Source ….https://www.routesonline.com
Natarajan
Author: Natarajan
Joke of the day…” Who was at the wheels ….”?
This guy was on the side of the road hitchhiking on a very dark night in the middle of a storm. The night was roiling and no car went by.
The storm was so strong he could hardly see a few feet ahead of him. Suddenly, he saw a car coming towards him and stop.
The guy, without thinking about it, got in the car and closed the door – and only then realized that there’s nobody behind the wheel!
The car starts very slowly. The guy looks at the road and sees a curve coming his way. Scared, he starts to pray, begging for his life.
He hasn’t come out of shock when, just before the car hits the curve, a hand appears through the window and moves the wheel.
The guy, paralyzed in terror, watched how the hand appears every time they are approaching a curve.
Gathering strength, he gets out of the car and runs all the way to the nearest town. Wet and in shock, he goes into a bar, asks for two shots of tequila, and starts telling everybody about the horrible experience he just went through.
A silence enveloped everybody when they realize the guy was crying, but wasn’t drunk.
About half an hour later two guys walked in the same bar and one said to the other: “Look, Pepe, that’s the asshole that got in the car while we were pushing it!”
Source…..www.ba-ba mail.com
Natarajan
Message for the Day…” In this difficult journey of life, have God as your lamp, you will reach your destination safely. Resolve this day to adopt this spiritual practice of reciting your chosen Lord’s Name always! “
Life is but the interval between birth and death, a procession towards the grave that starts at the very moment of birth. Tigers lie in wait in a bush by the jungle track; when they spot their prey, at the right moment they pounce, and drag the catch to their lair. So too, death lies in wait for every being. It trails behind you with silent paws and when the hour strikes, it leaps and snaps the thread of life. In this difficult journey of life, have God as your lamp, you will reach your destination safely. Resolve this day to adopt this spiritual practice of reciting your chosen Lord’s Name always! Welcome the habit of reading epics as you welcome efficacious drugs! They cure deep-rooted illnesses of the mind. Accept mantras as medicines, to cure the phobias of the mind, the disabilities of the inner senses, and the defects of the inner consciousness. They clarify your vision and make you strong and steady on the Godward path.
Source….http://media.radiosai.org/
Natarajan
Here’s How Eating Before 7 PM Can Change Your Life….
Planned what you should be eating from breakfast to dinner and think you are done for the day? Think again. You may be missing out on something crucial that can impact your overall health. Turns out ‘when’ you eat could prove to be as important as ‘what’ you eat. And eating your last meal, as early as 7 pm in the evening can do wonders to your health. For the longest time nutritionists over the world have been stressing on not just a light dinner but also an early one, but is it worth the hype? Let’s find out.
Our body doesn’t have an actual clock, but it does have an internal rhythm according to which it schedules major body functions. Called the ‘circadian rhythm’, this internal clock helps the body adjust to environmental changes, sleep, and activities like digestion and eating. Thus, the timing of your meals can affect your body’s weight regulation, metabolic regulation, heart heath and sleep cycle too.
1. Weight Loss
Experts claim, that restricting your meal intake in the window of 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. can reduce the overall calorie intake drastically. This could be because you are most likely to consume fewer calories as the time you have spent in eating has come down. Also a longer duration of overnight fast, helps with increasing fat loss as the body has time to reach a state of ketosis – a natural state for the body, when it is almost completely fueled by fat. In other words the body is using stored fat for energy.
Clinical nutritionist Dr. Rupali Dutta says, “An early dinner is good for digestion, and anything that is good for digestion aids weight loss. It is said that the body is wired to the movement of the sun. The later we eat, more are the chances of the food lying in the intestines, affecting the digestion. On the other hand, if you have your dinner early, you reach the satiety value earlier, the body is able to utilise the food better. The body uses everything we eat. If the calories produced are not put to use, it is stored as fat.”
2. Good Sleep
Over stuffing or eating too close to your bed time can increase the risk of heartburn and indigestion, making it harder to fall asleep. Experts warn against bed time munchies as well. Eating late in the night leaves the body on a ‘high alert’ state, which interferes with the circadian rhythm. It also prevents our body from powering down. If on the other hand, food is taken earlier, it is not only digested better, you sleep well and wake up energised too.
3. Better Heart Health
Nutritionist Meher Rajput further lists down the consequences attached, “For people suffering disorders like diabetes, thyroid, PCOD and cardiovascular diseases, it is advisable not only to have a light dinner but also an early one. As Indians we are used to eating sodium rich food for our dinners. Right from dal, papad, vegetables to meat, all of our preparations reek of salt in rather high proportions. If we happen to take these salty foods later at night, it will lead to water retention and bloating, but most significantly a looming risk of high blood pressure.
