A Sweet Indian Gift to the World - Sugar

The most popular sweetener in the world – Sugar – was invented in India. Prior to the introduction of Sugar from India, the most popular sweetener in the western world was – HONEY!

In fact the very word Sugar (and even Sucrose) is derived from the Sanskrit word for Sugar – Sharkara.

For the past thousands of years Sugar cane is being cultivated in India. However Sugarcane became popular and spread to the rest of the world only after Indians developed the technique of turning sugarcane juice into granulated crystals there by making it easy to store as well as transport. India is the world’s largest producer of Sugar after Brazil today.

The earliest reference to Sugar can be found in the ancient vedic text of Atharva Veda. Susrutha Samhita lists 12 different varieties of Sugar. The best of which were called Vamshika (with thin reeds) and Paundraka (which came from the Bengal region). Even today Bengal produces some of the best sweets in the world using sugar syrup as a major ingredient. If you haven’t tasted a Bengali Rasgullah yet – then you probably dont know how sweet sugar can really be!

Darius – the King of Persia – who invaded India at around 510 BCE was fascinated when he tasted this “Reed which gives Honey without Bees“. Alexander’s army tasted it in India in 326 BCE.

Sugar was carried to other parts of Asia by the Indian Sailors whose dietary mainstay was Sugar + Clarified Butter (Ghee). Even today Sugar and Ghee is a favorite combination in many parts of India.

The Buddhist monks from India who went to spread Buddhism introduced Sugarcane in China at around 110 BCE.

In the first century CE Dioscorides described sugar as ‘a honey called sakkharon collected from reeds in India‘ which had the ‘consistency of salt and which could be crunched between the teeth‘.

Sugarcane / Sugar reached Persia at around 6th century CE. From there the Arabs took it to Egypt in 641 CE. And finally to Spain at around 714 CE.

Western Europe discovered Sugar only after the Crusaders in the 11th Century tasted this “New Spice”. It entered England in 1099. During his second voyage  in 1493 Columbus took Sugarcane from Canary Islands to the Caribbean.

During the years 1625 to 1750, Sugar was worth its weight in gold and was referred to as “White Gold”. To make it cheaper Europeans opened the slave trade in the Caribbean islands, where the native american slaves were made to cultivate and grow sugar cane. However instead of having the cane processed in the same place where it was grown, the Europeans brought it to England to refine it into Sugar. Wouldn’t it have been cheaper to refine and process the large mass of sugar cane right at the place where it was being grown? Well, Europeans did NOT want the slaves to learn the secret skills of preparing Sugar from cane, even though they themselves had BORROWED these skills from India.

Introduction of Sugar brought in a major major change in the eating habits of the western world. Initially most sugar in Britain was used to prepare tea, but later candies, chocolates, coffee, cocoa, jams, and other sweets became very popular.

Thus became Sharkara – the most popular sweetener of ancient India – the most popular sweetener of the modern world.

Owing to the heightened health problems in the western society today due to the over consumption of sugar, some even call it India’s Sweet Revenge to the west – take it either way – either by the real India (from where the sugar originated) which was occupied by the British till 1947 – or by the Native American Indians whose entire Continent was stolen from them by the Europeans and who were made to work as slaves for the European consumers.

Referring to the invention of modern mathematics (invention of zero and place value system) in ancient India, Einstein once said “We should be thankful to Indians who taught us how to count without which no worthwhile scientific discovery would have been possible“.

On similar lines shouldnt the west say, “We should be thankful to Indians who taught us how to prepare sweets without using honey without which no worthwhile sweet preparation would have been possible.”

The next time you taste a sweet, most probably it would have some sugar in it, and if so then you know where it originally came from 

U may ask, Why I Did What i Did.

But what choice did u gave me???

We the people of INDIA...Will be the change we seek...

60 years ago India's founding forefathers had a dream for all of us - a dream of an equal and just society where every man, woman and child has the right and privilege to lead a fulfilling and nurturing life, free from all kinds of oppression. This was a dream and a hope over 60 years ago. The Constituion of India and specifically the Preamble to the Constitution of India, defines a clear roadmap for the future of our country wherein the common man and woman hold the power to decide their destiny.

Today nobody can say that India has achieved this dream. Before independence the common man was a slave to foreign powers; today he has become a slave of the political system of our country. There is a new master in our country today - the political Neta. This Neta, who asks for our votes during elections, and then forgets us after he wins, this political entity decides the common man's destiny.

But every civilisation reaches a plimsoll line of tolerance. This is our line. India's common man has had enough of oppression, inequality, injustice and unkept promises. For the last 2 years the anti corruption movement has galvanised the country from end to end into one common voice - a voice that is demanding a complete rehaul in the way political parties and their leaders function.

