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Tag: Excerpt

What healthy foods to include in your diet?

Posted on by kavyawahi

Globally renowned holistic lifestyle coach, Luke Coutinho, and a popular actor and model, Tamannaah, take us back to our roots reminding us of the traditional knowledge and wisdom handed down to us over generations. They show us how inexpensive it is to invest in our lifestyles and take our health to the next level.

Here’s an excerpt from Back to the Roots, in which the authors suggest simple lifestyle changes with a list of traditional and healthy foods that we must include our daily lives.

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Making yourself healthy is not a ‘one-day’ thing and if you are not including the practice in your daily routine, it will be hard to be consistent. Indians knew this very well and hence they included some healthy mixes in their daily life. These were not labelled as superfoods back then, but now they certainly are!

 

Back to the Roots
Back to the Roots || Luke Coutinho, Tamannaah

Turmeric Powder with Milk at Night

  • Turmeric, or yellow gold, is a medicinal and culinary herb. Warm milk with a hint of turmeric was a common beverage in Indian households.
  • Anti-inflammatory properties present in turmeric milk helps promote digestion, preventing stomach ulcers and diarrhoea.
  • It’s a potent anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, immunity boosting, liver detoxifying, brain and neurological health-boosting spice. Curcumin, an active ingredient present in turmeric, is responsible for each of these benefits.

Note: Milk may not suit everyone, especially those with lactose intolerance. If you are fine having milk, it is advised to consume milk from Indian cow breeds (A2) that is free of hormones and antibiotics. If you are prone to excess mucus, then consume milk with caution.

 

Jaggery after Meals

Recent scientific studies have revealed the immense health benefits of jaggery (gur). Initially, it was referred to as ‘the poor man’s chocolate’. Jaggery is now considered an alternative to refined white sugar.

  • Jaggery is a superfood during the winter season because it keeps the body warm.
  • Jaggery is loaded with antioxidants and minerals such as zinc and selenium and helps boost low haemoglobin levels. Anaemia, or low haemoglobin levels, is a major concern among young women, teens and pregnant mothers in most parts of our country. A beverage of lemon water and jaggery is a great remedy to boost iron levels.

 

Having Some Form of Amla in Your Daily Diet

Indian gooseberry or amla is an inexpensive and easily available addition to your meals if you are looking to boost your immunity. Amla contains essential minerals and vitamins that are not only integral to our body’s well-being, but also indispensable to preventing and managing some of the most common and widespread diseases. Amla combats common cold and cough due to its high vitamin C content.

  • Vitamin C in amla aids synthesis of collagen that helps maintain the integrity and firmness of skin.
  • Amla strengthens the inner walls of arteries often damaged due to exposure to pollution and faulty lifestyle habits like smoking.
  • Indian gooseberry manages high levels of bad cholesterol and diabetes and reduces inflammation thanks to the presence of chromium, a trace mineral responsible for increasing insulin sensitivity of cells.

 

Chewing Tulsi Leaves

Tulsi (holy basil) is a sacred plant in Hindu belief. A tulsi plant is present in most Indian households as we worship the plant and use it for medicinal purposes.

  • Holy basil is a known adaptogenic herb that helps address hormonal imbalances in the body.
  • Tulsi works as a natural decongestant and immunity booster.
  • It’s a great stress relieving herb, and can be used as an alternative to tea and coffee.
  • Slowly chewing a few leaves of tulsi will keep the stomach happy.

 

Fenugreek

  • The green leafy vegetable is extremely rich in iron, folate, magnesium and chlorophyll.
  • It can keep your cholesterol levels in check by reducing bad cholesterol (LDL and triglycerides), and maintaining heart health.
  • It can also be used as a potent galactagogue for lactating mothers.
  • It aids management of blood sugar levels in case of diabetes.
  • Fenugreek (kasuri methi) is super-rich in fibre and promotes healthy bowel movement in case of constipation.

 

Chyawanprash

Chyawanprash is an Ayurvedic superfood made up of nutrient-rich herbs and minerals. It is a rasayana formulation meant to restore the drained reserves of life force (ojas) and to preserve strength, stamina and vitality while stalling the course of ageing. The word ‘chyawan’ translates to degenerative change, and ‘prasha’ means an edible substance.

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To know about all other healthy foods for your everyday diet, read Back to the Roots and adopt easy lifestyle changes for a healthier and happier life.