Restricting the eating to an early hour also ensures better heart health and keeps cardiovascular risks at bay. Meher says, “As we go on hogging more carbs and sodium in our dinners we put our heart and blood vessels to a greater risk of overnight blood pressure. For people suffering from hypertension it is advisable to eat more complex carbs, oats, brown rice and bran chapatis that can work as healthier alternatives.”
Experts around the world haven’t been stressing on maintaining the two hour gap between bedtime and dinner for nothing. Those who eat their dinner late are most likely to suffer from “non-dipper hypertension”, which is a state where the pressure fails to drop properly over night. Ideally, the blood pressure is supposed to drop by at least 10 per cent at night allowing the body to rest well. If the pressure remains raised, it runs the risk of heart disease and, in extreme cases, even a stroke.
The risk can be averted to a greater degree by maintaining good time gap between your dinner and bedtime.
However, if you do feel hungry in the evening or late at night, it is not advisable to starve either. Instead of helping, it would trigger a host of other problems stemming from an unhealthy relationship with food. In such times you can bank on low calorie, protein rich, low carb foods.
If late night hunger pangs are a common occurrence maybe you need to relook at your diet through the day. The idea is not to starve in the evening, but consuming an adequately spread, balanced diet from 6 a.m. to 7. p.m., preferably split into 4-6 smaller meals. To make this work you need to be eating enough during the first half of the day, the idea is to fuel your body well through the day. Your body would only call for food when it feels depraved of fuel. Fitting your major meals into this window may take several days to adapt. Trying to eat at the same time and sticking to it can bring about the change quickly.
Source….Sushmita Sengupta in https://food.ndtv.com/
Natarajan
London Railings Made From World War 2 Stretchers….
Many housing estates throughout London are surrounded by black steel and mesh railings with peculiar notches around the edges. Although at first glance they appear to be some quirky architectural design, the notches have a purpose—or rather, had a purpose. These steel railings originally functioned as stretchers used to carry the wounded during the Second World War. The curves or the notches you see were the legs upon which the stretchers were laid on the ground. After the war was over many of these stretchers were repurposed to replace fencing that were lost in the war.
Photo credit: www.stretcherrailings.comIn the months leading up to the war in 1939, the UK government produced more than 600,000 stretchers at plants located in Hertfordshire and the West Midlands. The stretchers had a steel frame supporting a wire mesh; steel was chosen so that the stretchers could be easily cleaned and disinfected from germs, dirt and blood. The two notches on either end of the poles allowed the stretchers to be rested on the ground but still be picked up quickly and easily. Unfortunately, the stretchers were terribly uncomfortable and many volunteers from the Civil Defence Service, who were carried on these stretchers, complained of the hardness and discomfort.
After the war, the UK was left with a huge stockpile of stretchers that needed to be put to use, or recycled. As it happened, many estates in Britain’s cities had lost their perimeter fencing as these were removed and melted down to manufacture ammunition, tanks and other weaponry for the war. Then someone had this bright idea of welding together these stretchers and creating fences out of them.
These so-called “stretcher fences” can be found at many localities around London such as Peckham, Brixton, Deptford, Oval and East London. The metal structures were also used in other cities such as Leeds and also in Scotland, but they are most prominent in south and east London.
Many of the surviving railings today are in poor condition. Others were removed by local authorities due to increasing degradation. The newly formed Stretcher Railing Society believes that these railings are an important part of Britain’s heritage and needs to be preserved. As starters, they have began cataloguing the locations of these railings. You can check them out on their website.
Source…..http://www.amusingplanet.com
Natarajan
Cloud tower, view from space….
Message for the Day…” God’s grace is like the shower of rain or sunlight. You must do some spiritual practice (sadhana) to receive it, the sadhana of keeping a pot upright to receive the rain, or opening the door of your heart so that the Sun may illumine it.”
God’s grace is like the shower of rain or sunlight. You must do some spiritual practice (sadhana) to receive it, the sadhana of keeping a pot upright to receive the rain, or opening the door of your heart so that the Sun may illumine it. Like the music that is broadcast over the radio, it is all around you; but you must switch on your receiver and tune to the wavelength so that you can enjoy it. Do at least little sadhana and pray for grace. Grace will set everything right. Grace will grant you self-realisation (Atma Sakshatkara) and other incidental benefits too like a happy contented life and a cool courageous temper established in unruffled peace. The plantain tree has bunches of fruits as its main gift. But its leaves, soft core of the trunk and flower bud are subsidiary items that can be profitably used. This is the nature of grace. It fulfils a variety of wants.
