A click from the Hotel Terrace at Coimbatore …. on the evening of 19th June 2019….Thanks to my Mobile camera
K.Natarajan
21st June 2019
India
வாரம் ஒரு கவிதை ….” கண்டெடுப்பின் காலக் குறிப்புகள் “
கண்டெடுப்பின் காலக் குறிப்புகள்
=================================
கடலில் மட்டும் முத்துக்கள் இல்லை
இந்த மண்ணின் அடியிலும் புதைந்து
கிடக்குது நம் முன்னோர் வடிவமைத்த
நகரமும் கோயிலும் அழகு சிற்பங்களுடன்
காலத்தால் அழியாத அடையாள சின்னமாய் !
எந்த தொழில் நுட்பம் இருந்தது நம் முன்னோருக்கு
அன்று ? ஆண்டுகள் பல கடந்தும் அவர் பேர்
சொல்லுதே இன்னும் !
கணிணி யுகத்தில் வாழும் நாம் முறையாக
பதிவு செய்ய வேண்டும் நம் நாட்டின்
அருமை பெருமையை ஒரு பொக்கிஷமாக !
விட்டு செல்ல வேண்டும் நம் பெயர் சொல்லும்
பாத சுவடுகளை இனி வரும் தலை முறை
பின் தொடர்ந்து நடக்க !
இனம் மதம் மொழி தாண்டி நாம் இன்று
பதிக்கும் பாத சுவடு கல்லில் வடித்த சிற்பமாய்
அடையாளம் காட்டும் நம் புனித மண்ணை
ஒரு புதிய பூமியாக என்றென்றும் !
K.Natarajan in http://www.dinamani.com dated 01/06/2019
01/06/2019
30-Yr-Old Gomathi Stuns Everyone, Creates History By Winning India’s First Gold At Asian Athletics Championships
The second day at the 23rd Asian Athletics Championships ended on a high note for India. Months of hard work, grit, determination and practice finally paid off for unheralded half miler Gomathi Marimuthu and shot putter Tejinderpal Singh Toor. Both of them clinched a gold medal each. By the end of Monday, India’s medal tally stood at 2 gold, 3 silver and 5 bronze.
For the 30-year-old athlete, this was her first major win at an international stage. She ran her way, all the way from the back of the pack, just to stun the crowd by winning the 800m race. Gomathi clocked a personal best time of 2 minutes 02.70 seconds in the half-mile event to win a gold for India. Recently, her previous best (2:03.21) was the golden run at the Federation Cup at Patiala.
Years of intense struggle
For Gomathi, it has been ten long years of intense struggle. As a farmer’s daughter, she had only started professionally running when she was 20. “I did not realise until I crossed the finish line that I won a gold medal. The last 150m was a very tight race,” she said. This was only the third international event for Gomathi. While she has always been interested in sports, it was her friend Shruthi from Holy Cross College in Trichy, who inspired her to take it up seriously.
“When I was growing up, there was no one to tell me that I can make a living out of sports. I never understood the significance until I joined college. I just wanted to get a job and support my family,” she told The New Indian Express.
The only one to go to college among two other siblings, Gomathi landed a job with the Income Tax department in Bengaluru and started training regularly. Her intense hard work got recognised as she got selected for the Asian Championships in Pune in 2013. That year, she had finished seventh in the 800m final and two years later, at the same event in China, she finished fourth.
While Gomathi dreamed of clinching the gold next time around, tragedy struck her family. In September of 2016, her father passed away due to colon cancer and in December, Gomathi suffered groin injury. With a few months time, her coach, Gandhi died of a heart attack. “I had no one to train me. I had to provide for the family as well,” she lamented. An injury is the worst that can happen to an athlete who started as late as Gomathi. She had to wait for almost two years before she could train again, however, she was unstoppable.
Getting back up
Since the beginning of 2019, Gomathi started participating in various state and national level championships, At the Federation Cup in March, an event that served as a selection trial for Doha, she finished first. While her timing was good enough to fetch a gold at the 2017 Asian Championship in Bhubaneswar, due to her long absence from the field, Athletics Federation of India asked her to appear in another round of trials in Patiala a few days ago, where she was given a green signal to represent India at the Championship in Doha.
Gomathi’s story is truly inspirational, just like her performance at the 800m run. While she has scripted history, it is her never-say-die attitude which helped Gomathi through tougher times. The Logical Indianapplauds her determination and her achievement at such a prestigious world forum.
Source……..www.thelogicalindian.com
Natarajan
IconsOfIndia: Murphy Radio & the Baby That Got All of India Glued to News!!!
This Republic Day, we take a look at the iconic objects that collectively defined the Indian experience over the past 68 years. From things that brought the world to our living rooms to tasty treats, take a nostalgic journey down memory lane!
