Spare the Rod and…….Spoil the Fast Food companies

In case some of you have missed the controvercial news about 10 days back, here is a brief update:
Several popular Fast Food selling brands were tested by CSE(Centre for Science & Environment, headed by Sunita Narain) for the accuracy of their claims on the contents shown on the label. The findings confirmed some of my worst fears about the claims of these well known brands.The famous culprits are: Nestle(selling Maggi Noodles), Pepsi(selling ‘Snack Smart’), Haldiram(selling Aloo Bhujia) and Nissin Foods,Japa(selling Top Ramen Noodles). And What are they guilty of? False claims with regard to contents of sugar, salt and Trans fat. The magnitude of their unethical false claims can be gauged by the consequences on the health of the GEN X. For the uninitiated, the serious consequences are the following:
Excessive SUGAR: Diabetes & Obesity
Excessive Salt SALT: Blood Pressure
Transfat: Blocks in the Heart arteries.
A detailed report is provided in the link from The Times Of India.

Indian companies have traditionally indulged in quality and system manipulations. For instance consider the ISO quality systems. ISO started off with a lot of fanfare in the 90s. People thought this would ultimately put an end to all our quality ills. On the contrary many Indian Companies, while paying only lip service to quality and systems, mastered the art of showing compliance to Systems. Indian Companies know how to outsmart the auditors by creating documents and records just before the auditors arrived!

All companies have quality control departments. They are in fact quality manipulating departments. Total Quality Management,TQM, in India, stands for Total Quality Manipulation! Unfortunately, even MNCs, who are known to care for quality overseas, started playing the game in India on Indian terms. What are the reasons?:
1. This is the only way to compete with Indians on the Indian soil. They have to build their famous brands in India by hook or crook through misbranding & misinformation
2. More importantly, where are the product liability laws in India? There is no legislation on food labels nor is there any cap on contents of forbiddent items. Therefore, companies making false claims virtually go scotfree.
3. Companies know there is no chance whatsoever of losing name and fame by occasional reports from CSE. Companies can contest the results and get away because the claims and counterclaims are not put to close scrutiny. At worst, there would be a heated TV debate, which is promptly forgotten by consumers within a short time.
4. Finally, there is no public awareness on these issues. How many people understand, for instsnce, what is trans-fat or saturated fat etc.
There is a growing affluent middle class waiting to gobble up and experiment whatever fast food is offered. But the tragedy is that the same affluence that has given them access to junk foods, can prove to be a curse, as it can transform our youth into unhealthy adults suffering from Obesity, Diabetes and Hypertension.
The solution lies in consumer activism. Imagine what will happen if, for instance, all the consumers unitedly decide to boycott fast foods sold in the market for just a couple of weeks? By doing so, there is no doubt that the consumers can bring even the mighty MNCs to their knees. For this to happen, however, more organizations like CSE will have to campaign to create awareness among the lay public.

Restless Minds and Imaginary Fears

Here is a funny story I heard on a TV channel recently. The story beautifully depicts how our restless minds work.
Two guys were travelling in a train – one is an elderly person and the other a young chap. Wanting to strike up a conversation, the young chap asked, ‘What is the time sir?’

The elderly man responded: “I know this is how it all starts. As the train chugs along, we will start talking on politics – then start discussions on some stupid films, share breakfast- which will result in more intimacy. That is not all, by the time we are ready to get off the train, we would become extremely close.Then naturally, I would invite you home for a cup of coffee – you would see my daughter……And propose to get married to her”.
After a little pause, there comes the final punch from the elderly person: “Let me tell you upfront that I am NOT going to give my consent to the marriage!”.
Young chap kept his cool all the while but was curious to know why he wouldn’t give his consent to marry his daughter.
Much to the chagrin of the young man, the elderly person replied : “Why should I give my daughter in marriage to a guy who doesn’t even possess a watch?”

Isn’t it a fact that very often our minds are full of imaginary fears based on mere suspicions and assumptions?

