DesiReflections

Arrival of winter brings an interesting vegetable in grocery stores -  Brussels sprout. It  looks little like cabbages in miniature form, but don't let the small size fool you. Brussels sprouts are in the cruciferous family -- cousins of broccoli, cauliflower, collard greens, and kale. Only 1 to 2 inches across, they're green and round with tightly packed leaves. They have a lot of nutrition in each bite. Its rough, bitter taste sends the weak-spirited away… since the 17th century! Nonetheless, Brussels sprouts are an excellent source of vitamin C and fiber, which is needed especially during the winter season. Not only that, Brussels sprouts have a lot of a natural, sulfur-based substance with a name that's a bit of a tongue twister: glycosinolate glucobrassicin. Research shows that this compound may help prevent damage to your DNA that raises your chances of getting cancer. It may also stop new blood vessels from growing inside tumors. Brussels sprouts were first cultivate...

Shrinkflation New Way To Fool Customers  Today I learnt a new word -    shrinkflation, in simple language it can be termed as the grocery shrink ray, deflation, or package downsizing. As inflation is all time high in recent time , more and more companies started adopting this    by shrinking in size or quantity, or even reformulating or reducing quality, while their prices remain the same or a marginal increase. Edgar Dworsky is a consumer activist here in USA , trying to make people aware of these tricks recently adopted by companies so that people get less for their money. He rattles off a list of products downsized by the shrinkflation treatment. Over roughly the last six months,  Procter & Gamble’s  Gain detergent has sold less liquid — 154 ounces, down from 165 ounces — but in the same bottle fetching the same price.  Well known    toilet paper brand Charmin goes from 650 single-ply sheets on a roll to the equivalent of 90% less...

Recent Book Read : Dream City  I do not normally read fiction but I had recently read David Baldacci’s latest novel Dream Town in a single go. The novel is set-up in Los Angeles of a different era i.e. fifties. It is a pot boiler which shows that their was some kind of unholy  alliance between few  tinsel town film industry people  with gambling industry and drug cartel. Something very similar to what  happened in Bollywood during seventies.  Private investigator and World War II veteran Aloysius Archer intends to ring in the New Year Eve 1952 with his old friend who is an aspiring actress Liberty Callahan her Screenwriter friend Eleanor Lamb interrupts to hire Archer. Archer working for his experienced Bay Town mentor Willie Dash, based in Bay Town who is an Ex FBI.  Eleanor Lamb is  afraid that someone is trying to kill her, but Archer has a sort of feeling that she is keeping something from him. When he makes his way to Malibu later that night,...

Desist Instant Nirvan   People in my age group have seen glory of Ghazal rendition. Talented Ghazal singers like Mehndi Hasan, Gulam Ali, Jagjit Chitra  Singh, Rajendra Nina Mehta, Vijay Sudha Singh  brought best of the Urdu Poetry condensed with their unique Gayki style and lilting music. They were instant hit , found name, fame and money. They were followed by Talat Aziz, Pankaj Udhas , Ghanshyam Vasvani, Chandan Das, Bhupinder Mitali Singh, kaapi der Singh  and partly Anup Jalota. I also remember all of them generated huge fan following , fans ready to wakeup for whole night to listen to their concert. In fact I am not including singers in the league such as  Talat Mehmood , Mohd Rafi, Asha Bhonsle, Lata Mangeshkar , Manna Dey because their ghazal singing was a part of Hindi Films and they had not created any separate space and ecosystem for Ghazals.  But what is the scenario now? No craze to listen to new Ghazal singers. I feel sad about the present sit...

My recent Book Read - Meme Wars Books always provide you some mental simulation as well as skill to understand problems from various angles and perspective. I recently read a book which clearly spell that in case a person, a group or a crowd decide to create a extreme world view than social media can be transformed into a dangerous weapon. The book I am talking about is a recent read called Meme Wars. It is researched and written by Joan Donovan, Emily Dreyfus’s, Brian Friedberg.  Author Trio works on Harvard Kennedy School’s Technology and Social Research Project. This is an astonishing piece of nonfiction that inform and leave even more terrified than the news likely already does.  Alert citizens world over have been keeping up with the news on the rise of the alt-right for the last few years, so a book on this subject is  not shocking or surprising. However, the author trio has done a great job of condensing what has happened in about the last decade in USA on the inte...