This national demand for a change in the way our political system works has forced our anti corruption drive to enter the political arena to clean it from the inside. Politics itself is not a dirty word - it is our current breed of politicians who have made it dirty. Aam Aadmi Party wants to make politics a noble calling once again.

We want to create a system where the political leaders we elect and place in the Parliament are directly responsible to the voters who elected them. Our party's vision is to realise e dream of SWARAJ that Gandhiji had envisaged for a free india - where the power of governance and rights of democracy will be in the hands of the people of India---Aamaadmiparty

This is a historical moment in India's journey. The common man, woman, child and youth is united and is demanding an end to the greed and corruption rampant in our political and governance system. The anti corruption movement has exposed all political parties, ruling and in the opposition, as liars and completely unwilling to create a strong anti corruption Lokpal law. Since all efforts to plead our case with the existing political system have failed, it is time we change this system of greed and exploitation from within. The Aam Aam Aadmi Party is a chance for every man, woman, child and youth to have a say in deciding their destiny. It is high time we change the corrupt system of India forever. It's time we make politics a noble and respectable calling once again. This is the main vision of Aam AADMI Party. Your party. The common man's party. Jai Hind!

Why so serious?

Wanna know how I got these scars? My father was… a drinker. And a fiend. And one night he goes off crazier than usual. Mommy gets the kitchen knife to defend herself. He doesn't like that. Not-one-bit. So – me watching – he takes the knife to her, laughing while he does it! Turns to me, and he says, “why so serious, son?” Comes at me with the knife… “Why so serious?” He sticks the blade in my mouth… “Let’s put a smile on that face!” And…Why so serious?

"I use a knife because guns are too quick. Otherwise, you can't savor all the emotions. You know who people are in their last moments."

The Joker

Every Rule has an Exception

Here is a rule whose very statement proves the rule to be false. The rule is

Every rule has an Exception

So going by its statement, even this rule should have an exception, which means not every rule has an exception, because there is at least one rule which has no exception, which in turn means the statement of the rule is false! So guess it would be more appropriate to rephrase it to say something like “Every rule has an Exception, except for this rule”.

If it is not clear, let me rephrase the logic.

The rule says that “Every Rule has an exception”.

Now this in itself being a rule, even this rule should have at least one exception. Isn’t it?

So, if this rule has an exception, then it cannot be “Every” rule, because there is one rule, which is the exception, which is outside the boundaries of this “Every”.

Which in turn means, not all rules have an exception, and so the use of the term “Every” becomes inappropriate.

So without validating any other rule for an exception, if the statement should still sound correct, then we should probably rephrase the rule as

Every Rule has an Exception, except for this rule.

Now if that was about logic, when we come to real life cases, finding even a single rule which has no exception will make this rule invalid.

For instance, there can be no exceptions to rules like “Gravity always attracts

The dance is a poem of which each movement is a word.

"There is no other knowledge, no other learning, no other art, not even yoga or action that is not found in dance."

Dancing is like dreaming with your feet! 

Things perfected by nature are better than those finished by art.

When the last tree falls.

When the last river is polluted,

And, When there is no 

breath of fresh air left

We will realize that

    WE CANT EAT MONEY.

- Latrinalia

Come forth into the light of things,

Let Nature be your teacher.

You will find something far greater in the woods than you will find in books. Stones and trees will teach you that which you will never learn from masters

The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.

Nature is an endless combination and repetition of a very few laws.

How I do love the earth. I feel it thrill under my feet. I feel somehow as if it were conscious of my love, as if something passed into my dancing blood from it.

Nature is a self-made machine, more perfectly automated than any automated machine. To create something in the image of nature is to create a machine, and it was by learning the inner working of nature that man became a builder of machines. 

Hug.

Silence Plzz,,,

“When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence”

“Have you ever heard the wonderful silence just before the dawn? Or the quiet and calm just as a storm ends? Or perhaps you know the silence when you haven't the answer to a question you've been asked, or the hush of a country road at night, or the expectant pause of a room full of people when someone is just about to speak, or, most beautiful of all, the moment after the door closes and you're alone in the whole house? Each one is different, you know, and all very beautiful if you listen carefully.”

I am watching you.

Every breath you take,

And every move you make,

Every bond you break, 

Every step you take, 

Ill be watching you. 

Every single day,

And every word you say, 

Every game you play, 

Every night you stay , 

I'll be watching you. 

Every move you make, 

Every vow you break,

Every smile you fake,

Every claim you stake, 

Ill be watching you.