Khwabnama—Kulsum recalling the past

Posted on by kavyawahi

Akhtaruzzaman Elias’s literary piece titled Khwabnama is translated by Arunava Sinha from Bengali to English. In this magnum opus, Elias documents the Tebhaga movement, wherein peasants demanded two-thirds of the harvest they produced on the land owned by zamindars. Let us read this excerpt from Khwabnama in which Kulsum walks down the memory lane recalling her relationship with her husband and step son. She also reminisces the time before the famine when their lives were different.

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Khwabnama
Khwabnama || Akhtaruzzaman Elias || Arunava Sinha (Translator)

All these memories from long ago, the exuberance from the past, the happiness before the famine—all of them surged through the troubled times that had passed since then to bubble up in Kulsum’s heart. She had not given birth to a child from her own womb. So whether you talked of a son or of a daughter, Tamiz was both of these for her. When this surge of emotion spilled out of her heart, her entire body thrilled to it, and to escape this infestation she suddenly grew desperate to find fault with Tamiz. But then she was an illiterate woman, the daughter of a fakir; how was she to find a flaw in the strapping young man that Tamiz was? Instead, she took advantage of Tamiz’s father sleeping like the dead to steal some of his anger with his son and taste it—do you have to go to Khiyar in search of work? But there was less and less of work to be had with every passing day, this was true too. Not too long ago, even eleven or twelve years ago, old-timers used to say, sowing, weeding, reaping—all sorts of jobs were available right here in Girirdanga and Nijgirirdanga, on both sides of the lake. Apparently there weren’t enough people looking for work then. And in case something needed to be done at short notice, Pocha’s son Kasimuddi, who lived across the lake, had to be sent for. He was as stupid as his father, didn’t own even a sliver of land, and lived in other farmers’ huts or cowsheds or verandas. People would beg and plead with him when they needed a tree trimmed or a house repaired. And look, since then a thousand Kasimuddis had sprung up in every direction. All the bastards were in search of work. So many people died in the famine, so many more sold their house and land and went away, but still the number of people never decreased. All those who had sold their land and house but not left the village were desperate to work as hired hands. But where was the work? Earlier the sharecroppers hired daily labourers, but now they even set their own babies in arms to work in the fields. All right, all understandable. What choice did Tamiz have but to go to Khiyar for work? But consider what his father was saying, consider it well. Why all this flirtation with women when you go to Khiyar? Tamiz’s father knew everything, Kulsum could imagine too, they weren’t good people over at Khiyar. Whenever they spotted young men, working men, they set their daughters to trap them. They got their daughters to marry these men and then kept them in their own homes, forcing the grooms to work on the land that they had taken on lease, to look after the cattle, to build their houses for them. Kneading clay and making walls with it was hard work. The young men became permanent members of their families. The witches cast their spells and the men passed their entire lives as their slaves, not even remembering their own parents any more. A man settling down in his wife’s home—the whole thing suddenly appeared intolerable to Kulsum. Not for nothing had Tamiz’s father become despondent. Let me tell you, he was no ordinary man. No one knew whose call he answered in his sleep when he walked out at night, or where he went, or how far. People said so many things about Tamiz’s father, but no matter what he did in his sleep, there was no match for him when it came to hard work. It was the people of Majhipara who used to enjoy the fish that Tamiz’s father caught in Katlahar Lake before it passed into Sharafat Mondol’s control. Back then Tamiz’s father could snare carp weighing 6 or 7 seers each even with his ripped fishing net. Those little nets would often sink to the bottom of the lake under the weight of the fish, forcing him to wade neck-deep into the water to reel the net back in. The veteran fishermen would say, ‘You’d better be careful going in there. All the fish come running when you cast your net. Not a good sign.

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Read Khwabnama to understand the many layers of the Tebhaga movement and to appreciate Elias’ writing style and thematic structure of the novel.

India and China’s conflict over Sikkim

Posted on by kavyawahi

Both India and China began their attempts to claim vassalage over Sikkim in the nineteenth century and after some pockets of dormancy, the issue returned to haunt India–China relations in the twenty-first century. The graph of Sikkim’s history saw many curves due to the conflict between India and China over its territory. Therefore, China’s recognition of Sikkim in 2005 represents an important milestone in India’s China diplomacy.

Here’s an excerpt from The Long Game that will give you a glimpse of the chequered history of tutelage and vassalage of Tibet and Sikkim due to their shared Himalayan Buddhist heritage.

