbage bins everywhere but people ignore them and trash the place that is so beautiful.

The spitting of pan saliva is more common in North India where chewing pan is a habit with many. There are pan sellers everywhere so it is quite easy to buy it, chew it and spit it out making the road red with saliva. They also talk with pan in their mouth that I find very offensive but is not considered bad manner because everyone does it.

In Delhi the capital, the government office walls are painted red with pan saliva because chewing pan is an Indian habit that is very hard to quit. I will write in a moment about bad manners associated with bad habits in other countries.

In some countries they have zillions of rules and they keep making more rules. There are more rules on what one cannot do than what one can do. The rule breakers are punished with fines which is a good source of income for the police department.

In other countries they announce new rules all the time but fail to implement them. The university here placed a huge signboard on campus saying that now you are entering a smoke belch free campus but the jeepneys continue to use very old smoke belching engines so the sign board finally disappeared.

One can not apply the rules unless the smoke belchers are given an alternative to buy new vehicles financed by the government. One cannot just prohibit the squatters to throw garbage in the river unless they are relocated and given a way to earn some money. People do not want to live as squatters but what choice do they have? So it is easy to make rules but hard to implement unless the rule breakers are given an alternative. If people are fined for urinating in public then there must be free urinals everywhere built by the government.

The poverty does not mean people have to be dirty or have bad habits. We were happy to see how clean the Haitians were even if they were poor. They wore clean clothes and swept their surroundings regularly. They give you a glass of water on a tray with a lace cover on it.
So I come to conclusion that people have bad habits that are linked to their culture so they see nothing wrong with their habits. It has nothing to do with poverty like in India where people throw garbage anywhere and spit anywhere because no one stops them.

The good manners and bad manners:

Now let us examine the reasons why some people develop good manners and others don’t. I think it has a great deal to do with values people hold dear. In the western culture, people are taught to say thank you and please from their childhood. The Christians are taught to be kind and generous to the poor and help find homes for the war refugees and even some furniture because they feel it to be their Christian duty to do so. Germans have accepted millions of refugees and helped them find homes and even jobs. France takes in millions of refugees as immigrants and builds massive tenements to house them.

People are taught to be polite and tolerant of other people who are not like them. They do not have a caste system like in India that discriminates against the untouchables and minorities like the tribals.
But if you grow up believing that you are superior to others then the way you talk to them and treat them will show it. The KKK people in the United States still discriminate against people of color the same way the skinheads in Europe routinely beat up Asians and other immigrants just because they feel superior to them and hate them.

Good and bad manners in other countries

It is a delight to visit Japan. People are so polite and wonderful. I once wandered into a pub for a beer in Kyoto where the Japanese fought over each other to give me beer and paid for it. They always keep their calling cards in their pocket and will give one to you as soon as you meet them and say hello. They have impeccable manners.

But in other countries people fall short of good manners and greet visitors with their feet up on their desks and consider it normal.

This reminds me of a story. Once Pundit Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar went to see a British fellow who received him in his office but keeping his feet up on his desk. He did not say anything but when the British fellow one day came to see him in his office, he too put up his feet on his desk. The British was upset and considered it rude so the Pundit said that he learned such good manners from the visitor. He was trying to teach a lesson.

Chewing pan and talking to visitor can be construed as offensive by many but it is condoned because it becomes a part of the culture so it cannot be criticized. People get angry when you point out bad manners.

One woman constantly checks the labels on the clothes of her female visitors to see if she is wearing signature brand or not and then brags about her clothes that are of good brands. This manner is quite offensive to say the least but the woman says it is her force of habit so the habit and manners are closely related.

Now the force of habit can be good or bad. If you develop the habit of saying thank you and please then it is considered good. If you are constantly late for appointment or fail to show up then it is bad. If you greet your visitor by saying welcome and offer him drinks and food then it is good manners but if you do not open your gate and ask what the visitor wants then it is considered bad manners.
If you invite people to your home to have a party and then ask each one to bring his own food then it is considered bad manners. Americans do it all the time and call it potluck party but in other countries it is bad manners. So how people behave is based on the culture they come from. When you repeat a certain behavior, it then becomes the habit. The manners reflect that habit.

Conclusion :

We all develop habits. Some have good habits and others do not. Some have good manners and are liked and others do not who are disliked. It all depends on how and where these good or bad habits that lead to good and bad manners are acquired. Good people always teach their children good habits and manners because they too practice them. Bad people teach their children bad habits and manners.
If we strive to live by giving good example to others then people appreciate it and if we say we don’t care what others say about us then we can live an isolated life because people too don’t care about such people.

A good rule of thumb is to put yourself in other’s shoes and see how your habits and manners good or bad affect others and act accordingly.

Do not do to others what you do not like others to do to you.

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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Forming habits

Synopsis : A wonderful habit that I really appreciate in anyone is called reading habit.A person who develops this habit in his childhood becomes a very knowledgeable person and can share his knowledge with anyone who is interested. Sadly most people do not develop this habit and read only comic books if at all. There is a wealth of knowledge that you will miss if you do not read . I write about how to form the habit.

