Beat the Heat the Mango Way

Mangoes have the ability to convert a scorching Indian summer into heaven. They lend themselves to a variety of mouth-watering food:

• Kalonji: Made from raw (and therefore sour) mangoes, this is a sweet and sour mango pickle. Easy to make, lovely to eat.
• Instant Pickle: Finely sliced raw mangoes with chilly.
• Panna: Again, made of raw mangoes, a lovely summer cooler (and one that's supposed to be great to combat summer dehydration)
• Mango Sabzi: that's made from mangoes that have either been cut a tad before they've fully ripened or else have got over-ripe. Yum with rice and khichdi.

And of course, the ripe fruit cut and enjoyed raw -- numerous varieties -- alphonso, bangampalli, langda, chausa, imampasand, saakhrekutti and so many more ...

Mr. Not Clean

There was a time when I had tremendous respect for Dr. Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minster of India. An economist in politics -- he was Mr. Clean -- a politician untainted by the scourge of politics, a whiff of fresh air who promised to bring in economic policies for the uplift of the nation.

Not any more. Dr. Singh has allowed his political allies to loot the exchequer, looking the other way while scam after scam makes the nation poorer. It seems that no price is too high if it allows his party to cling to power. While he may not personally have pocketed any money, as captain of the ship that plunders India, the responsibility for *each* scam lies with him. The buck stops with *him*.

As for economic policy, what kind of economics make the common man pay Rs 71 for a litre of petrol, the price of which is actually Rs 25, plus taxes?

Petrol is used to transport goods and services. Therefore making people pay more for petrol actually causes prices to spiral higher -- more inflation.

Lowering taxes, however, would mean less moolah for greedy politicos to line their pockets with, who might then not be as willing to prop up Dr. Singh's government. Therefore, it is obviously preferable to break the back of the common man, rather than to do the right thing by lowering taxes.

Dr. Manmohan Singh -- I now have zero respect for you and believe you have squandered away the right to don the mantle of Mr. Clean.

Development -- At What Cost?

Dr Binayak Sen was recently granted bail in a sedition case by the Supreme Court, who observed that just as having a book about Gandhi present in a home doesn't make the residents Gandhian, having Maoist literature doesn't make Dr Sen one himself.

He was on a (must-watch till the last second) program  on NDTV, and spoke eloquently about the poor, who were statistically in a state of famine, and for the first time in the history of India -- the state was systematically dispossessing them from their means of survival in the name of "development"  (which he termed "structural violence").

As India becomes more "globalized" and "liberalized", the rich become richer, the poor become poorer, and worse, are denied the right to survive -- by law. The state is able to ride roughshod over these essentially voiceless people in order to provide people like you and me -- "development".

We would do well to take look at our never ending need for more-more-more and face the real cost of our lifestyles and aspirations -- on the ecology, the environment and most importantly -- our fellow human beings.

It is time to find a better way ...

Kaleidoscope!

Browsing through the toy section of a store, a set of cylindrical objects caught my eye. The label that read "Kaleidoscope -- made in China" sent me down memory lane.

When I was a child, kaleidoscopes were one of my favorite toys. They were simply assembled (possibly by the seller himself) -- three mirrors set in a triangle with broken bangle pieces in the center. It was loads of fun trying out various kaleidoscopes before zeroing in on the one that was the most colourful with the most unusually cut bangle pieces.

Today's "made in China" ones don't make the grade by a long shot. They don't seem to have any moving parts (bangle pieces) and the only real change of view is if you change the colour of the light source against which you hold them.

The wonderfully creative, hand-assembled kaleidoscopes of my childhood are nowhere in sight. Has "organized" manufacturing and retail killed the simple creativity of the yesteryear?  Taking away with it the small-scale entrepreneurs who are now either unemployed or doing dull low-end jobs devoid of creativity?

I really can't see that this is a change for the better in any way.

Expensive Superstition

Akshaya Tritiya and the aggressive jewellery marketing campaigns around it set me thinking about the origins of this festival (and another that is very similar -- dhanteras).

According to tradition, some metal (usually in the form of jewellery) bought on these festivals leads to prosperity. It is quite likely that the original intent was to encourage saving on a regular basis in what was possibly the only investment instrument available in the yesteryear -- gold.

Fast forward to the present where it is now superstition that makes people buy gold at exorbitant rates on those days, believing that any other time of gold purchase will not bring as much "luck".

Of course, there is no dearth of jewellery stores who specially hike rates on those days and make a killing...

Olden Ways, Golden Ways?

In today's worksheet based school culture, it seems to me that new-age schools have thrown the baby out with the bathwater.

In the yesteryear, math. was taught to children in special "math." notebooks that had pages filled with squares, with each cell meant to hold one digit. That meant a child who was doing (say) long form multiplication (such as 327 * 48) could clearly see how the tens and units of the numbers stacked up. The implication of the "0" placed before beginning multiplication with 4 was fairly obvious. It also helped in giving perspective of size such that the main number could me made to fill most of the cell, with the carry-over (if any) written as a small number on the top left of the cell.

Fast forward to the present day. Math. is now done on pre-printed worksheets where the calculation area is plain white space even for children as young as 7. This means that a child dividing 678 by 7 does not have the perspective that the dividend is actually 096. I have seen the 9 being written right above the 6 of 678, thus losing perceptive of the principles of division.

Another fallout of worksheet based schoolwork is the lack of space of young (and therefore large) handwriting. I have watched struggles over trying to fit answers in worksheets that are a mix of 4-lined, 3-lined, 2- lined and no-lined workspaces all provided over the same weekend. Handwriting that had been perfected in the Montessori world is now a confused mess due to the varying size and nature of the writing area provided by worksheets.

Of course, there are people who argue that handwriting isn't important in today's day and age, but, I don't see why we can't help our children to write well. And surely nobody can argue that place value isn't an important math. concept, which a specialized book makes easy to grasp.

New age schools would do well to examine and work towards a solution to what is an easily-fixed problem.

Let Truth Prevail

The last few weeks have seen a smear campaign of unparalleled viciousness unleashed against the civil society participants of the Lok Pal Bill, particularly the father-son duo of Shanti and Prashant Bhushan.

Broadly, three allegations were mada against the Bhushans:

• A CD where Shanti Bhushan claims to Amar Singh that Prashant can fix a judge for Rs 4 crores,
• Land allotment in NOIDA that is supposedly from Mayawati's discretionary quota, and
• Stamp duty "evasion" over purchase of an Allahabad ancestral home.

The "sansani khabar" 24*7 sound-bite Indian media showed themselves in very poor light, making no attempt to separate the wheat from the chaff, while setting themselves and their on-camera panels-with-obvious-agendas up as kangaroo courts. Some of the print media resorted to publishing just plain lies.

With the "free press" playing a such a mischievous role, how are the people of India supposed to learn the truth?

Now for the silver lining. The Outlook newsmagazine has attempted to present a balanced view. So has Tehelka, which even went so far as to publish an apology and highlight facts that it had got wrong.

The article "The smears. And the facts about the Bhushans" is worth reading in its entirety.

Let's hope that the truth, which has emerged against all odds, will also be allowed to triumph!