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The Long Game
The Long Game || Vijay Gokhale

In 1904, weary of Tibetan intransigence in accepting the boundary and trading arrangements negotiated between the British and the Chinese, the Government of India sent Sir Francis Younghusband with a military force into Lhasa. The resultant convention between Great Britain and Tibet (known as the Lhasa Convention of 7 September 1904), compelled the Dalai Lama’s government to recognize the frontier between Sikkim and Tibet as defined by the 1890 Anglo–Chinese Convention. With the Chinese and Tibetans on the same page, so to speak, the British government could have resumed the process of demarcation of the Sikkim–Tibet boundary that was interrupted in 1895. They chose not to do so.

The crumbling Chinese Empire, in a last gasp, launched a military campaign in Tibet under Chao Erh-feng, the Imperial Viceroy, and occupied Lhasa, thereby distracting the Tibetans from creating further problems on the Sikkim–Tibet frontier. Soon thereafter in 1911, the Chinese Empire itself collapsed, and the British were left as the sole dominant power in the Himalayas. Hence the British might not, any longer, have considered the Sikkim–Tibet border to be an immediate problem for the British Indian Empire’s Himalayan frontier. They never resumed the process of demarcation. This British decision would return to haunt India–China relations in the twenty-first century.

Following the independence of India in 1947, the new Government of India entered into a new treaty with Sikkim in 1950 under which it became a protectorate. Sikkim’s defence, foreign affairs and communications were to be handled by the Government of India. Hence, when boundary negotiations began with China in the late 1950s, the Sikkim-Tibet frontier was deemed by the Indian side to be a part of the agenda for the India–China boundary talks. In 1956, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai acknowledged the special relations that India had with Sikkim, but subsequently avoided any discussion with India on the Tibet–Sikkim boundary during the border talks in the late 1950s and in the official level talks in 1960. In fact, Premier Zhou wrote to Nehru on 8 September 1959 making it clear that the boundary between China and Sikkim ‘does not fall within the scope of our present discussion . . .’

This was no coincidence; it is now known that the Chinese were already aware of correspondence between the Government of India and the Dalai Lama’s government in 1948 (before the founding of the People’s Republic of China), wherein the Tibetan government had demanded that independent India should first return all the lands occupied by the British Empire. Sikkim was one of the territories claimed by them. A cable from the Chinese Foreign Ministry to their ambassadors in July 1955, which contained several suggestions to strengthen ties with Afro-Asian nations, contained instructions to the effect that ‘we should formulate a secret stipulation on the status of Sikkim, Bhutan, Kanjuti, etc.’ In 1954, the Chinese published a map showing Sikkim as a part of China. These instances suggest that the new Communist government in Beijing wanted to keep all options open, including the Tibetan claims over Sikkim.

Although they were in no position at that point of time to challenge India over Sikkim, Zhou Enlai shrewdly declined to engage in any activity that might suggest China’s de jure recognition of Sikkim as a protectorate of India. For this reason, when India proposed that the boundary discussions should include the Sikkim–Tibet (China) sector, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote to the Indian Embassy in Beijing on 26 December 1959, saying that ‘the boundary between China and Sikkim has long been formally delimited and there is neither any discrepancy between the maps nor any disputes in practice.’ When Indian Ambassador Parathasarathi paid his farewell call on Vice Foreign Minister Geng Biao in Beijing on 19 July 1961, the Head of the Asian Department, Zhang Wenjin, who was also present, even alleged that India was wilfully trying to involve China in order to pressurize Sikkim (and Bhutan) into accepting India’s version of where their boundaries with China lay. In reality, the Chinese were buying time, and possibly studying records, while they made up their minds about Tibetan claims on Sikkim as well as the Anglo-Chinese discussions in earlier periods that had led to the 1890 and 1906 Conventions between Britain and China.

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Ma Anand Sheela leaves Bhagwan

Posted on by kavyawahi

In her latest book, By My Own Rules, that she has dedicated to everyone who helped her get through the life, Ma Anand Sheela has given a glimpse of her past through the eighteen rules she follows in her life. Here’s an excerpt from the book where Ma Anand Sheela writes about how Bhagwan’s love made her confident and fearless in life. She shares an anecdote of the time in her life when she was torn within, and it had become difficult for her to choose between the inner truth or to forget everything—her values, the responsibility, and the people in the community—for Bhagwan.