Members of the Joshi family would gather around their prized possession at 7 every evening. The main door of the house was open–it wouldn’t be long before the neighbouring kids, their parents and maybe even grandparents joined the regular party.
A beautifully knit blue-green cover protects the wooden radio box which is only taken off when the radio is switched on and tuned in. One member of the family reaches the top shelf to pull out the long antenna of the radio and turns the two knobs till the radio frequency sets perfectly.
In the 1960s and 70s, when the television was still a rich man’s luxury, it was Murphy Radio that brought people together.
Although the radio set was a device even the upper-middle-class boasted on owning, it was still more accessible and affordable than the TV.
The Murphy Radio was founded by Frank Murphy and E J Power in 1929. The radio company had manufactured sets for the British Armed Forces to use during the Second World War, but they aimed to make radio sets “a homely gadget”, one that did not need military expertise to operate.
In a 1931 advertisement, Murphy had said, “Your wireless set should not be a “gadget” which only “Father” can work. It should be something which can be used and enjoyed by everybody in the family. That is why, I made it my business to see that all Murphy sets are extremely simple to use, cheap to maintain and always reliable. The constant high standard of reproduction is an outstanding feature of all Murphy sets.”
Although the founder left his company in 1937 to establish another called the Frank Murphy Radio or FM Radio, the name ‘Murphy’ stayed.
This brand debuted in Indian households in 1948–just a year after we got independence and even before we became a republic!
Immediately, it became a popular source of news and entertainment.
Jyoti Sohini, a 70-year-old homemaker from Pune, fondly recollects the ‘Murphy days’. “It was a very popular brand in those days. The Murphy Baby calendar especially was very famous. The radio set was a common possession where I lived, but even then, there would be a huge crowd at our place, eager to listen to the cricket commentary,” she tells The Better India.
Adding to the programmes that they listened to in that era, Jyoti says Radio Ceylon, Binaca Geetmala, Vividh Bharati and Pune Kendra (a local news bulletin) were popular.
Much like this family in Pune, India fell in love with the brand and its adorable mascot–the Murphy baby or Murphy Munna. Print ads featured the chubby-cheeked Rinpoche, looking inquisitively, with a finger placed near his lip, instantly garnering the adoration of Indian families.
The three-year-old Kagyur Tulku Rinpoche fascinated many mothers or expectant mothers of that era. For millennials like me, the perfect reference point is Anurag Basu’s 2012 film, Barfi, where Ranbir Kapoor’s reel life mother names him after the Murphy because “Murphy Munna jaisa lalla, Amma ka tha sapna” (Mother wanted a baby just like the Murphy’s).
Speaking to the Hindustan Times about this shot to fame, Rinpoche said, “I was three years old and used to reside in Manali. Everyone in Manali knew about the ad.
The makers wanted me in the ad, as the original Murphy baby who was a girl, had died. They were looking for someone identical.”
Rinpoche went on to become a monk for about 20 years before marrying Mandakini, an actress. But that is a story for another time.
Much like Rinpoche, Mohammed Rafi composed a tagline jingle for the brand to attract more customers.
“Murphy ghar ghar ki rounak, tarah tarah ke Murphy radio, la deten hain ghar mein jaan (Murphy is the pride of homes, different kinds of Murphys bring life to the home),” played as an advertisement while superstars like Sharmila Tagore, featured in print ads.
68-year-old Kamlesh Chawla speaks to The Print about his childhood when he threw a tantrum to get a Murphy Radio after the Sharmila Tagore ad.
Catchy phrases that spoke of the Murphy Radio as something that “delights the home” and “sets the standard” added to the aspirational sentiment.
Kamlesh says, “I used to be a calm child. But I can only recall one instance where I had cried for many days insisting [that] my father buy a radio. He bought the radio set on Diwali. I still have a memory of placing the radio right next to the black-and-white Keltron TV set in our sitting room.”
Writing for the Caleidoscope, Levine Lawrence says, “Those were the glory days of BBC, Voice of America, Radio Moscow and our own All India Radio. Vividh Bharati, the colourful movie songs and trivia programme was transmitted by the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation due to a ban on film songs on Akashvani!”
Eventually, the radio gave way for black-and-white TV, which in turn, was replaced by the colour TV and now, the Internet.
Even as we surf the web to find such fascinating stories about the times and technologies of the past, the simplicity of the radio and the magnificent events it covered–right from Nehru declaring India’s independence in the speech that still gives us goosebumps to the wars that India fought later–can hardly be replaced.
