One Clay Ganesha M size please

Lord Ganesh is fastly becoming universal. Even some non-Hindus and non-religious people keep his idol at homes and offices. ( I have six in my center and a Christian friend of mine has a huge Ganesh idol collection at home) Known as God of wisdom, he is remembered at least during any auspicious beginnings … and of course on his birthday

Majorly attributed to Tilak’s effort in 1890’s, Ganesh Chaturthi was popularized as a national festival in order to bridge the gap between Brahmins and 'non-Brahmins' and find a context to generate nationalistic fervor among people in Maharashtra against the British colonial rule. Whatever may be the intent,  it still unites the nation and is celebrated worldwide by the believers.

Traditionally, the Ganesh idol was sculpted out of earth and returned back to the Earth by immersing in a nearby water body symbolizing a ritual send-off to his house at Kailash ( he supposedly takes away all our misfortunes with him) This cycle represented the cycle of creation and dissolution in Nature. Nice concept. But commercialization over the years made the vendors resort to Plaster of Paris and other harsh chemicals thereby polluting the environment.May be its time we did our bit to preserve other life forms We could try to use natural clay or paper based idol or better still to use a permanent idol and have a symbolic immersion. 

It's just a suggestion. Whatever may be your choice, have a happy Ganesh Chaturthi

"I am a Hindu because it is Hinduism which makes the world worth living. I am a Hindu hence I love not only human beings, but all living beings" - Mohandas Gandhi

For my Spirited Friends

After any health talk, a very commonly asked question is ‘Doc, how much alcohol is safe?’  My answer is ‘Enough to get you home, stay fit and live long’.  Since social drinking is on the rise,  my concern is more from the nutritional point of view. Each gram of alcohol gives 7 Calories as against one gram of Carbs which give you only 4 Cals, for which nutritionists single them out as bad guys.

Let us understand how much would our friend X consume during a party. Here's the math (those with Mathematicophobia, please skip the next paragraph...and also skip a couple of drinks)

A liquor bottle which says 42.2 v/v (volume by volume) simply means that they have managed to load about 42 gms of alcohol in every 100 ml of the drink. So if a person has 60 ml of spirit, he is having 25 gms of alcohol equivalent to 175 Cals. Assuming he has 3 such drinks .. voila.. he has already taken 525 cals. That’ s not all. If it is rum and cola, you got to add the Cola component too, which is 140 cals per can. So our friend has had around 950 cals in the party without counting dinner and snacks!

The daily requirement is around 2000 – 2750 Cals depending on age and weight. The older you are the lesser calories you require. If you do not spend those calories, then you would start sporting a belly. Call it what you want beer belly, breezer belly, but we call it Central Obesity and we have also found a link to becoming a Diabetic later on. 


How do you know that you have a paunch? Do this simple test. Stand straight. Look directly down...if you are able to see your... yes.. feet ;-) then you probably don’t have a belly. But if you can't see your own feet, then run.. literally.  You could also calculate the waist / hip ratio .... it  should not be more than 0.8 for women and not more than 1 for men.


I classify Bellied Men into 3 categories based on their trouser-wearing habit.
(1) Those who have trousers hanging below the belly .. they are the bold, carefree types.  
(2) Those who wear the trousers above the belly are the careful and conscious. They are like the ostrich burying the head in the sand 
(3) Those who wear it right on the belly are the religious. They believe in miracles for keeping them on. 

For those of you who want to avoid getting a Pot belly or a Muffin Top Belly, feel free to use this ready reckoner. 

                                   

Whisky/rum/vodka (60 ml)	175 Cals
Beer (One can)	140 - 180 Cals
Breezer (One bottle)	190 Cals
Coke / Pepsi(One can)	140 - 150 Cals
Diet Coke/Pepsi/ Sodas	0 Cals

Cheers

Dark and Dirty

"I was on a 24-hour train trip from Delhi to Orissa. But, after 72 hours, the train still did not reach the destination... and my skin became dirty and dark like the Tamilians." - US Vice-consul Maureen Chao had made the above remark during her speech at the SRM University last week while going down the memory lane two decades ago when she was a student.

Apology did come in quick and so did the regrets. Sadly it is not just Ms Chao who thinks that way. There are several light skinned brethren in our own country especially from the northern states who stereotype Tamilians as dark-skinned.

'Fair and lovely' or ‘Dark and dirty’ is determined by the genes. Dark-skin, flat-nose, wooly-hair are traits like lyrca.. u either have it or don’t.  If one has to have a choice, then all of us will opt for the cookie cutter kind of looks - all females would want to be slim, tall, fair, with sharp nose and good assets and all guys would want to be tall, fair, handsome with six packs..

Color has always been a sensitive issue right from Cleopatra days. Several wars were fought over it. If Trojan war involved Fair Helen, then the American Civil War involved  Black Southerners. Our country is not too different.Take a look at our own TV commercials or matrimonial columns in any newspaper and you will admit that we are still color-biased. Everyone wants a fair baby, fair wife or husband and a fair self. Ironically, no one aspires to be FAIR (as in just). 