Source….http://media.radiosai.org
Natarajan
How the Maharajah Got Its Wings: The Story of Air India’s Iconic Mascot…
One of India’s most recognisable and loved mascots, Air India’s portly Maharajah with folded hands has held a special place in the hearts of its citizens for years.
“We can call him the Maharajah for want of a better description. But his blood isn’t blue. He may look like royalty, but he isn’t royal. He is capable of entertaining the Queen of England and splitting a beer with her butler. He is a man of many parts: lover boy, sumo wrestler, pavement artist, vendor of naughty post cards, Capuchin monk, Arab merchant…”
These are the words of Bobby Kooka, the man who conceived Air India’s Maharajah nearly 72 years ago. One of India’s most recognisable and loved mascots, this portly figure in regal garb has held a special place in the hearts of its citizens for years.
Here’s the fascinating story of Air India’s iconic Maharajah.
A part of Air India’s campaign to distinguish itself from its peers, the jovial and rotund Maharajah first made his appearance on an in-flight memo pad in the mid-1940s. He was conceived by SK (Bobby) Kooka, who was then a Commercial Director with Air India and sketched by Umesh Rao, an artist at J Walter Thompson in Bombay.
Back then, India was known as the “Land of the Maharajas” and Air India was its only international carrier, flying to destinations such as Cairo, Prague, Damascus, Zurich and Istanbul. So Kooka wanted to create an illustration for Air India’s letterhead that would symbolise graciousness and elegant living.
For the next few years, the Maharajah was ingeniously used by India’s national airline to introduce new flight routes. His funny antics and quirky puns also allowed Air India to promote its services with subtle humour and unmatched panache.
For instance, one of the posters from Air India’s “retro collection” shows the Maharajah as a Russian Kalinka dancer to advertise its flight to Moscow. Another one shows him on a speedboat surfing in Australia with the boat replaced by two mermaids. Yet another one shows him being carried as a prey, hands and feet tied, by two lions in the jungles of Nairobi.
Here are some iconic posters that show the Maharajah in his quirky avatars, looking quite at home in famous locations around the world.
Photo Source: Air India on Imgur.
Unsurprisingly, the Maharajah has won numerous national and international awards for Air India for originality in advertising and publicity.
Interestingly, at one point in time, the mascot’s regal connotations triggered a controversy with politicians expressing doubts about using such a symbol to represent a nation with socialist aspirations. As a result, Air India did away with the Maharajah in 1989. But there was such a hue and cry from various quarters that the popular mascot had to be brought back.
In fact, during these years, Maharajah stickers and dolls were common in most middle-class Indian homes, even those where air travel was considered a luxury!
So like all great men, the Maharajah has had his critics. But the millions of travellers who love him far outnumber them. For many of them, the inimitable mascot is a real person, almost like a friend who reaches out with warmth and hospitality, even to the farthest corners of the world.
As Rahul Da Cunha, the ad man behind the equally iconic Amul India campaign, once said,
“The Amul girl and the Air India Maharaja are the most brilliant characters ever created. The Maharaja encapsulates everything Air India should be: Indian luxury, hospitality, services and above all, royalty. It is royalty combined with humility. What can be a more iconic symbol for an Indian carrier?”
Source….SanchariPal
http://www.the better india.com
Natarajan
Joke of the Day…” Stand alone …” !!!
One day a college professor of Psychology was greeting his new college class.
He stood up in front of the class and said, “Would everyone who thinks he or she is stupid please stand up?”
After a minute or so of silence, a young man stood up.
Well, good morning. So, you actually think you’re a moron?” the professor asked.
The kid replied, “No sir, I just didn’t want to see you standing there all by yourself.”
Source….www.ba-ba mail.com
Natarajan
Message for the Day…” Whatever you see and whomever you come across, consider every form as nothing but the manifestation of Divinity. Do not give scope for differences of ‘I’ and ‘you’”
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If you want to see God, you should firmly believe that you are not the body. To identify yourself with the body is but an illusion. All that is seen outside is only a reflection and is not the reality. Whatever you see and whomever you come across, consider every form as nothing but the manifestation of Divinity. Do not give scope for differences of ‘I’ and ‘you’. Wherever you see, everything in God’s creation is reaction, reflection and resound. You look into a mirror and say that you are in the mirror. In fact, you are not in the mirror. It is only your reflection that appears in the mirror. When you go behind the hill and shout “Hello”, you will immediately hear someone shouting at you with the same intensity. In fact that voice belongs to you only, not to anyone else. Whatever you see outside is the reflection of your inner being. Source….http://media.radiosai.org/ Natarajan |
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