(Edited by Shruti Singhal)
Source……Tanvi Patel in http://www.the better india.com
Natarajan
My Story: “I Played Role Of Involuntary Clown,” An Inspiring Story Of Blind IAS Officer…
“A conservative estimate of disabled in India is over 2% of the population. Most of them are fighting silent battles every moment and achieving small wins every day.
Belonging to this community, I feel happy and privileged to be recognised and appreciated to such an extent in the past few months. And at the same time with the existence of the likes of Louis Braille, Helen Keller and many more, I feel humbled.
I have always believed the word “handicap” is a union of two positive words handy and cap, both denote a sense of support. As being handy for someone and as a cap, playing the role of shade in the bright sunlight or taking the hits of crashing raindrops.
I was born in a nondescript village called Choudanakuppe in Tumkuru District of Karnataka and attended my village school till Class 4.
Very early, I began facing certain difficulties in reading the blackboard but as a child, I couldn’t comprehend it (the problem). Both my parents were illiterate, busy making ends meet and struggling with my brother who was losing mobility in his legs.
So call it fate and neglect, I lost my vision completely by the time I was 9.
This was a shock to my family and they tried getting me treatment but to no avail. Luckily my uncle made me join a school for the blind in Mysore and I restarted school.
For a freshly blind child, I needed to adapt to develop the orientation before the society relegated me to a position of losers. I had my share of embarrassments from not being able to find a path to the restroom and unable to bear severity of nature’s call I sometimes attended to it in corridors and classes, much to the disgust of people around me. I played the role of an involuntary clown who couldn’t understand the coordinates of normal clothing – wearing it inside out and upside down. But soon I went on to top the class, I got the badge of honour. I completed my education until class 10 in the same school in Mysore; I still choke with emotion when I think of all the years spent there.
I completed graduation where I met my future wife Achintha, my steadfast support through everything. I subsequently went on to find a job. But despite having a job an unsatisfaction brewed in me and I decided to take the UPSC plunge. My wife dedicated close to 10 hours a day just for my preparation, she would read out to me, make audio notes.
I have been told I have come far in life, but one never should forget where one came from. In my mind, the showreel of my frail mother making numerous trips to get a disability certificate and spending Rs 50 on it makes me jolt up even today.
But I tell this story not to jolt you – I tell it because I want to tell each one of you to never stop aspiring and never give up.”
Story By – Kempahonnaiah | IAS 2017 Batch | West Bengal Cadre
Source…
From our friends at
Humans of Lbsnaa in http://www.thelogicalindian.com
Natarajan
Sweden to India: How a Cup of Masala Chai Fuelled IKEA’s Journey to Hyderabad!….
Known as the world’s largest furniture dealer, IKEA has finally set up its first-ever India store in Hyderabad. All thanks to a humble cup of chai!
Founded in 1943 by Swede Ingvar Kamprad and headquartered in the Netherlands, furniture giant IKEA makes revenue worth €38.3 billion with 411 outlets in 49 countries.
Deemed as the world’s largest furniture dealer, IKEA has finally set up it
s first-ever store on a 13-acre campus in HITEC city Hydearbad.
And while the numerous conversations CEO of IKEA India Juvencio Maeztu had with Indian biggies may be credited for the 2012 plan to finally take shape, there is a backstory many aren’t aware of. It’s how the 48-year-old bossman who relocated from London to Delhi’s NCR Region found a home away from home. All over a cup of masala chai.
It was 2012. Juvencio Maeztu had only arrived in India as the CEO of IKEA India. The switch from London to the bustling city of the National Capital Region was anything but easy.
Speaking to the Economic Times, the 48-year-old recalls, “I had many concerns. I am too small, and India is too big. Could I understand India, its size, its complexity and diversity? Will my European roots constrain me?”
His mind was clouded with doubts, but he had far more important matters to attend. For instance, his morning appointment at the FRRO (Foreigners Regional Registration Office) in Delhi. And he needed a passport-size photograph.
And so, his driver drove through the lanes of NCR, before making a halt at one of the many hole-in-the-wall photography studios. The one they stopped at was run by an old gentleman.
He just had to take a photograph and be on his way. How much time could it possibly take? He couldn’t be late for his appointment.
And so, the CEO entered the shop and asked the man, “Can you take my photo?”
“Yes,” came the reply.
“How long will it take?” Maeztu asked hesitantly
“Five minutes,” the man said.
The photo was clicked. But the wait for the 5 min – ‘N’ copies of the photograph dragged on for over 15 minutes. The printer was old and dusty, takes time to warm up, the man told him.
But he was quick to offer him – “Masala chai?” he asked.
“No” came the curt reply. Even as the man struggled with the printer, he kept persuading Maeztu to drink a cup of chai. An exasperated Maeztu gave him a brusque, “No”.
It was at this time that the photographer asked, “Sir, what’s the point of life if you cannot enjoy a masala chai for five minutes?”