Forming habits



Source : Google photo

When I was a teenager meaning about 14 years of age and in high school, I was blessed to know a fellow who lived in the neighborhood. He was an avowed bachelor, dark, gangly, thin and with pock marks on his face. We called him Kaloda , Kalo being his nickname and da is brother .
He was the nicest person one could ever meet anywhere. I still do not know what he saw in me but one day he gave me a book to read. It was She by Rider Haggard. When I showed some apprehension because English was not my language and I was not into reading books in English, he said to me not to worry.

He said I should read and form a habit of reading.  At first it may be a bit difficult and I may understand 1/3^rd of it because of my limited vocabulary but later the comprehension will gradually increase and I will begin to really enjoy reading. It will open up the vast world of classic literature or anything else to me and I will develop a tremendous desire to read anything that I can get hold of and increase my knowledge like no other teacher can.

So I started reading She and soon found it very fascinating. The story telling ability of Rider Haggard is superb to say the least. I could close my eyes and imagine I was in the Zululand where the Zulus with the decorations of beads and paint and holding assegais waited silently for the Zulu king Chaka to give the orders while the voortrekkers waited.

I could imagine the sheherzade  in rich silk and in the company of Sindbad going about making mischief  or Aladin rubbing his lamp and asking the genie to do the impossible. There was no limit to my imagination. The books I read brought me instantly to any part of the world where I could follow every step described by the writer.

Kaloda said to me that the trick of reading and comprehension lies in the context at first. You may not know the word but you will get the meaning if read in the context it was used. Later this helps increase the vocabulary. He gave me many more books to read all in English and said that he had a good collection. Dostoevsky, Gogol and many others thus became a part of my reading list.
Kaloda is dead now but I still remember him very fondly. I went to his house when someone told me that he died recently, to pay my last respect but no one opened the door so I felt disappointed because he was such a good guy and such a good friend.

A child imitates what he hears and slowly picks up the vocabulary to form a sentence .This is how a child learns his mother tongue. It is called the mother tongue for a reason. He hears words from his mother first and not his father.

At first he can’t pronounce words easily or correctly but he is just a child so his abilities are limited. He learns by repetition and memory development .Later he gets better and by the age of three or four, he or she can be a chatterbox.

The television also helps. Imagine how many millions of children who grow up watching Sesame Street develop their learning skills and learn to count and the alphabets in a fun way. No wonder it was such a successful TV program and has been emulated in many countries and dubbed in their languages.

But kids who do not have TV to watch or books to read still manage to develop their ability to speak and understand a spoken language first and written language later when they start schooling formally.
The habit forming I am writing about does not come easily to any child unless he grows up in an environment where good habit forming like reading is encouraged by those around him. Illiterate parents and relatives can’t help in this matter.

The religious schools that emphasize religion first and other subjects as secondary also can’t help a child develop reading skills especially if they proscribe certain books and ban them from their libraries. This is true in the Philippines and many such countries where the children get their primary education in parochial or such religious schools.Not all kids are blessed to have a Kaloda as a friend so I guess I was lucky.

Children learn from examples. They learn good values if the parents teach them and practice those values themselves. They learn bad things if they grow up in a home where the parents drink, quarrel and live in fear of constant domestic violence. He reads nothing if the parents do not read or do not provide him with reading materials or he grows up reading only comic books or such cheap things if the parents or other siblings only read comics.

His vocabulary even in his own language remains poor or unpolished if he only hears vulgar and uncouth salty language at home. A child is like a sponge at first and absorbs anything and everything because he does not have the ability to filter out the bad from the good. Besides, there is no one to teach him better.

The habit forming has a certain period in life when it is formed after which the kid is well set in his ways and can’t be easily swayed one way or the other. The mullahs know this and beat the kids into submission in Koranic schools and help make kids grow as the future talibans. It is called brainwashing. You repeat everyday a certain message until it sinks in and is permanently recorded in the brain. It guides the kid in all his actions later in life to the extent that he learns to disrespect his mother or sisters and can strap an explosive belt to blow up innocent people someday just because that is what he grew up learning and believing.

But he can be taught good things as well if only someone tries at a certain age to teach him good values, respect for others and other faiths, respect for his mother and sisters, tolerance towards people who are different etc . Most of all his mind can be opened up by the habit of reading.

There are libraries that offer books to read for free .There are private collections that Kalodas of this world keep and share with anyone because they are good people and sharing is a part their nature. Now the Internet offers unlimited free books on any subject to anyone who cares to download and read. There are blogs that one can write or read for free anywhere and anytime.

We grew up without such facilities because there was no such thing as Internet then and the libraries kept mostly some books in Bengali and Hindi. Our school did not have a library and our parents could not buy us books to read other than the school books. There was no such thing as book report demanded by the teachers except the school books and there was no elocution contest where the kids could participate. The extemporaneous speaking ability in kids as early as ten can be developed if he or she is encouraged to do so and is rewarded if he does. It also develops their self confidence. I know it developed mine.

In any society, the local language is always given preference in home and schools so the kids grow up speaking only one language or at the most two. A foreign language like English is only limited to the study of English as a subject in school where you take the exam in high school, pass it and move on in your life when the use of  English is not required . So the ability to speak a foreign language like English or any other language for that matter fluently is limited to those who attend English medium schools and even then most can’t do it. The ability to speak a language like English fluently comes from practice.