With the quote ‘Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder’ as gone as the black and white television, I can only sign off quoting Michael Jackson  ‘It don’t matter if you are black or white’

Ciao.. .. I need to put on my fairness cream with SPF 50

The Great Fall of America

S&P's stripped the U.S. of its sterling AAA credit rating for the first time and moved it one notch down  to AA+. Losing the Triple A status for a country like America is like a Khap girl losing her virginity to a same gotra boy. 

Standard & Poor's (S&P) may be a US based credit rating agency... but still the name does not speak too well of itself. It somehow reminds me of ‘Poor standards’ or ‘Standards are poor‘ ... semantically speaking. Even my blog S&P stands for something better.

About the rating itself, I just learnt that the borrowers are rated on a scale from AAA to D. AAA being the best-quality borrowers, reliable and stable (many of them sovereign governments) and D the defaulters. The US of A kept borrowing over the years and came perilously close to defaulting this month. And instead of setting their financial house in order, they started acting like a third world country ( read Pakistan) hurling accusations at the agency. 

China must surely be rejoicing with genuine fireworks ( unlike the computer graphics they put up during Beijing Olympics) in spite of loaning truckloads. Now with 2012 Olympics in London also in troubled Thames waters, China must be feeling on top of the world. I feel as happy as the Chinese ...not sure why. May be because happiness is relative – you may not do well yourself, but if the mighty falls you certainly feel happy. The reverse is also true as Aamir Khan says in 3 Idiots - A friend's success causes more heartburn than one's own failure.

Obama is doing his bit. His calming words however seem to have much less effect on the tumbling markets than Rakhi Sawant’s self professed love for Baba Ramdev on national television. In both the cases, no one seem happy or bothered.

This surely must be the biggest fall since Columbus' discovery. America's behavior reminds me of how an average Punjabi lives .. live for today even if it means living out of your means. It's time people take cognizance of the fact that a debt-shy south Indian way of life is the best way ... any day  

A face-off with Facebook

Hey, am not anti-Facebook. Why would I be?  After I am a social person and Facebook redefined social networking (it virtually sent Orkut into oblivion). Created by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg who is sitting on $13.5 billion at 27 years of age, it has some great features like newsfeeds, easy photo uploads with tag-in etc.


While we invite, like, comment, post and poke, Facebook makes its money through advertisements. The Click Through Rate (CTR) is much lower for Facebook though, as compared to Google or even MySpace … probably because we are busy communicating with friends rather than looking for information or searching.

Facebook clicked because we are more interested in knowing what others are upto. ..what they think, where they travelled, how they partied, what kind of fun they had. But sadly, some guys aren't funny or insightful and they share way too much. 

There was a time when it was cool to be on Facebook. That time has passed. Though it was designed for college kids, it took legions of people their parents' age to fulfill its ultimate destiny. Facebook now has 500 million members and its fastest-growing age group is 30 and up.

Facebook has a way of creeping from something useful into a contributor of procrastination, mindless clicking and a major waste of time. Facebook is the web’s number one time sink. An average US user spends over 7 hours in a month on Facebook. You may be addicted to Facebook if Facebook is your home page or have over 500 friends, half of whom you’ve never actually met or or get entertained by poking yourself from 2 different accounts. 

While we are still getting friended in Facebook or followed in Twitter, be prepared to be circled in Google+.  With features like multi-person video chats, Sparks that encourages users to plug into news that interests them and integration with Picasa…. lets see whether Google can beat Facebook.

For the webbers, the better the merrier. 

Tele belly

The other day, I got a sms from one of my friends asking for some medicines for his father who apparently had ‘loose stomach’. Without thinking twice, I wrote back instructing him to ask his father whether it was smelly, sticky and watery etc. Here is  the scene -  the father is a 60 year old, non- humorous, no-nonsense kind of a person who is presently making frequent trips to the loo and the helpless son with a one point agenda of completing my questionnaire, all set to interrogate his father with the earnestness of a newly joined FBI agent.

Son  - “Is your stools sticky?”

Father..( gives him a vague look) - “Why? .. I can’t tell since I don’t have the habit of peering into what goes into the pot"

Son ( musters some courage) – "Is it watery?"

Father – “Excuse me.. I thought loose meant just that”

Son ( thoroughly embarrassed by now, but continues undaunted) – "Is it smelly?”

Father ( shocked look...  his son who had never before even asked him how his general health was, now, is actually asking him whether his pottie is stinking -  “ ................”  

Son  – “Forget it”

Then the son telephones me as if is there was as emergency .. ‘ Doc  how can you make me enquire about my father’s pottie health?.. Can’t u suggest a pill which doesn’t  require those answers? 

I could have.. but com'on I am licensed to ask.  Anyways, I decided that will be my last gastro-entero-tele-phonic consultation. I am happy to be dealing with the matters of the heart. 

On a related note, you may want to take care when you travel to Thailand. Saw this sticker out there behind a cabbie's seat. No clues on a solution other than - 


                                                          'Stop the car, I want to break wind'