“Something clicked,” Maetzu told the publication. He moved to take a seat, drank the cup of masala chai. The appointment was forgotten, and the two men chatted for over an hour that day.
He may have missed his FRRO appointment, but Maetzu says, “That was the moment I connected with India. It was a turning point.”
He had finally found a home away from home.
After a long wait of six years, IKEA has now made its debut in India.
While land has been acquired in Gurugram, Bengaluru and Mumbai, the retail stores will only come up in the next few years. With a staff strength of 535 and an investment of Rs 10,500 crore, the furniture giant is here to make it big reported the publication. The current number of employees though is estimated to be around 950 people directly, about 1500 at its store in Hyderabad and aims to hire another 15,000 employees as it expands its operations.
“We are here for the long term. We think of 100 years when we think of our strategy. I have taken no shortcuts. More importantly, I have had no pressure (from the headquarters) to take shortcuts. In the next 100 years, the sheer size of India makes it important. There are other super big reasons. India is challenging us to find better ways to do business. This is a market you need to learn and not come into with an attitude that you know everything,” he said.
The vision is to also have over 25 stores and 20,000 employees in India by 2030.
The report adds how India is the first market where IKEA is rolling out a multi-channel retail online and offline strategy from day one. It is also planning to explore the use of eco-friendly raw materials like bamboo, coconut waste, water hyacinth and recycled PET.
Apart from working with over 80,000 farmers to boost cotton production, it is also helping skill 1,200 women artisans with the UNDP under its programme ‘Disha’ and boost employment from underprivileged communities.
Seems like a journey that began with one cup of masala chai came a long way after all!
Source….Jovita Aranha
http://www.thebetterindia.com
Mail Delivery By Rockets…..
The history of the postal system is inextricably tied to the history of transport. Advances in transportation technology have not only allowed people to travel farther and explore more territory, it also allowed the postal system to expand their influence over a larger area. As new inventions and discoveries shortened the time of travel, messages and letters began to reach distant recipients in lesser time, and the postal system became more efficient. By the time the first trans-pacific airmail was delivered, the postal service had tried every mode of transport available to man, including rockets.
The cover of a rocket mail delivered in the state of Sikkim, India, on 28 September, 1935. Photo credit:regencystamps.com 
The earliest type of missile mail was one which you’ve probably seen in historical movies where a parchment is wrapped around the shaft of an arrow and shot through the air into a castle or enemy territory. A more modern version of the idea was presented to an astonished audience by a German poet and dramatist, Heinrich von Kleist, through a newspaper article in 1810. At that time rocketry was still in its infancy. Rockets of that age were gunpowder powered and were primarily used as artillery in battlefields. Kleist amused himself by calculating that a rocket could deliver a letter from Berlin to Breslau, a distance of 180 miles, in half a day or one-tenth of the time required by a horse mounted carrier.
Kleist’s theory was put into practice on the small Polynesian island of Tonga, halfway around the world, by a British inventor, Sir William Congreve, using rockets he designed. But the rockets were so unreliable that the idea of using them in mail delivery was summarily dismissed, and no further thought was put into it until nearly a century later, when Hermann Julius Oberth, a German physicist and engineer and one of the founding fathers of rocketry, revisited the topic in 1927.
Hermann Oberth (center, in profile) demonstrates his tiny liquid-fuel rocket engine in Berlin in 1930. Photo credit: National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution
In June 1928, Professor Oberth delivered a convincing lecture on the occasion of the annual meeting of the Scientific Society of Aeronautics in Danzig, where he proposed the development of small rockets with automatic guidance that could carry urgent mail over distances of 600 to 1,200 miles. Professor Oberth’s lecture generated a great deal of interest throughout the world, and even the American ambassador to Germany took note. But it was a young Austrian engineer that became a pioneer in this field.
Living in the Austrian Alps, the young engineer Friedrich Schmiedl was well aware of the fact that mail delivery was extremely painful between mountain villages. What could be an eight hour walk between two villages could be only two miles apart as the rocket flies. Friedrich Schmiedl was already experimenting with solid-fuel rockets, and in 1928 undertook experiments with stratospheric balloons. After several unsuccessful attempts, Schmiedl launched the first rocket mail in 1931 and delivered 102 letters to a place five kilometers away. The rocket was remotely controlled and landed using a parachute. His second rocket delivered 333 letters.
Schmiedl’s rocket mails inspired several other countries such as Germany, England, the Netherlands, USA, India and Australia to conduct similar experiments with varying degree of success. In 1934, in an attempt to demonstrate to the British the viability of his rocket delivery system, a German businessman named Gerhard Zucker loaded a rocket with 4,800 pieces of mail and launched it from an island in Scotland. Government officials watched as the rocket soared into the sky and exploded, scattering scorched letters all over the beach like confetti. After his failed demonstration, Zucker was deported back to Germany where he was immediately arrested on suspicion of espionage or collaboration with Britain.