Yesterday, I saw a Facebook post about most beautiful structure of Ajanta Ellora saying that these are much much older to Taj Mahal but not appreciated the way people do Taj Mahal . In fact, world is full of such ancient marvels, go visit them in your lifetime , one such marvel is Longmen caves in China, a Buddhist pilgrimage destination comprised of a complex of cave shrines, were supported by imperial patronage. The steep limestone cliffs extend for almost a mile and contain approximately 110,000 Buddhist stone statues, 60 stupas (hemispherical structures containing Buddhist relics) and 2,800 inscriptions carved on steles (vertical stone markers). This complex, located on both sides of the Yi River south of the ancient capital of  .  My point  is not to compare these structures with any other , all of them are unique, go enjoy the craftsmanship of each one of  them and appreciate the vision of creator and craftsmanship. There is  no point in comparing apples w...

With the 2021 IPO of her beauty business at a $13 billion valuation, she has become the first Indian woman to take a unicorn public.  This year she is in the Fortune included her in their watch list of Global Most Powerful Woman.  She is an assal Mumbaikar . Her father had been a businessman who ran a small bearings company. After school, she graduated from Sydenham College of Commerce and Economics with a degree in Bachelor of Commerce. Later, she had gone to  IIM , Ahmedabad.  Nayar would had continued with her professional career as Managing Director of the investment vertical of leading private banking conglomerate, where she  worked  for more than 20 years. She was the Managing Director at Kotak Investment Banking for almost four years. Thereafter enjoyed her retirement perks in a chalet at a cosy beach.  While working as the Managing Director at Kotak Mahindra, Nayar decided to experiment and to start a company of her own. She toyed up with ...

What Is Ailing Tech Giants  Economist has come up with an interesting write-up this week which talks about the steep fall of big stocks.  Silicon Val­ley is credited to create five tech giants - Alphabet(Google) , Microsoft Amazon, Apple and Meta (Facebook)  , who have transformed the way we live today . They had    long been the bedrock of America’s stockmarket and economy, combining reliable growth and profitability but the signals from stock market are troubling investors. After a torrid third quarter their market capital­isation has now collectively dropped by 37% so far this year. About $3.7trn of value has evaporated. The law of large numbers made it inevitable that the tech giants would mature. Sales growth in the last quarter slowed to 9%—barely above inflation As they have grown bigger, they have become tied to the economic cycle; a fact which the digital surge during the pandemic only temporarily masked. Penetra­tion rates for smartphones, digital...

Visited USS Turner Joy Museum Ship, Bremerton  few weeks back.  When a naval warship ends its glorious active journey,  should it be dismantled? Probably, the better option is to make it a museum for gen-next . This will give people some insight that how navy works to protect a nation and how the naval operations conducted in past era .  Precisely the same thing happened with The USS Turner Joy DD-951, American Naval Ship of destroyer class. It is now converted into a museum and stationed at Bremerton, a small island, one hour away from the city of Seattle . The place is accessible by ferry as well  by road from Seattle.  We visited this museum recently , it gave us an idea that how big naval powers used to protect nation’s  supremacy in the sea some 50-60 years back.  Technically speaking , she  is 418 foot long naval destroyer.  She is one of the most complete naval museum ships in the US offering a unique historical naval adventure ta...

हेलो ! आज हैलोवीन है  मैं सिएटल में हूँ यहाँ एक सप्ताह पूर्व बड़े ही धूम धाम से दीपावली मनाया गया था , और आज बारी हैलोवीन की है , बच्चे कई दिनों से इसकी तैयारी में लगे हुए हैं  , बड़े जतन से घर के बाहर सजावट कई दिनों से चालू थी . बड़े बड़े कद्दू ला कर उस पर भूतिया आकृति चाकुओं से तराशना  हर घर का शग़ल है . दुकानों पर हर आकार प्रकार और रंगों के कद्दू मिल जाते हैं. आस पड़ोस के घरों में प्रतियोगिता इस बात की रहती है कि किसकी सजावट सबसे ज्यादा डरावनी है , लॉन  अस्थायी क़ब्रगाह , पेटियो चुड़ैल और भूतों के बसेरे में बदल चुके हैं . शाम को घर के बाहर तरह तरह की पोशाकों में बच्चों की टोलियाँ आनी शुरू हो जायेंगी . इनकी शरारतों से मुग्ध हो कर ट्रिक्स n ट्रीट का सिलसिला चलेगा  है अपनी हैसियत के हिसाब से बच्चों को उपहार दे कर विदा किया जाएगा .  हैलोवीन को ईसाइयत से जोड़ कर देखना उचित नहीं क्योंकि यह त्योहार ईसा के जन्म से भी पूर्व से मनाया जाता रहा है . यह प्राचीन सेल्टिक परम्परा से है.  हर साल यह 31 अक्तूबर को मनाया जाता है क्योंकि यही वह समय है जब  कड़क जाड़...