To learn to speak a foreign language and make it your own then depends on parents and their unlimited encouragement to the kids to do so. They encourage their children to write in English, speak English with proper grammar and syntax, participate in extemporaneous speaking contests and reward their children for doing so. They buy them encyclopedias and computer and any number of books but not all parents can do that.

Imagine if  you live in a third world country, earn a poor living and have many children to take care of so you can’t possibly afford to give the child the same opportunities a middle class parent can in other more developed countries  and you will understand the difficulties.
However, there are many opportunities for underprivileged children to learn and develop good habits that do not cost money.

A great man and a social reformer called Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar born in Bengal of very poor parents learned his numbers at three or four by walking with his father and counting the milestones. His tender feet were blistered but he did not mind such was his ardor of learning. Later he studied under the street lamps because they were so poor yet he became one of the great thinkers and philosophers of his time. Now a great bridge in Kolkata is dedicated in his name.

The reading habit more than anything else helps expand the mind and you learn about other countries, other people, other philosophies, other culture, their foods, their music, their art, their history, their way of life and anything else that no school teacher can teach you. It makes you rich in knowledge and confidence more so if you someday get a chance to travel and see for yourself all the things you read about.

You will never know the beauty of English as a language or any other language unless you develop the reading habit at an early age and devour the books as you find them. It took me many years to realize that Thackeray, Gogol and Tolstoy were such fantastic writers but it is never too late to start. Just remember that even if you read one book a day which is nearly impossible, there are more books to read than one can in his lifetime or several lifetimes.

If you have kids of your own, teach them how to read and help them develop their interest in reading so they too can form the habit of reading. The literature, philosophy, art, science, story of Sindbad and 1000 Arabian nights, such are the gems the mankind has produced and in such a prodigious manner is all for the eager mind to read and learn from. Such a person will grow up a truly remarkable person and people will respect him or her for the knowledge.

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

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Blogs in Spanish
Blogs in German
Blogs in Japanese
Blogs in French
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"GUNS AND VIOLENCE"

Synopsis:  We see in many parts of the world  the culture of guns that inevitably leads to violence . There are daily reports of massacres in public places or at home by some people who see the gun violence the only way to make a point. When the violence in the streets become common then people live in fear and become desperate for peace. I look at the social consequences of gun violence and propose some solutions.

Guns and violence



Source : Google photo

There is a killing spree going on in many countries where the police, vigilantes and others settling scores are out in the open to kill anyone suspected to do anything illegal like selling a stick of cigarette or a CD.

They are called on 911 and they show up in the wrong house to gun down someone innocent  who politely asks them what they want. They say everybody makes mistakes.

A 22 year old sweet  innocent girl who was a choir leader and a good student was shot dead by the police and left in the gutter in Manila just because they thought she was selling shabu which is a drug. Such killers are not brought to justice and no compensation is paid to the family. They say it is just the collateral damage in the war on drugs. You have heard that line many times before from the Pentagon people who justify any atrocity in the name of war. They convinced Truman to drop the A bomb on innocent people in Nagasaki and Hiroshima but Truman was never brought to justice.
This culture of impunity exists everywhere and the wrong doers keep on killing knowing that they will not answer to anyone for their crimes.

I was confronted by a heavily armed policeman in California who roughly asked why our goat was making so much trouble. The neighbors complained who did not like students living next door and called the police. Our poor goat had just arrived from Mojave Desert and was terrified and lonely so she cried a lot. Don’t they have better things to do than checking on a goat?

In the United States they insist on their right to carry arms so the gun makers defeat any attempt to restrict gun sale and ownership by spending millions in lobbying and big donations to politicians who support the gun makers. It is business after all.
But many countries including India and Australia have successfully introduced laws that protect citizens from the gun violence by making it very difficult for nearly anyone to buy a gun for whatever the reason.

The Australians offered money to anyone to come forward to give up their guns and destroyed thousands of guns publicly thus having a great impact socially. They hunt down illegal owners and makers of guns and prosecute them fiercely.

In India the policemen are only allowed batons or a long bamboo pole called lathi so no one gets killed for selling a cigarette or CD like in the States. They do not target any ethnic group or minorities like in the States. Only some policemen are allowed to carry guns that are a part of special task force looking for terrorists or drug smugglers.

But in other countries it is an epidemic of murder by guns just like in the USA or Mexico and elsewhere. I am not writing about the war torn countries in the Middle East but in countries where there are no wars where peaceful people go about their daily business of living and earning a living and still get killed due to gun violence.

A crazy fellow shoots down tens of people in Virginia Tech just because he felt alienated and thought people looked down on him because he was Korean. Another went to a school in Sandy Hook where children were singing and mowed them down with a machine gun and another went to a movie house and killed many just because he felt enraged that they were just having fun watching movies while he had no fun in his life. Why such people were allowed to buy guns so easily?

The old refrain that guns don’t kill people, people do and everyone has a right to defend himself, it is in the constitution etc. sounds so stale but I suspect the main reason behind gun sale is purely business because gun makers make a lot money so they are not about to give it up just because someone gets killed by the guns they sell.