Experiments on rocket mail were largely successful in India, where a pioneering aerospace engineer named Stephen Smith perfected the techniques of delivering mail by rocket. Between 1934 and 1944, Smith made 270 launches, at least 80 of which contained mail. Smith created history when he delivered by rocket the first food package containing rice, grains, spices and locally-made cigarettes to the earthquake wracked region of Quetta, now in Pakistan, across a river. Later, Smith tied a cock and a hen together to one of his rockets and launched the frightened birds across another river. Both birds survived the trip and were donated to a private zoo in Calcutta after their ordeal. His next parcel contained a snake and an apple.
Despite his quirky nature and questionable choice of payload, Stephen Smith was wholeheartedly supported by the Maharaja of Sikkim, a British Protectorate in the eastern Himalayas, where he carried most of his rocket experiments.
A 1934 Indian Rocket Mail. Photo credit: www.stampcircuit.com
Another Indian Rocket Mail from 1934. Photo credit: www.stampcircuit.com
Things didn’t really took off in the US until 1959, when the Post Office Department fired a Regulus cruise missile with its nuclear warhead replaced by two mail containers, towards a Naval Station in Mayport, Florida. The 13,000-pound missile lifted off with 3,000 letters and twenty-two minutes later struck the target at Mayport, 700 miles away. The letters were retrieved, stamped and circulated as usual.
All 3,000 letters were copies of the same written by the Postmaster General. Each crew member of the submarine that launched the missile received a copy of the letter, so did President Eisenhower and other US leaders as well as postmasters from around the world.
“The great progress being made in guided missilery will be utilized in every practical way in the delivery of the United States mail,” the letter read. “You can be certain that the Post Office Department will continue to cooperate with the Defense Department to achieve this objective.”
The successful delivery of the mails prompted Postmaster Summerfield to enthusiastically declare that “before man reaches the moon, mail will be delivered within hours from New York to California, to Britain, to India or Australia by guided missiles.”
But it was not to be. The cost of rocket mail was too high—that little experiment with the Regulus cruise missile cost the US government $1 million, but generated only $240 in revenue by sale of postage stamps. Neither the Post Office nor the Department of Defense could justify the cost of using missile mail, especially when airplanes were already making mail deliveries across the world in a single night at the fraction of a cost.
And that was the end of the program. No further attempts to deliver mail by rockets have been made since then.
Source….. Kaushik in http://www.amusing planet.com
Natarajan
Chennai’s pavement football stars….!!!
A Ganesh Nadar/Rediff.com meets Chennai’s all-girl street children football team who competed in the Street Child World Cup in Moscow.
Their home may be on a pavement, but their eyes are bright with hope for the future.
Helping them through their rough times is their love for football.
In fact, these Chennai lasses have recently returned from Moscow, where they participated in the Street Child World Cup and won one of the five matches they played.
Their happy smiles mask the hard lives they have led.
One of the girls has been rescued from a child marriage, another from a stainless steel vessels manufacturing factory.
Two had to cope with a drunk father while two were abandoned by their fathers.
Their strength to face their circumstances came from practising advocate Paul Sunder Singh.
Singh’s abiding desire to help Chennai’s street children resulted in Karunalaya in 1995.
His hard work was noticed by the state government and, three years later, they gave him a grant that would allow him to look after 50 children in a shelter. The home now has 60 children.
“We encourage sports. It teaches both competition and discipline,” says Singh, who has a doctorate in criminology.
“We want to give these children a normal childhood and games play an important role in this effort of ours.”
Karunalaya only shelters runaway children from Tamil Nadu; the others are sent back to their home state.
“The biggest problem these children face is that they don’t have birth certificates,” Singh says. “As a result, they don’t have community certificates either and cannot benefit from government aid or schemes.”
“We get them admitted to schools through the Right To Education Act, but the schools want birth certificates which we cannot provide. All they have is Aadhar cards as the government is pushing that. Sadly, the government does not consider our problems.”
IMAGE: The team won one of the five matches they played at the Street Child World Cup in Moscow. Photograph: Kind courtesy Karunalaya
The Street Child World Cup, which was first held 2010, takes place in the city hosting the FIFA World Cup before the much-watched international tournament begins.
India, this year, was represented by an all-girls team from Karunalaya.
This is their third International outing.
In 2014, they sent a boys team to Street Child World Cup in Rio de Janerio.
In 2016, they sent a team of five to participate in the first-ever Street Child Games, also held in Rio de Janerio.