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By My Own Rules || Ma Anand Sheela

Faced with this distress, I remembered the advice of my parents. ‘Every person must follow the inner truth. No one needs to be afraid of their feelings.’ Their teaching became my guiding light. I knew that I could not compromise with the values they had ingrained in me. I did not want to sell my soul in the name of love. I could not be with my beloved Bhagwan any more. I could not breathe near him any more. It was time for me to leave Bhagwan. I trusted my instincts and followed my heart. I believed that everything would turn out to be fine. I returned all his expensive gifts, which had been an expression of his love, with a goodbye letter.

My parting caused a wave of disappointment and shock. Something no one expected had happened: Bhagwan and Sheela, who had been one heart and one soul, who had stuck together like the sun and the moon, had finally separated. Bhagwan was deeply disappointed in me. My leaving the commune hit him at the core. At the same time, he had to fortify his position in order to retain the trust of his people as many others were contemplating leaving too. Negative stories were spread about me and I was vilified. I had always been aware that many people were jealous of me and wished to be in my place, trusted and loved by Bhagwan. They had the opportunity now.

With my decision to leave the commune, crazy accusations began doing the rounds. Friends and followers of Bhagwan gave vent to their pent-up emotions over me. Bhagwan had always been a master storyteller. The crazy accusations against me were like fire in dry straw and I was ablaze. This fire became the touchstone of my life as well as of his teachings. I was accused of various crimes. I eventually ended up in prison.

After thirty-nine months in prison in the United States, I understood the essence of Bhagwan’s teachings. Bhagwan used every opportunity to train the consciousness and repeatedly created situations in which he tested the limits of our trust and love. He talked about meditation, of love, life, laughing and acceptance, all his life. These are beautiful words and very easy to live by once we are integrated in a harmonious community. Every person can meditate and be satisfied when life is going well. However, alone in a cell, in prison, isolated and rejected by the rest of the world, the true strengths of a human being become apparent. Only negative things were written about me. Hatred and contempt reflected in the faces of the people I met.

I did not know whether I would survive the next day or ever see the sun again. These were the darkest days of my life. The only thing that I could do was to find trust and clarity in myself and to accept life as it was. Despite all the hurtful accusations, my love for him proved indestructible. His teaching was like a precious diamond to me that reflected the beauty of life, without which everything would be empty and dry. Today I am aware that I went through fire out of my love for him.

**

Written in Ma Anand Sheela’s own words, read her story By My Own Rules to get a glimpse of how she negotiated with several situations in her life.

Gul and Cavas amid the storm

Posted on by kavyawahi

In this spectacular book, Tanaz Bhathena brings forth the journey of Gul and Cavas, who are much more than lovers. With a willingness to keep fighting, through pain and hardship, the two fight all odds and eventually achieve their goal. Through her strong characters, Bhathena attempts to reconstruct what India might have looked like without the British at its helm.

Here’s an extract from the book about the conversation between Cavas and Juhi, who endured a brutal marriage to King Lohar.

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Rising Like a Storm || Tanaz Bhathena

I fall silent for a long moment. “Who else is in this prison?”

“Right now, it isn’t full—if the guards’ gossip is to be believed. Raja Amar had initially signed an order to free the cage victims being held here. After Shayla took the throne, she overrode the order, deciding she was better off reselling them at the flesh market. Didn’t make much off them, from what I hear. The mammoth turned out to be a liability, trampling half his handlers. He had to be put down. The peri she sold escaped his merchant owner by killing him in the first week. The merchant’s family demanded compensation from Shayla, which she, naturally, didn’t give. Now, apart from the shadowlynx, which even the guards are afraid to approach, this prison holds only me, Amira, and you.”

“Amira’s still alive, then.” Relief briefly flickers in my ribs. “Gul had nightmares about you both.”

I wonder if she’s still having them. I won der who’s taking care of her now.

“Amira’s alive,” Juhi says. “And she will prob ably remain so until Gul is captured.”

“If Gul is captured,” I correct. “She won’t make it easy. She’s stronger than she was before. I’ve felt her magic.”

“Which is why they got to you first, didn’t they? So that they could draw her here to Ambar Fort?”

“That was my fault— I went to attack Alizeh,” I say, my guilt like salt rubbed over an open wound. “Gul’s too smart. She won’t take their bait and pay the price for my stupidity!”