It is like saying that poisons do not kill people so the makers of poison continue to make poisons and make it easy for anyone to buy it. What they use it for is none of their business.

There is a place in western Pakistan where there are over 5000 gun smiths just in one village .They will copy any gun in the world at 1/5^th the cost in their sophisticated shops equipped with lathes and other such machinery and they openly sell all kinds of guns they make. If you go there, it will feel like a war zone because the Pathans, Baluchs, Pushtuns and Afghans or anyone else shoot in the air to test these guns before buying and occasionally each other to settle scores but that place remains a favorite source for illegal gun trade that fuels the war in that region.

In their culture gun ownership is a must because it is needed to settle long standing family feuds, honor killings and for protecting their illegal heroin trade or smuggling. You could get killed there just for looking at the eyes of a person or just because you look like a stranger in those parts and cause some suspicion or unease.

But what justifies gun ownership and the violence it causes in other countries where people are not smuggling or trafficking and are just plainly living their normal day to day life?

The social consequences:

Now imagine living in a country where no one is really safe from gun violence and where people shoot at you just because they do not like you or you are at the wrong place or at the wrong time and get caught in the cross fire between the rival gangs that roam free and protect their territories with guns and goons that often result in bloodshed and you will begin to understand what fear is.
Imagine that you are watching a movie and enjoying it with pop corn in your hand and all of a sudden someone comes in and takes your life.

The social consequences of such random violence perpetrated on innocent people are just too terrible to even contemplate. It tears up families who lose their only son, father, brother or daughter and are left destitute with no hope for justice if the shooter happens to be a white policeman. They always justify by saying that the fellow was resisting arrest or was acting threateningly somehow so the policeman shot him in self defense. He is not prosecuted because policemen’s union comes to his defense and the case never prospers because the judge and the jury are white. If he is a black policeman then maybe he will face a trial but still get away scot free later. Of more than 22000 such cases in the past decade or so, only a handful ever were tried and even fewer found guilty .But that happens in America.

Now let us examine the consequences of gun violence elsewhere like in Mexico or Brazil where the drug cartels regularly shoot it out in public to execute their rivals or policemen who are searching for them and the ordinary folks getting caught in the cross fire suffer. They kidnap people for ransom because it is a good business and kill them if ransom is not paid or not enough. They kill ordinary people who do not want to join them, do not want drugs in their neighborhood or inform the police about their activities. So the common people suffer and their lives are shattered because the bread winner is killed leaving them destitute.

In Brazil the vigilantes kill the poor street children who try to survive by selling cigarettes or flowers because they don’t want the world to know that their country has such a severe problem of poverty , abandoned children and orphans who live like vagrant animals or worse.
The activists who write about the illegal logging, trafficking of women and children for prostitution, graft and corruption in the government, pollution caused by chemical companies dumping poisonous waste in their waters or land etc. are all very vulnerable. They are killed just because they protest and write about wrong doings.

In some countries the news paper writers, journalists, TV anchors who openly condemn wrong doings are targeted and killed off by people who make a lot of money doing illegal things and do not want to be exposed to scrutiny. Just try to expose the nefarious activities of Mafia and see where it gets you. There is no one to protect you from them once you are on their hit list. The mafia exists everywhere.

Jimmy Carter once said the US government is beholden to the powerful businessmen who donate for their political campaign and exact a bountiful dividend in return so no government can go against their interests. Protecting their interests is what they pay for.
Remember the tobacco tycoons who said in congressional hearings in the US that tobacco does not cause cancer in spite of mountains of evidence to the contrary? They were big donors to the political campaigns of congressmen so they got off Scot free.

The impact of media on gun culture:

If you watch TV a lot meaning several hours a day, you cannot avoid watching shows that are explicitly violent. It may be Jason Bourne movie or Clint Eastwood shooting it out somewhere but the fact remains that a great deal of violence is shown in TV shows or movies and even in cartoon films. Children watch these shows all the time and often cannot distinguish the reality from the fantasy. They become immune to feelings of pain or shock or dismay because their senses are bombarded with violent contents every day.

Did anyone know that more people die of gun violence in the United States each year than any other similar country? It is a country where a five year old child picks up his father’s gun that he left in plain sight and shoots his baby sister and says “bang bang” just like what he watches on TV. To him it is just fun and he is imitating the TV shows not knowing that the blood pouring out of his sister is real and she is dead or what it means to be dead.

He cannot be arrested and tried for murder just because he is a child and remains a child even at an age of 17 when he knows what he is doing. He will reach a legal age later when he can be tried or killed for selling a stick of cigarette or a broken tail light or just because he is black or Hispanic or somehow looks foreign.

It is when war footage is shown everyday live from the battle fields, people cannot feel any empathy for the victims because they are told over and over again that only bad people are getting killed just like in Vietnam War or any other war. They are commies or jihadists or plain worthless people who deserve it.

Solution:

I like to live in a country where I feel safe all the time and not some of the time. I like to feel that our loved ones are safe when they are out watching a movie or going to a mall but who doesn’t? Who takes away our right to live safely?