This year’s participants
share their story in their own words.
IMAGE: The all-girl Karunalaya football team. Photograph: A Ganesh Nadar/Rediff.com
Sangeeta, 18
I came to this shelter as a child after I was rescued from a steel factory where I was working.
I don’t stay here now. I stay on the pavement at Waltax Road (near Chennai Central railway station) with my mother.
My father was a drunkard who abandoned us.
My elder brother is working and my younger brother is also being educated by Karunalaya.
I studied in a municipal school. In my 12th exams, I got 798/1200 marks.
I want to do BSc in physical education as I like games. Karunalaya is helping me to find a sponsor for my education.
I learnt football in the summer camps that Karunalya conducts.
Nirosha, 15
I study in Class 9.
I was working and looking after my two younger brothers when I was rescued and brought to Karunalaya.
I am here since two years. Before that, I used to stay on the pavement at Mint Street (in Chennai’s commercial centre, George Town).
My younger brothers also stay here.
I study in the Church of South India school.
I have been playing football for two years now.
My mother is a daily wage earner. My dad abandoned us years ago.
Lakshmi, 17
My parents are ragpickers.
They could not repay Rs 2,000 that they had borrowed from a moneylender so they tried to get me married to him.
I escaped to the house of a friend, who also on stayed on our pavement near Koyambedu market.
I was rescued from my friend’s place and brought here four years ago.
I scored 248/500 in my Class 10 exams. I have opted for the arts stream for Class 12.
Later, I want to study social science and become a social worker.
If I get the opportunity, I will continue to play football.
Indu, 14
Karunalaya volunteers used to give tuitions to poor students near my place; that’s how I came to know about them.
My father works and my mother is a housewife.
My elder brother is in college and my younger brother is in Class 7. My father pays for their education.
I have been playing football here since two years.
Every year, we have a tournament in which every street has its own team.
I was lucky to go to Moscow to play. It was a great experience.
Masiya, 14
I am studying in Class 10 and my brother is in Class 11.
I stay on a pavement at Kasimedu.
My father has left us. My mother is a house maid.
I have been playing football for two years.
In Moscow, we managed to get by with English, but some of the other teams spoke different languages.
The matches were played in a friendly atmosphere.
This was the first time I travelled by plane.
Tamilarasi, 14
I am in Class 10.
Karunalaya has been helping me for the last two years now.
My father is a drunkard. When my parents separated, I stayed with my mother.
I have been playing football since two years. I am a good defender so my position in the team is a fullback.
S Gomathi, 14
I study in Class 9.
I stay with my family.
I have been coming since 18 months to play football.
The trip to Moscow was fun. The food was very different, but it was tasty.
We were there for 10 days. We stayed in a nice hotel.
This was my first World Cup.
Every year, we have an inter-street tournament in Chennai. I play regularly. I love football.
Ishwari, 15
I am staying in this shelter since four years. My younger brother is here too.
I have two elder brothers who have started working.
I am studying in Class 10.
My father left us long ago. I have been playing football for three years.
Geeta, 15
I have been with Karunalaya since two-and-a-half years.
My father is a coolie in the market and my mother is a maid.
I am in Class 10 and, later, I want to study science.
I have been playing football since two years and this game is my future.
Source….Ganesh Nadar in http://www.rediff.com
Natarajan
A Woman of Many Firsts: Meet India’s First And Oldest Cardiologist!…
Stent, heart bypass surgery, heart attack…all of us have heard these painful terms amongst our loved ones at one time or another. But these were uncommon a generation ago.
So, what happened? How did we reach here?
In an attempt to understand the status of heart disease in India, Priyamvada Chugh reached out to India’s first and oldest cardiologist.
Meet Dr Sivaramakrishna Iyer Padmavati, who turns 101 this month, and still goes to the National Heart Institute in Delhi every day,which she founded in 1977.
Born in 1917, Dr Padmavati fled with her family from Burma to Coimbatore in 1941 during World War II. With the passion to make a difference, she studied medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital and Harvard Medical College in the USA with cardiology pioneers Dr Helen Taussig and Dr Paul Dudley White, respectively.
While returning to India in 1952 was a personal decision, it was the turning point for cardiology in India.
She has been the face behind several firsts:
- The establishment of the first cardiac clinic and cath lab at the Lady Hardinge Medical College, Delhi.
- The initiation of India’s first Doctorate of Medicine in Cardiology.
- Setting up cardiology departments at the prestigious Maulana Azad Medical College, GB Pant Hospital, etc.
- Founding the All India Heart Foundation, Delhi.
The list goes on. She accomplished all this in an era when cardiology was an unknown territory for most Indians, let alone for a woman.