“Oh, Cavas, I wish I could believe you. But you don’t believe yourself.”

In the darkness, something prickly crawls across my foot, a bloodworm that I kick off in the sharp blue light of the shackle.

“I wish I could tell her not to come,” I say.

“Can’t you?” Shrewdness returns to Juhi’s voice, reminding me why I didn’t trust her the first time I met her— why I still don’t feel wholly comfortable confiding in her.

“What do you mean?”

“You said you felt her magic. That’s very specific.”

We’re complements. It would be easy to say aloud. But the prison’s walls likely have ears and I don’t want my words falling on the wrong ones.

Juhi seems to understand. “Try,” she whispers. “Try to tell her.”

I close my eyes, breathing deeply, my mind entering that eerie, meditative space that makes my skin glow, that takes me back to Tavan’s darkened temple. I make my way to the shadowy sanctum, where Sant Javer waits alone, watching me calmly. I hesitate, feeling shy. Gul, I know, has spoken to the sky goddess several times, but I’ve never done so with the saint I’ve worshipped since I was a boy.

My tongue eventually unties itself and I wish him an “Anandpranam.”

“She isn’t here, my boy,” Sant Javer says softly. “She hasn’t been here for a while.”

My already fraying nerves teeter on the edge of breaking. “Gul?” I call out. “Are you there? Gul!”

The pain makes it difficult to concentrate and so does the distance. Barely a moment goes by before I’m opening my eyes again, my head resting against the wall where I collapsed.

“Juhi?” I whisper.

“Still here,” she says. “You began glowing for a bit and then you collapsed.

What happened?”

“It didn’t work,” I say. “I couldn’t reach her.”

And I’m terrified that if I do reach Gul, all I’ll hear in return is silence.

**

Karma—Thinking and acting

Posted on by kavyawahi

In his book Karma, Acharya Prashant answers various questions posed to him by his diverse audience over decades. Offering an enriching kaleidoscopic perspective to readers, this books traverses alleys through interactions based around human conditions, confusions and questions related to one’s identity, one’s actions, and how to take the right actions. Read this excerpt from the book on when to think and when to act. It answers a question asked to Acharya Prashant: ‘I do not express my thoughts because I am socially restrained. I am afraid of being judged. Can I free myself only by deeds?’

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Karma
Karma || Acharya Prashant

There is no more a final arbiter than action, deeds, life. What else is life but a continuous flow of actions? One finally has to give oneself the liberty to do it. Talking as a precursor to doing is all right, acceptable, but talking as a substitute to doing is evil.

If you want to use talking or thinking or discussing as a preparatory method before leaping into action, it is okay. Sometimes, the beginner needs that. Sometimes, everybody needs to think a little before taking a leap. Other times, one needs to talk to herself, sometimes to others. All that is understandable. But if one becomes a professional thinker specializing in nothing but thought and deliberation, and therefore vacillation and inaction, then it is merely self-deception. Also, I must warn you against the temptation to be fully sure at the level of thought. No absolute clarity is possible at the level of thought. Thought can bring you a certain level of clarity. It would be a relative level.

So, if you insist that unless you are totally clear with your thoughts you will not move, then you have ensured that you are never really going to move; then you will always have a reason to think a little more because thought by its very design can never be fully certain. An iota of doubt will always be residually present, and you can very well exploit that last iota to keep stretching the thought.

This is where faith is important. Faith is needed, so that you can act without being fully certain. At the level of thought, thought is still raising its habitual objections, but you say to thought, ‘You might not be clear. I am clear.’

Have you ever found thought coming to a final conclusion? That which appears like concluded tonight reopens for discussion tomorrow morning because a final conclusion would mean the death of thought. So, why would mind ever lend itself to conclusion? Thought would always leave a little scope for doubt to remain. And then, based on that doubt, that uncertainty, more thinking can be justified.

So, think if you must, but never expect thought to come to a solution. Thought is useful, but in matters of living, loving, and Truth, the utility of thought is limited. Do not try to overexploit thought. You will end up being exploited.

If you are saying that social restrictions, etc., are preventing you from enacting what you know, then you will have to weigh the security that you get from social conformity against the suffering that you get from this willing avoidance of your destiny.

What is bigger, your demand for security or your love for Truth?

This answer will determine your life.

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To know in depth about Karma, what it means and how it functions, the ways of choosing the right action and the results that come from those actions, read Acharya Prashant’s Karma.