But it takes tremendous political will to go against the established gun makers to come up with laws to prohibit them to make guns available to anyone just to make money. It takes a moral government to enact laws that protect the people from gun violence done by the criminals or the police. It takes a serious government that is dedicated to protect lives by taking guns off the hands of those who abuse it.

Why do they have to arm the policemen in America to the teeth when in other countries they have only a baton and can’t kill anyone with it? It is quite doable and reasonable. Australia, India and many other countries have done it with good results and can be emulated.
Why can’t the governments force people to surrender their guns and then publicly destroy them just like in Australia? It is quite doable.

Why can’t they regulate the gun makers and make laws that prohibits the sale of guns to private people like any reasonable government ought to?

But you and I know that sanity goes out the window when money is involved. They have tried many times to reform the campaign financing but have gotten nowhere.

Still there is hope that someday a sane president who is not beholden to anyone except the people who elected him will do what is right for the people. Only then the slogan By the people, for the people and of the people will make any sense. Until then we all are in danger.

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An incredible country called India

Synopsis : There is an incredible country called India where the country is blessed with great natural beauty of the Himalayas and the ghats as well as the abundance of flora and fauna that are unique. It is a country of majestic palaces and forts to remind you of a great bygone era when mighty kings and queens ruled . It was the jewel in the British crown during their colonial period. But the country is famous for its spirituality that has produced great leaders and thinkers like Swami Vivekananda and Shri RamaKrishna Dev.

An incredible country called India :



 Source : Google photo


I have for quite some time wanted to write about India, the country where I was born, grew up and was educated but eventually left to settle down somewhere else. I was born in a country at a time when it was going through tremendous political turmoil and nationwide upheaval unprecedented in its long history.

India was in bondage for a long period in its turbulent history and the foreigners like Babur or the British, French, Portuguese and even Dutch, all tried and some succeeded in getting a foothold in this ancient land of milk and honey, of extreme riches and extreme poverty side by side.

They brought with them their brand of religion, their culture, their trade and commerce and most of all their greed to exploit the country that they claimed in the name of their monarchs or their religion and ruled ruthlessly causing immense loss of life in order to establish their firm control over a land mass that stretched from Afghanistan in the west to Burma in the east and its diverse and culturally distinct people who were unique in the whole world.

Babur as a child was mesmerized by the tales of “Hind” that was somewhere in the south of central Asia where his father ruled as a monarch and he constantly begged his nanny to tell him more about Hind that was like a fantasy land so full of riches and vowed at that age to someday go and become a king there.

He took his first step as a young ruler to gather a huge army in Afghanistan and then marched on through Khyber pass to engage the ruler of India in a battle north of Delhi in the plain called Panipat, defeated the sultan of Delhi and firmly established his rule over a small part of India that grew over a period of time and set up the Mogul dynasty. They ruled India for hundreds of years and were defeated by the British when the last Mogul ruler Bahadur Shah Jaffar was taken prisoner and sent to Burma where he died in his old age.

But long before Babur ever came to India and set up the Mogul dynasty, there were other rulers from Afghanistan who repeatedly invaded India through the Khybar pass and set up their sultanate in Delhi among whom Lodis were prominent.  One can see their mausoleums in Delhi in the midst of acres of garden . Others were purely marauders who came to loot, pillage and kill every year and left with booties loaded on camel caravans miles long because looting India was so profitable.

The spread of Islam by their sword was just a bonus and bought them indulgences and a permanent place in their paradise where 75 virgin houris waited on them hands and foot if they happened to die doing so. The temple of Somnath known for its riches was looted no less than 15 times by the same gang of bandits who were pleasantly surprised that the temple had so much for them to loot and pillage and had no defenses.

But going back in history, it was Alexander who came to India to loot, defeated the King called Puru and asked him how he should be treated. Puru answered that he should be treated the same way a king treats another king which impressed Alexander and he decided not to invade and went back to Macedonia.

His soldiers were tired of long endless wars and wanted to return home to their families and wanted no more to fight in a strange land where thousands of armored elephants formed formidable defense lines that they could not easily penetrate and took heavy losses. They were also sick of the heat and mosquitoes.

The Arabs called him Sikandar so this name stayed in India .Akbar the great Mogul who wished to be buried in a place called Sikandara near Agra had a big mausoleum built for him but people have forgotten how the name Sikandara came into being. Most people do not know India’s long history.
A Portuguese explorer called Vasco de Gama came to India to trade centuries ago and the Portuguese managed to get hold of three places, Goa, Daman and Dieu where they set up their colonies until they were forced out by the Indian army back in the 1960s. Nasser helped block the Suez Canal to stop the Portuguese sending the soldiers to take their colonies back.

When people come to India for the first time, their senses are assailed by strange sounds, smells, aromas, crowds, a cacophony of everything strange, a riot of colors, flora and fauna in abundance, beautiful peacocks pecking at insects in the vast gardens of Delhi, extreme riches and poverty side by side.