To this Dr Padmavati says, “I pursued cardiology because there were very few courses available to women when I went to college, unlike today.” She was honoured with the Padma Bhushan in 1967 and the Padma Vibhushan in 1992 for her contributions to the field.
Having witnessed drastic changes in the incidence of heart disease in India over the last century, she says “Things were different earlier. Physical activity and a healthy diet were the norms. Now, times have changed.”
Burgers, fast food, and buttered paranthas, with eight hours of sitting in front of a computer, aren’t making things any better. As we move towards a machine-driven lifestyle characterised by increasing levels of stress, we invariably embrace unhealthy nutritional habits where heart diseases will only be on the rise.
Diseases of the heart have become the biggest killers of the modern times. According to reports from the World Health Organisation (WHO), heart diseases kill 17 million people around the world every year, and this figure is expected to rise to 23 million by 2030. The numbers are as horrific in India where 32% of all adult deaths are due to heart diseases.
Worryingly, heart disease in Indian youth is increasing rapidly, with 50% of all heart attacks occurring under 50 years of age and 25% occurring under 40 years of age.
So, what causes heart disease? Dr Padmavati answers, “The biggest reasons for heart disease are obesity, hypertension, diabetes and tobacco abuse.” High level of blood cholesterol is a common sign among obese people. Being a bad fat, cholesterol tends to get deposited in blood vessels, making them thinner and causing an increase in blood pressure, which weakens the heart.
Similarly, high salt intake also leads to increased blood pressure and eventually heart failure. Guidelines from the WHO recommend getting no more than 2.3 g of sodium a day, which is just one teaspoon of salt! As Indians, we are consuming almost twice that amount per day!
Another red flag for heart disease is high blood sugar, which gets converted to fat by the liver, raising the risk of heart disease. The American Heart Association suggests that we should consume less than 36 g of sugar per day, which is equivalent to just a single serving of a Rasgulla!
Can you imagine how many times the daily requirement of salt and sugar you have already consumed today? Studies show that exercising as little as 30 minutes every day decreases the risk of heart disease by up to 30%.
Limiting the intake of sugar and salt and increasing physical activity is the only way forward.
Another recommended strategy to strengthen our heart is by having at least 500 g of antioxidant-rich fresh fruits and vegetables such as tomatoes, pomegranates, spinach, grapes, etc. daily.
Several campaigns across the globe have been fighting these risk factors to reduce the incidence of heart disease. For instance, the Daily Mile Scheme, initiated in Scotland, is ensuring 15 minutes of morning run for school students across Europe. Norway has hiked the tax on sugar by 83% at the start of 2018, with products like candies and chocolates being taxed at almost $5 per kilo. In Finland, low-salt food options in the supermarket carry a “better choice” logo, and high salt foods have a mandatory warning sign.
In India, we neither have a sugar tax, nor a policy on salt consumption. So, for us Indians who worship food and love after-meal naps, it is time that we adopt something like Namak Cheeni Kam aur Exercize Zyada, karo apne Heart se ye Vaada (cut down your intake of sugar and salt and increase your exercise, make this promise for your heart).
Source….Health Heroes – This article is part of a series to celebrate some of India’s most amazing doctors and to understand the incredible work they are doing. http://www.the betterindia.com
Natarajan
From China to Chennai, meet three generations of dentists who are as Tamil as Chinese…
Their families moved to Chennai from Hubei province and set-up dental clinics in the Evening Bazaar in the 1930s.
The glass doors of the tiny dental clinic swing open to green tiles, wooden panels, lots of dental instruments and neatly stacked bottles and medicine packs. Dr Shieh Hung Sen is inside, dressed in a green linen shirt, attending to a patient with practised deftness, while directing his assistant Nila in flawless Chennai Tamil.
Dr Shieh, who is better known by his Christian name Albert Shieh, is a second-generation Chennaite of Chinese origin. He runs Dr Shieh’s Bright Smile, a 75-year-old clinic, the oldest among the 8 such compact Chinese dental studios dotting the sides of Evening Bazaar Road, Park Town.
“My parents moved from Hubei province in China to Madas some time before the World War II. The Chinese communists were forcibly recruiting people to the army. It was either abscond or die. So my parents along with 8 other families left in the cover of the night to Burma, from where they came to Chennai in boats,” says Albert.
His father, Saw Ma Seng, among others who fled the country, were traditional Chinese dentists who established their business in Park Town in the 1930s. Now, their children and grandchildren are running the operations.
“Dental colleges started in the city only around the 1950s. Yet, our fathers had set up thriving businesses way back in the ’30s and we sons took over when they passed on,” says Albert, who went on to a acquire degree in dentistry from Annamalai University, after finishing his schooling in Bishop Corrie School, Parrys.
