Happy Thanksgiving everyone !

I will be offline for the next two weeks…Happy Thanksgiving to everyone

…And for vegetarians like me, who don’t do the “turkey and thanksgiving” here are some vegan friendly thanksgiving recipes from VegKitchen

Can cricket be far behind?

Through my blog, I’ve been trying to highlight child prodigies like Aditya Pathak - a tabla maestro at less than 3 years, Kathiresh - a four year old who can drive a car in India and also world records set recently by many Indians (here  and here)

Cricket is India’s favorite national pastime, so it was but natural that Indian kids scored their way into the record books.

A pair of 12 year old Indian schoolboys Shahbaz Tumbi and B Manoj Kumar from Secunderabad scored 721 runs for the opening wicket in a limited-overs match.

Statisticians say that three records were broken during their run-blitz: highest total, highest stand and highest margin of victory – in any form of limited-overs cricket at any level.

Interestingly not a single six was hit during the trail blazing innings.

Read more at BBC

Another day….another world record

Last month, Indians set 3 Guinness world records .

This week, India got yet another world record when 10 year old Master Kishan became the youngest film director in the world overtaking a 13 year old boy from New Zealand.

Not only has Kishan directed the film, he’s also written the story which revolves around a slum boy, who, along with his friends, creates a revolution in the field of education with the help of some benefactors. 

Kishan is not deterred by his age, saying he does not find it difficult to get work done from actors and technicians more than twice his age.

“They listen to me, so I don’t find it difficult to run the show on the sets. They treat me like any other director”

Jackie Shroff a veteran Hindi film actor who is acting in Kishan’s first movie Footpath says

“He is such a genius that I had to work in his film. He is constantly thinking about his next shot, constantly innovating to make it better. He is only nine years old, but he is sure about what he wants from his actors.”

Kishan has dedicated this movie to all the underprivileged children of the world

Kudos Kishan and keep it up !

Read more at 10-year-old director gets Guinness nod

Indians and Diabetes

A lot of articles have appeared in recent months on the rapid rise of diabetes among Indians  . The latest is an article from Rediff which has given India the unwanted honor of being  the diabetic capital of the world

So now that all of us are scared and terrified about this modern day killer, how do we take care of ourselves?.

Diabetes cannot be completely prevented since the primary cause for diabetes is genetic susceptibility due to our “thrifty” gene.  (Our ancestors developed this “thrifty” gene as a survival mechanism to store fat and tide them over famines – but unfortunately for us today the gene seems to have survived even though most of us have more than enough to eat )

Lifestyle changes do help – Eating healthy, exercising regularly and maintaining close to ideal body weight will help tremendously but is not a “magic bullet answer” that works for everyone.

Rosiglitazone – a newer oral glucose lowering drug has been suggested as a miracle drug that could slash diabetes cases.

But Rosiglitazone being a newer drug, there is no data on the possible side effects due long term usage of the drug. Also since it’s a more expensive drug I don’t think a lot of Indians would be able to afford it even if it was readily available

OK – so diet and exercise can help but any other miracle cure that we can actually use?

Yes – something really simple and something that’s a regular part of most Indian traditional diets.

Just eat atleast two cups of home made yoghurt (curd)

According to this article in the Hindustan Times , curd can slow down the progression of diabetes and lower bad cholesterol. A diet supplemented with curd can also delay the onset of glucose intolerance, hyperglycemia, hyperinsulinemia. Eating curd slows down the progression of diabetes, lowers bad cholesterol and raises good cholesterol.

For most South Indians, a meal is never complete till they’ve had curd rice at the end of the meal. I’m glad of this tradition now because it’s gotten me into a habit of eating yoghurt daily

Definitely some good news for the three crore diabetics in India.

Hinglish is now an official language !

Hinglish – widely used in India and among Indian migrants in the US and UK is now an official language with it’s own dictionary

The Hinglish dictionary will contain terms like timepass, badmash, prepone and to Bangalore.

Growing up in Mumbai, I used Hinglish as my main language and was very surprised that my colleagues here in US didn’t know what TP was or had no clue about PJ jokes.

According to this article in the BBC (which btw, has a picture of my favorite Amul ads ”Brad Butter – Jolie good snack” ),

Language expert David Crystal has described India as having a “unique position in the English-speaking world”.