People and Places in The Book of Cultures

Posted on by kavyawahi

It’s time to make new friends from different parts of our planet and go on adventures near and far with 30 stories bursting with intrigue, curiosity and wonder! Sift through the beautifully illustrated pages of The Book of Cultures and become a globetrotter as you travel from Japan to Peru and South Africa to Denmark, and learn about diverse cultures, customs, traditions and more.

Here’s an excerpt from this book about the Maldives Island in which Akilah, along with her sea creature friends, try to save the island.

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The Book of Cultures || Evi Triantafyllides, Nefeli Malekou

Akilah loved water. So much, that everyone called her a sea creature. She had an entire life under water. She went for long swims with her best friends, Stingray, Parrotfish, Turtle and Barracuda. In the sandcastles she built, she hid treasures she collected on their adventures. Sometimes, she even prayed under the sea.

When she found out that her island was slowly sinking, she wasn’t that worried. “Breaking news: Global warming means that icebergs are melting and sea levels are rising. The Maldives Islands, only a few feet above the sea, are in danger of disappearing under water forever,” the news anchor warned. There’s so much splendor under water, life there would be a delight, Akilah thought. But only she felt this way. “Some islands have already gone under water!” her parents confirmed. Even the neighbor, Ms. Sing Song, whose laughter penetrated through their walls, had become awfully quiet lately.

Akilah came up with a spectacular idea. Stingray, Parrotfish, Turtle and Barracuda joined to help, too. Soon, Akilah and the fish had built a wonderful underwater island. “Everyone can move here. We can call it the Island of Hope,” she said. She even made two houses next to each other, so that they could hear Ms. Sing Song laugh again.

But the more time she spent at the Island of Hope, the more she realized it simply wasn’t home. When she tried to sketch, the paper melted, and her crayons lost their color. And eating was particularly hard—water made the food all soggy. “Yuck!”

“I don’t want to leave my house,” she admitted. “We need a new idea. And this time, we need all the fish force we can get.” Stingray, Parrotfish, Turtle and Barracuda called their friends from across the Indian ocean. Within hours, so many fish squeezed and squished next to each other, you could barely see the ocean’s blue. If only these many people could help, she thought. Wait a minute, I know. “I have a message. It needs to be delivered to all corners of the planet. Please pass it along,” she asked the fish. I really love my home. I don’t want to lose it. But rising seas might make it sink under water. If every single one of you made even the smallest changes, then my house, the Maldives and the environment could be saved! What do you say? Will you help?

That night, the fish swam and swam. They passed on her message to thousands of other fish, who passed it onto millions of other fish, hoping that soon, it would reach buddies all across the world, just like you.

**

Now here’s a glimpse of Ella’s birthday in Denmark.

Before you go, peep into Suhail’s and Neha’s surroundings in India.

***

Daydreamer Dev loves volcanoes!

Posted on by swara

Daydreamer Dev loves volcanoes…and daydreams of course!

Forever daydreaming-that’s Dev. Sitting in class or watching the clouds from the roof of Kwality Carpets, he floats off to places all over the world and has wonderful, bizarre adventures.

Mild-mannered schoolboy Dev is no stranger to survival in extreme environments. Classroom trances and home-made flights of fancy take him all over the place-what other kid could have visited Amazon rainforests, summited Mount Everest and crossed the Sahara? Along with the challenges of all this, he also needs to avoid the wrath of teachers and make Amma and Baba proud . . . Not so easy when your brain lives elsewhere!

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Dr Ira wore dark-rimmed glasses and had a soft, round face and a gentle voice. Dev could imagine her speaking calmly as the Titanic went down. She listened carefully to Amma and adjusted her glasses to read the two pages supplied by Dev’s headmaster. Dev imagined himself shrinking very steadily so that by the time she looked up, he would be gone.

‘Dev, what do you think about all this?’ Dev realized that he must still be visible. ‘Ma’am, I think it’s very bad that Mrs Kaur needs to write so many notes,’ Dev said. ‘Amma doesn’t like them, and Baba must spend his time lecturing me about concentration and teaching me the meaning of words like “lamentable” and “deplorable”.’

‘Would you be able to tell me about one of your daydreams, Dev?’

Dev told her about the time he hit a six off the final ball at Wankhede Stadium to win the match against Australia, and about riding on a dolphin.