Nowhere in the world such a contrast exists and they can’t make up their mind as to what to think of India. Most will just visit the Taj Mahal, see a few palaces in Delhi and Rajasthan and go back home. A few will wander to see other parts of India and will be mesmerized by what they see. From the lofty snowy peaks of Himalayas to the end of the land in Kanyakumari and from the green emerald tea gardens of Assam to the desert sands of Rajasthan, India never fails to impress anyone with its ever changing landscape.

I used to think of India as a jewel wrapped in rags but those rags are finally coming off and India is emerging as the fastest growing economy in the world. I have written  a blog called Yesterday, today and tomorrow where I wrote about the India when I was a child so that is perhaps worth reading in this context.

But that is the physical beauty of India that most tourists see and pay a price to see it. The tourists local as well as the foreign are always taken advantage of by the hordes of unscrupulous people who swarm around as soon as they figure you out for a sucker. In that sense they are no different from the Italians or Greeks and others who do exactly the same and laugh at you behind your back.

The spiritual India:

What most people do not get to see is the spiritual side of India on which many books have been written. Hinduism is the only religion that does not have a leader, a prophet like Moses or Jesus or Mohamed who gave rise to a religion and his followers then wrote a book called Bible or Koran to guide their co religionists.

No. India does not have a book but India has the ancient scriptures called Vedas, Upanishads , Puranas and the stories of Mahabharata and Ramayana. No one knows how old are the scriptures and who wrote them and can only make a guess work like the Scriptures called Vedas were written some say 3500 years ago and others say over 8000 years ago before Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa . But no one is sure.

They know who wrote Ramayana and Mahabharata and who Ram was and where he was born although the Thais and others claim Ram as their own and will show you Ayutthaya as their proof. By the way Ayutthaya is the Thai version of the name Ajodhya in Uttar Pradesh where Hindus believe Ram was born and lived.

The invasion of Muslims and the forced conversion of Hindus to their faith and later the British missionaries who converted some to their brand of Christianity has not been able to suppress the Hinduism because Hindus embrace all religions as the manifestation of the same God and try to assimilate them. They show respect to Muslim Pirs and visit their mausoleums but they could not assimilate Muslims like others but that is another story. I will not write that story.

Many Muslims and Christians disappointed in their faiths reconvert to Hinduism and are welcome through programs like “Return home” or Ghar wapasi . But Hindus are not proselytizers like Christians and Muslims and do not believe in exporting their faith to other lands because they feel that they do not need to convince the world that it is a great religion.

It is called the ancient religion or Sanatan Dharma for a reason. It is the oldest religion whose origin is still shrouded in mystery but more and more people join it and practice it now than ever before. While it is true that some Hindu traders spread the religion to the Khmer empire that grew up in Cambodia and other places like Bali in Indonesia and even Thailand but they were not missionaries per se and did not spread the faith through the sword.

Hindus tend to assimilate people of other faith and thereby smother the harsh tenets of those faiths. So Buddhism which was once a prevalent faith throughout India was assimilated and now one hardly sees Buddhists anywhere except a few places like Dharmashala or Bodhi Gaya. Hindus call Buddha an avatar of Vishnu so venerate him as God. Vishnu has many avatars like Ram, Krishna, Buddha etc.

They also accept the good teachings of any faith and later call it their own. The non violence as practiced by the Buddhists is now a part of Hinduism and ban on slaughter of cows during the Buddhist period is still practiced by Hindus who are mostly vegetarians. Originally Hindus were not vegetarians though.

They ate all kinds of meat including beef and drank alcohol called Somras made from some plants during the Vedic period thousands of years ago.

The Sikhs are also considered a part of Hinduism because they still have Hindu names like Surendra, Virendra etc. except that in their language they write it as Surinder or Virinder. They have their own prophet called Guru Nanak and their own scriptures called Grantha Sahib which contains the words of wisdom of Guru Nanak but that is ok with the Hindus. Sikhs were Hindus who took up arms against the Muslims who tried to convert them by force and developed their brand of faith based on the teachings of Guru Nanak.

Their faith tells them that to be a Sikh, they must always have five things on them. Those five things are long hair and beard, a comb in their hair, a knife, a steel bracelet and cotton underwear which have each a definite purpose.

Among the Hindus there are many factions and many sects that often do not agree with each other just like the Christians or Muslims but they stand united as Hindus and believe that their religion is more of a way of life than religion. They are also taught to be tolerant of other faiths, sects and factions so there is a sort of harmony that exists among Hindus although they may not entirely agree with each other.

Later came some Hindu evangelists like Swami Prabhupada who went to the United States and established what is known today as the Krishna Consciousness movement which grew from its humble origin in New York to what it is today, a worldwide phenomenon      but this is a recent development in the spread of Hinduism.

Of course there are gurus or fake swamis who are dime a dozen and take advantage of the western fascination for the Hindu faith , set up their shop somewhere and rake in millions of dollars. Religion has never been so lucrative if you know how the work the crowd, specially young and listless who are fed up with their incessant materialism and consumer greedy culture. They give the religion a bad name but get rich just the same.

But there are those Hindus who reached a very high level of spirituality and who continue to inspire millions of India today including our current leaders.