“[It's a] linguistic bridge between the major first-language dialects of the world, such as British and American English, and the major foreign-language varieties, such as those emerging in China and Japan.”

I am sure there are going to be a lot of purists who will moan over the death of “true English” but as for me, I’m just happy that what I have been speaking over the years has now finally been recognized as an “official” language…

And just wanted to remind the complainers and purists that English has always borrowed extensively

These borrowed words include “pundit”, originally meaning a learned man; “shampoo”, derived from a word for massage; “pyjamas”, meaning a leg garment and “dungarees”, originating from the Dungri district of Mumbai.

Even the suburban-sounding “caravan” and “bungalow” – and the funky “bandana” and “bangles” were all taken from Hindi words.

Gas Poisoning in Murugan temple, Maryland

Eight people were taken to a hospital Wednesday night for possible carbon monoxide poisoning after they were found in a Hindu temple in Lanham, Md.

Firefighters found several people who had either passed out or complaining of dizziness and nausea. Firefighters then discovered high levels of carbon monoxide in the building

My prayers are with them…..

For more details on the story, check out NBC

Life before computers

Diwali on The Office

We don’t watch much TV  so I missed all the excitement about Diwali celebrations being showed on the American version of “The Office” on ABC.

Now that I’ve watched the clips on Youtube, I’m kinda puzzled by all the hoopla and excitement.

First of all the disclaimer – I’ve never watched the American version of “The Office” before so I can’t comment on whether this was the best episode or the worst

I am definitely happy that Indian culture is being shown on prime time TV in the US. It shows we’ve become mainstream…The show was good.but not great  – not as funny as I hoped it would be.

Why can’t we get beyond the typical jokes? I just didn’t get the Diwali as Halloween theme…(maybe I’m just not a funny person)

There was the obligatory reference to Kamasutra to generate a laugh or two (seriously who in India cares about KS whereas most of the westerners seem to think of that as the highlight of Indian culture after elephants of course )

I really liked the part where the mother talks about the Michael’s girlfriend and says “She is so white” as if that makes her automatically beautiful

Overall impression not bad, watchable – but I expected more

For others like me, who missed this episode you can watch the abridged version here on Youtube

Elections In US vs Elections In India

As everyone living in the US probably already knows, today were the mid-term elections. There are a couple of really nail chewing suspense races between the Democrats and Republicans as they fight for control over Congress.

Amazing how different the whole election process is from India, the other big democracy

First of course, Election Day is  a public holiday in India.  No such luck here. My kids had regular preschool.

The community recreation center (which was a polling station) was open with a full course of activities and the only sign of Election Day were two small hand written “Voters here” posters. I had to look really really hard to find some signs of Election Day.

In India, Election Day is full of tension with police patrolling most of the voting booths.

Even the campaigning process is so different. Here we do have our share of negative ads and boards put in the lawns of hard-core Republicans or Democrats but somehow the Indian campaigning seems much more frenzied with speakers blaring at rallies and fliers plastered all over town.

Campaigning in India is definitely more colorful. Raj Bhakta did try to inject some of that flair in his campaign but of course it pales in comparison to some of the campaigns run in India.

Most importantly, a lot more people vote in India. Of course, some of these people are poor people brought in truckloads by the candidates but I think a lot of them end up making the right choice.

In the end, that’s what I think elections should be about – getting everyone involved in the races and having them care enough about the issues to take the time to vote…

Ever wondered….

Why the sun lightens our hair, but darkens our skin?
Why women can’t put on mascara with their mouth closed?
Why don’t you ever see the headline “Psychic Wins Lottery”?
Why is “abbreviated” such a long word?
Why is it that doctors call what they do “practice”?
Why is it that to stop Windows , you have to click on “Start”?
Why is lemon juice made with artificial flavor, and dishwashing liquid made with real lemons?
Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?
Why is the time of day with the slowest traffic called rush hour?
Why isn’t there mouse-flavored cat food?
When dog food is new and improved tasting, who tests it?
Why didn’t Noah swat those two mosquitoes?
Why do they sterilize the needle for lethal injections?
You know that indestructible black box that is used on airplanes?….Why don’t they make the whole plane out of that stuff?
Why don’t sheep shrink when it rains?
Why are they called apartments when they are all stuck together?
If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?
If flying is so safe, why do they call the airport the terminal?