Front cover of Daydreamer Dev
The Astoundingly True Adventures of Daydreamer Dev || Ken Spillman (Author), Suvidha Mistry (Illustrator)

He was launching into another story when she interrupted.

‘Do you have some good friends, Dev?’

Surprised that she wanted to talk about his friends, he told her about Vihaan, Adil and the best of friends ever, OP—Omprakash, as only Mrs Kaur preferred to call him.

Dr Ira asked more questions and looked over his school reports. Eventually, she sat back and looked as squarely at Amma as a round-faced woman could manage.

‘It would be valuable if I could spend some time with Dev alone on another occasion. Would that be all right, Dev?’ Dr Ira paused and when Dev did not say no, she went on. ‘Let’s be clear—daydreams are normal. But recently, there has been some good research on what is called “maladaptive daydreaming”. This is when fantasy tends to takeover. And when fantasy takes over, it can get in the way of everyday things, such as education, or the jobs people do.’

Amma was like a sculpture. She was sitting bolt upright with her head tilted and her lips squeezed together.

‘Dev seems well adjusted socially,’ Dr Ira said.

‘And he’s managing at school. But Mr Bannerji and the school counsellor believe he is gifted and might do very much better.’

The sculpture beside Dev became Amma again.

She nodded vigorously. Dr Ira leant forward.

‘I’d like to explore this a little. Maladaptive daydreamers tend to imagine worlds and stories as relief in times of stress or boredom. In Dev’s case, I suspect it is boredom. But the ability to daydream so vividly that you experience a sense of presence in an imagined environment can be addictive. I can work with Dev to help him develop some strategies to manage it.’

The word ‘maladaptive’ came as a relief.

Evolution was all about adaptation. Dr Ira probably thought Dev needed to adapt, to evolve.

At least he wasn’t going to have an operation or an electric shock.

‘It will be quite painless, young man,’

Dr Ira assured, as if reading his thoughts. ‘Think about it like this. Active volcanoes don’t erupt every day. In fact, most of them very rarely erupt. Your daydreams can rumble away in the background and that’s healthy. We can try to limit unwanted eruptions that affect your education. Does that make sense?’

Actually, it did. And Dev rather liked volcanoes.

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For ages 7+!

Cognitive journey of a brand

Posted on by kavyawahi

Brands, in what they show, tell, feel, smell and taste like, say a lot. Our five senses play a significant role in the recognition of a brand and how it is received by the audience. Sandeep Dayal tells how brain sciences can help brand ambassadors and brand theatres of operations engage the human senses. It would be right to say that all the cognitive brand marketers must note the finer nuances for branding that this book offers.

Let us read this extract from his book to understand that when designing and executing brand experiences, it is important to think of a plan for each sense, or at least consider its impact on them.

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Right Between The Ears
Right Between the Ears || Sandeep Dayal

Most real-world brands have a ‘theatre of operations’ and ‘ambassadors’. They go to market through retail stores and/or a salesforce.

Sergio Zyman was the chief marketing officer of the Coca-Cola Company when they sponsored the Summer Olympics in Atlanta in 1996. Years later, I was Sergio’s chief marketing officer in his consulting company. Sergio told me that at the time when he ran the sponsorship for the Olympics, he had his teams build a thick binder called the ‘Red Book’, which was a detailed playbook for everything that Coke would do at the games. How and where Coke would be seen, who would do and say what and when, what it all meant and how it fit together in a single brand mosaic.

The Olympics would be Coke’s theatre of operation. Anyone with the red Coke shirt would be a brand ambassador, and every moment would be choreographed according to the Red Book.

When consumers step into a brand’s theatre of operations or interact with its brand ambassadors, there is an opportunity to build immersive experiences for them by engaging their five senses. The strongest brand experiences, as we learnt before, are those that are associated with other prior experiences. They are recalled more easily and better than others, last longer and feel more important to the brain. When marketers weave their brands with the human senses, they create even more associations with the experience, making it easier to recall. That’s why immersive sensory brand experiences make deep impressions on our brains.

If you walk down the Magnificent Mile in Chicago, even if you have never done that before, you can recognize the Burberry store with its trademark black-and-brown tartan cross hatches from blocks away with no help at all. The store design itself makes a statement about the brand. As you step inside, you can smell it.

During spring and summer, Zaluti scent machines diffuse the spring crocus scent and during autumn and winter, a special autumn scent. You look around and see that the wall colors are neutral with darker accents and furniture. That is deliberately orchestrated to bring to mind Burberry’s classic trench coat or tartan.