One such great man was Swami Vivekananda who in 1893 went to Chicago where an interfaith conference was held for many days and where he addressed the people as “ My brothers and sisters of America” . After that people waited in thousands to hear him and followed him wherever he went because they had never heard such forceful presentation of Hindu philosophy that they liked so much. His fame then spread throughout the world as one of the great spiritual leaders and his work published in 8 volumes is widely read.

Today if you go to KanyaKumari, you will see a magnificent temple built on the rock where he used to sit and pray and where his granite life size image adorns the temple visited by millions. Belur is the headquarter of the Rama Krishna Mission that he established that serve the poor and where a majestic temple has been built to honor the swami and Shri Rama Krishna Dev.

But India produced many such great spiritual leaders like Shri Rama Krishna Paramhansadev  who lived in Dakshineshwar  and taught young Vivekananda  the essentials of spirituality and how to attain them. Many great leaders like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Ishwar Chandra Vidya Sagar and many others had great impact socially to guide the youth of that period away from the western influence ,alcoholism and other addictive vices .

India is called the land of spirituality because of such great men who were born there and taught there. Remember Buddha himself was born in India because in those days there was no place called Nepal.

Krishna was born in royalty but his uncle who was the king in Mathura was told that a child will be born to his sister who will later kill him. He was a tyrant and fearful for his life so had his sister jailed and had all the children born to his sister killed one by one until Krishna was born as the 8^th child and he was somehow smuggled out of the jail and raised in Vrindavan by a milkmaid called Yashodhara. Later Krishna as a young man kept the promise of his destiny and killed his uncle Kansha  and saved the population from the rule of a tyrant.

Krishna later on played a key role in the battle of MahaBharata where he sided with the Pandavas and convinced Arjun to fight the battle as it was the right thing to do to fight evil. His words spoken during the battle are the Gita that Hindus venerate as the word of God.

So throughout the long history, people like Krishna and Buddha were born to show the Hindus the right way to live and attain a high level of spirituality.

Not everyone takes Krishna or Buddha or the teachings of Vivekananda seriously and many live life of dishonesty or crime but by and large Hindus are religious people who give alms to poor people and help them out in many ways. My Ma used to give money to charities and to the orphans every month and always gave alms to anyone who came to our door.

The beauty of India:

Now I want to write about the beauty of India as a country although I may be biased because I was born there but you can be your own judge and make up your own mind. I have published some nice power points on many subjects in India and you can see all of them at the Google drive. I will post the link below.

India was a feudal country comprising of many kingdoms and their petty kings who always quarreled with their neighbor kings over territory, revenue etc. and fought constant wars to avenge some insults over kidnapping of their princesses or queens. They also built impressive forts to protect themselves and their population from attack and conscripted sons of farmers to the army that needed constant resupply .It was just like in Egypt except that there were many such pharaohs in India and they never considered India as one country.

The foreigners like the Muslims or the British took advantage of this division among the kings and their kingdoms and were able to gain a foothold easily by encouraging fights among the kings. Clive comes to mind who was an expert in this game and he was able to promote the East India Company that was the precursor to the British rule by Victoria later on.

These kings lived lavishly and spent lavishly on themselves at the cost of exploiting the population for their own selfish benefits. Their lavish palaces are now empty for the camera toting tourists to gawk at but once they lived the life of utter luxury there  eating from gold and silver plates and wrapping their palaces in silk and filled with imported furniture or Belgium mirrors and driving Rolls Royce. They even had their own private railway lines and coaches while the population lived in poverty and misery only and died for the king when conscripted.

One such King went to England and had two giant silver vessels filled with Ganga water carried on his ship because he did not want to touch the water of England.
All over India you will see the excesses of these past kings and their huge forts, palaces, gardens and their impressive armory. Some hidden treasure chambers have been found where they stored immense quantity of gold and silver and jewels worth billions .Thanks to democracy, these treasures are now put to good use by the Indian government. But many such treasures remain hidden.

Then came the Moguls who took their lavishness to new heights and built their own palaces and forts and accumulated wealth beyond belief but had only whips for the poor taxpayers who dared not to fail to pay their share. Taj Mahal is such an example of lavishness for which the king paid dearly. Its inside walls were once encrusted with jewels that glowed in the candle light but the British took care of that and replaced the jewels with fakes.

Very few such rulers were benevolent in nature and considered it their divine right to rule over hapless people who were meant to only serve the royalty. One such ruler force marched the entire population from Delhi to his new capital in Daulatabad near Aurangabad in central India and decided to frog march them back to Delhi only after seven years. He did not care how many people died in the process. Now his unassailable fort in Daulatabad stands as a monument to his crazy ideas but one can see such craziness and the results all over India.

The abandoned city of FatehPur Sikri near Agra is another example of such folly and lavish spending of the Mogul king Akbar who lived there for a while but the artificial lake he built to store water dried up therefore doomed the city and people left when Akbar died. No one suggested him to dig a canal to bring water from Yamuna river in Agra but perhaps there were no hydraulic engineers in those days although I doubt it.

The royalty did not care how the poor people lived and never built houses for them or schools or roads. A stupid nawab in Lucknow was told that people need jobs so he let them build houses that they had to tear down the next day and rebuild it so that they could have a job. No one told the king that he could have them build thousands of houses for these poor people in a planned way.
There was one king called Sher Shah who was the exception and who built the grand Trunk road but perhaps more to move his troops and military supplies than to move common people. Still a road is a road and people still use it after many centuries.