Growing up in Chennai
As he reminisces of the Chennai of his youth, Albert, who specialises in denture making, prods open his patient’s mouth and fixes a perfect set of lower front dentures on his gums.
“The best days of my life in Chennai were my school days. We used to play cricket in the Park Town grounds until late evenings. I spoke English and Tamil with my friends group and at home we spoke Mandarin (Hubei dialect),” smiles Albert, who can also read and write Tamil. Albert also understands Malayalam, Telugu and Hindi, and even attempts speaking them occasionally.
“Today is Tamil New Year. You must be celebrating Vishu since you are a Malayali, right?” he asks this reporter with a smile.
Now married with two children, a son and a daughter, Albert reveals that his family speaks Tamil, Chinese and English at home.
“I got married to my wife, Hu Yu Kwan, who is from one of the families in the community itself. However, now the community is not as close-knit as we were, with the older generation passing on,” he says.
In his childhood, the families would get together every Chinese New Year and feast.
“The Chinese New Year’s Eve is a special day for us and the entire community gathers for a feast, which is a grand affair with Wuhan (Hubei cuisine) delicacies of Changyu fish and Sou Chin (stir fry) Chicken. It’s nothing like what you get in the Chinese restaurants in the city,” says Albert, who shares an equal and impartial love for south Indian cuisine too.
“Ïdly, dosa, sambhar and all other dishes I relish. My wife makes the best rasam and kaara kolambu, I feel. In fact, my son’s friends used to ask him if his mum was Tamilian or Chinese after tasting the lunches she used to pack for his school,” he adds with a shy smile.
Albert’s son, Joshua, is a practicing dentist in Canada and, interestingly, is married to a Tamil woman.
“When I was a kid, my mother used to threaten me that if I married outside of the community she would disown me. When I got married, I had a traditional two-day Chinese wedding and a church wedding. Now, times have changed; my daughter-in-law is Tamil and we had a register marriage along with a reception here in Chennai,” says Albert.
The family members are practicing Seventh Day Adventists who had earlier adopted Roman Catholicism. Over the years, many from the community have diverged to different denominations within Christianity.
In the next clinic, David Ma, also known as You Chang Ma, Albert’s nephew, is a Jehovah’s Witness and runs Venfa, a clinic started by his father. Unlike Albert, David belongs to the third generation of the Chinese diaspora settled in the city.
“I don’t have many ties to Hubei. All my life I have known this city. My favourite food is the karuvattu kolambu or the dried fish that you get here. I’m married to an Indian girl, who is from Sikkim. In fact, I had an arranged marriage and went all the way to Sikkim to find my wife, since they look similar to us,” David says with a chuckle.
From Kung fu to Kollywood
Emphasising that they don’t watch Chinese films but for the occasional Jackie Chan Kung fu movie that is released in Chennai, Albert and David reveal that they enjoy Tamil cinema, especially the songs.
“I love old Tamil songs. There are some beautiful songs from Mudhal Mariyathai,” says David as he hums ‘Poongatre’ from the Sivaji Ganesan-starrer.
While David had no qualms about breaking into song, his uncle is more of a closet musician.
“He is usually singing all the time. He loves SPB and sings very well,” his assistant Nila tells TNM.
Albert is a fan of Suriya too and says he is excited about Kamal Haasan’s entry into politics. Apart from this, the dentist also boasts of a few famous friends from the industry.
“Prabhu, Sarathkumar and drummer Sivamani are all my close friends. I became close Prabhu and Sarathkumar as an athlete in school when we met at an inter-school sports competition. We meet once in a while when I am in town,” says Albert, who migrated to Canada with his wife a few months ago and shuttles between Chennai and Ontario.
The future
The Chinese clinics like Albert’s and David’s cater to the local population in Park Town.
“We have a thriving business and clients who have been consulting us and our fathers before us. They trust us and we have sort of established a brand here in Chennai,” says David.
Although many of their relatives have migrated to the US, Canada and other parts of the world, David and Albert remain rooted to the city.
“Although I keep going to Canada, I can’t let go of my business here and most of the year I’m in Chennai,” says Albert.
And despite this mass migration to several parts of the world, none of the Chinese in Chennai have returned to their home province of Hubei.
“I once visited China on a packaged tour with my wife. We couldn’t visit our native place as we couldn’t break away from the others.I have a few cousins there and I hope to visit them once in my lifetime,” says Albert.
However, Chennai remains in their hearts even as they search for better prospects elsewhere.
“I have never felt like an outsider. Chennai has and will always remain one of the most welcoming cities here. My sentiments for this city, in IPL language would be Namma Chennai-ku oru whistle podu,” David concludes with a grin.
Source…… https://www.thenewsminute.com
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