The personal shopper who greets you leaves an impression with how they look and sound, and how they gently direct you to where you want to go in the store. Every one of those sensations embody the Burberry brand.

The brand theatre of operations does not end with the store. Burberry also live-streams its runway shows, to share the excitement of decloaking new fashions as they happen with its fans worldwide, and lets them buy select new products online with its ‘see now, buy now strategy’.

Even brands like Away, Glossier, Farmer’s Dog, Made In Cookware, Lively Intimates and Everlane, which started out as pure online brands, have opened exciting stores on Lafayette Street in New York. They realized that bringing people to a brick-and-mortar store was the best way to create immersive experiences for customers—and that is what many consumers want. Virtual companies like Facebook and Google have opportunities to expand their brand theatre of operations into the real world with events and sponsorships.

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Read Sandeep Dayal’s Right Between the Ears to get insights into the fascinating world of branding and hold on to the anchors in the age of hyper-competition by understanding why people make the choices they do and how to keep a brand relevant.

Of cockfights, royalty, power, and politics

Posted on by kavyawahi

This is a narrative about the clash within the royal family which traces the arc of gory violence and brutal bloodshed. In all of Raja Ratan Shah’s life, nobody had made him feel more insecure than his own bastard son, Teja. With no heir in sight, Teja felt entitled to usurp the power. This marked the beginning of a series of cockfights and conflicts.

Here’s an excerpt from the book which gives a glimpse of one of the many cockfights.

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Fighter Cock || Sidharth Singh

One of Teja’s men brought a fierce-looking Aseel into the pit. The raja picked one of his Karianaths, a young battle stag that was taken inside the pit by its handler. The cocks were pitted by a touch of beaks, and the fight began. The Karianath was aggressive from the get-go, circling the Aseel in top spinner style, using quick footwork. The Aseel, a battle cock of some repute, stood its ground, weaving and bobbing, looking for an opening. As the Karianath tried to take the Aseel head-on, the Aseel jumped up in the air and came crashing down on its head, slashing its neck with a short-blade fitted on its left foot, killing it instantly. Half the crowd ‘ooh’ed in pity while the other half ‘aah’ed in joy. A lot of money exchanged hands. This was Teja’s sixth straight win of the night, and he was jubilant.

An old Bollywood hit played shrilly on loudspeakers installed around the arena. Teja and his henchmen danced wildly to the song, rousing the crowd to join in, and turned the arena into a rave. The raja plied Sheru with more mahua as he moved on to another ganja chillum, blowing smoke like a steam engine and descending further into the grip of lunacy. By now, Sheru was also drunk and had no choice but to drop his guard and enjoy this insane spectacle. The raja signalled for the music to stop and for the next fight to begin. Teja decided to field the winning cock once again while the raja entered his top fighter, the champion battle cock ‘Toofani’, in this bout.

As earlier, the cocks were pitted beak to beak and the fight began. Teja’s Aseel, overconfident from the previous bout, went for the kill immediately, attacking the Karianath from all angles, in a departure from its earlier bob-and-weave style. Toofani circled around in a slinky top-spinning style, its quick hopping reminiscent of B-grade kung fu films. The Aseel took a few quick jabs at the Karianath, who warded them off with ease. Then the Aseel charged down the pit and took a giant leap. The Karianath countered with a massive on-the-spot jump, and, in a gory mid-air collision, kicked the Aseel in the eyes with both its long-bladed feet and blinded it completely.

Blood gushed out of the Aseel’s eyes and the crowd went berserk, shouting with bloodlust. The raja jumped up from his seat and screamed, ‘Kill the bastard! Kill the motherfucker!’ The Aseel hopped around the pit in panic. Toofani strutted to the far end for a long run-up and, then, charging down the pit, leapt into the air and pounced on the helpless Aseel, pinning it to the ground. It then proceeded to kill its foe with repeated machine-gun pecks to its head and neck in a crazed quick-beak style. By the end of the fight, Toofani was drenched in the blood of its victim. It walked up, as if drunk on its gory victory, towards the cheering spectators and fanned its wings violently, splashing blood on the crowd, and making them ecstatic.

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To know more about the conflicts and cockfights in the royal household of Shikargarh dive into the pages of Sidharth Singh’s rough and ready noir titled Fighter Cock.

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