Other kings let people build their own habitations where there was no planning so you will see the hovels built by them in all cities where city planning was unknown. These are called the old cities and they exist side by side with the new planned cities that the British built. A good example is Delhi itself.

The flora and fauna:

Did you know that India is the only country in Asia where lions, rhinoceros and other  animals are found outside Africa? You can see often the huge nilgais from the train and river dolphins and gharials in many places. Nilgais are a kind of deer.

Millions of birds from Siberia and central Asia cross the Himalayas and come to roost in the wild life sanctuaries in many parts of India every year. You can see the magnificent Siberian cranes and other exotic birds in these bird sanctuaries.

We used to hear the howls of jackals and wolves as well as hyenas from our house so these animals were nearby. Now they have moved away due to the pressure of the population but they are still found in rural areas aplenty. The hills are full of jaguars, black panthers, bears and even red pandas among other fearsome animals like tigers, leopards and cheetahs. The Royal Bengal Tigers are world famous for their beauty .There are many tiger reserves now where they are protected and one can see the Lions living near the villages in Gujrat where they pose no threat to the people because they have plenty of preys in the Gir forest where  they usually live. Gharials are also protected and bred in farms  and released in the wilderness by the government.

The British were always hunting these beautiful animals and bragged about how many tigers they killed for fun but now they are protected by the government.

You will see wild elephants in the nature parks in the south or in the foothills of Himalayas and Assam. We saw many such elephants while on a trip to the south where the camera toting tourists were taking photos furiously saying that their day will be complete if they can photograph a black jaguar or a leopard or two as if the jaguars and cheetahs were waiting by the roadside for a photo opportunity such are the foolish tourists. It is good that they did not try to reach the wild elephants although you never can underestimate the foolishness of people.

Only in India one can see tamed bears and elephants on the road frequently although there is now a program to free these poor bears and put them in shelters where they receive veterinary care and food and the bear owners who are nomads are taught new trade or skills to earn a living.
I was so impressed by the river dolphins in Ganga  just near the ghats in Benares where they were playing joyously as if without any care or concern as they should be because they are protected now. They have become extinct elsewhere because the government wakes up very slowly to such disasters.

The peacock is the national bird of India and killing them will land you in jail in no time so they multiply and are found in many cities, parks and of course in the forested areas . There are over 1200 bird species I put in my PowerPoint on “Birds of India” that you may like to check out. I will post the link at the end of this blog.

But it is the people of India that make the country interesting. There are so many types of people that often you wonder if they are Indians at all. They have more than 18 official languages and many more that are spoken but not official. Their food, their clothes, their skin color, their language, their manners, habits and such vary greatly from state to state. The temple architecture in the south is very different from the north and the east is different from the west.

Modern India :

The modern India that has just put 20 satellites in one shot in orbit using a single rocket made in India generates immense pride in its technological prowess and ability. The Indian space program is a testament to India’s ability to do things that were what only NASA could think of a few years ago like sending a satellite to Mars that sends high resolution photos real time to the space center somewhere in India and that too at a 100^th of the cost of such mission sent by NASA. All the equipment is designed and made by the rocket scientists in India proving that they are intelligent and very well trained. India also has its own communication satellites that cover the entire country  giving people access to TV , radio and other types of media , weather forecast ability, sharp satellite imagery that show the  forest cover or other features.

Indian textile industry has grown phenomenally since independence and manufactures  very high quality fabrics of all sorts from cotton to silk and synthetic fibers. The worsted wool fabric is the finest in the world. The hand loom industry making silk sarees are known all over the world for the brilliance of color and design and are exported.

There is an abundance of fruits and vegetables in the market and India feeds herself . This is a big deal and the food supply is guaranteed by the government that has built huge storage facilities in every district of every state so that people can buy the subsidized food grains, dal, sugar etc. The excess is often exported.

India has introduced computers in all spheres of life making life easier and more efficient in government services, banking, transportation industry etc. Indian IT professionals make and write their own programs for mobile devices and are well known as computers wizards so their services are sought in other countries.

The defense industry has grown from practically nothing in 1947 to a huge industry that makes everything from planes, tanks and submarines, ships and other related materials that are needed by the armed forces although India still imports all kinds of weapons and technology from other countries.

If you happen to stand on the platform of any railway station late at night, you will see the freight trains a kilometer long passing through carrying military hardware all brand new going somewhere from the factory somewhere.

The communication industry is also growing very rapidly so everyone has now a cell phone and one can call anywhere in India or abroad with clear reception.
Anyway I will stop here and say that it is worth visiting a country like India because it will be your once in a lifetime experience.

You may like to check out the link below for more on India:

https://onedrive.live.com/?id=73E91E206EF5176A%21841&cid=73E91E206EF5176A

It has 18 power Points on various subjects like art, history, crafts, birds, silk , wild life, Khajuraho etc.

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

tumblr.com
Blogs in Spanish
Blogs in German
Blogs in Japanese
Blogs in French
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