On Water

If I were to ask you to pump water using a hand pump for 3 hours to fill a one-litre PET bottle, would you do it? Surely, no. You will be surprised to know that this is the amount of energy (5 mega joules to be precise) required to make a new PET bottle, purify water and ship it. By the way, this is also more than 1000 times the energy needed to simply filter and pump a litre of water. (Manufacture of PET bottle constitutes most of the energy consumed).
Let me give you a few more examples of how we waste our precious water resource. From farm to plate, a steak gobbles up a staggering 1550 litres of water! And how much water does one cup of Americano coffee swallow? An unimaginable 280 litres. I am sure it won’t be very different with our Indian version of coffee from CAFE COFFEE DAY.
What is the amount of water consumed by a pair of jeans before it reaches our ward robe? 3600 litres approximately and about 50% of that is used for the production of cotton. Considering that cotton is the world’s largest non-food crop, It’s a significant amount of water being wasted worldwide.(I gathered that about 40 litres of water is used by LEVIS for the finishing operations alone to get that perfect texture. The company is now planning to come up with innovations to reduce its water footprint). So, when you shop for your next pair of Jeans, think again!

Now consider fresh water consumption pattern across the world.In South Africa, I believe, metres are being installed to ration 25 litres of water per person per day. Against that, an average American uses 575 litres, while the consumption by a British is 150 litres. Israel uses 7.5 times more water than palestinians though their population is less than half of Palestinians.
In India, though we may not have statistics of this kind, there sure must be huge gaps in water consumption figures between the rich and the poor.

P.S:This post is based on an article which appeared in NATURE,17TH NOV,2011.P297. The article reviews some of the exhibits presented in an EXHIBITION held in Dublin last year.

How To Tell a Story

Here is an interesting illustration on how to tell a story.(This is something I heard on a Telugu TV channel):
A sage visits a king on invitation and was all set to start his narration of the great epic Mahabharata. Following is the conversation between the Sage & the king.
Sage: Listen to the following story of Mahabharata
King: How long will it take?
Sage: 18 years
King: why?
Sage:Because it has one lac five thousand slokas;
The king pleads with the sage and says: Have pity on me. I am a king with a lot of responsibilities. Can you make it shorter?
Sage: ok; then listen to only one ‘parva’ – aranya parva?
King: Good – how long will that take?
Sage: 10 years
King protests again and says: Pray, tell me – can you shorten it further since I have a busy schedule
Sage: Alright – Listen to just one ‘Upaparva’, which will still take 5 years
As the king protests again, the sage says: okay; I will explain just half a ‘sloka’.
The King is overjoyed.
The sage, translating the first half of the sloka says: There are two supremely ignorant fools(AJNANIS)in the world.
King: By any chance, are you referring to the two of us because one is trying to tell a story to an unwilling listener and the other is refusing to listen to a great epic.
Sage: There are two greater fools than us- one is Ravana and the other is Duryodhana.
Having thus completed half the ‘sloka’, the sage gets up to take leave.
King: Is that all?
Sage: Yes- that is all. That completes my half a sloka
King: No Sir; please go on and complete the story- I’m curious to know more about these two great fools.
The sage now takes the opportunity and narrates both the epics in detail.

Thus the king who resists listening to one ‘purana’, ends up listening to two, thanks to the sage’s clever ploy to arouse the former’s curiosity and interest about the ignorant fools.

Come to think of it, isn’t it true that the stories of negative characters are always more interesting than those of people endowed with all virtues? In fact it is because of the existence of such fools and wicked characters that the virtues of noble men stand out.
J Krishnamoorthy gives a somewhat similar message when he says – Understand and become aware of disorder & negativity in your mind, you will get insights into Order instantly. Similarly, Search for peace starts with understanding violence.

Dirty Picture(s)

Sorry, this post is not about Vidyabalan’s latest film. As you might have guessed, the pictures are straight from our Housing Society in Mumbai a few hours after Holi celebrations. One can see plastic waste strewn all over the premises.

Doesn’t it look like a Municipal dump yard. Need I say more? Pictures tell the story by themselves. And if one considers the fact that the society consists of people who are above middle class with moderate to good education background, it is even more depressing. And I am sure this is the state of affairs in almost all societies in Mumbai on the Holi day. The Society premises remain dirty like this till a guy(sweeper) comes along and cleans up the mess on the following day.
None of the guys who created the mess would do any cleaning up.
Who is more civilized – the illiterate sweeper who cleans the place or the educated class?
When I raised the issue with one of the residents, his typical helpless reaction was – ” We are like that only”. I was not amused.
Given this scenario, do we deserve a cleaner administration or governance at any level?

The Body – Mind Conundrum

How do you react to the following statements:
- He Smiled and that triggered his happiness
- He felt cold which led to a feeling of loneliness
- He was feeling warm an therefore felt friendly
You will rubbish such statements saying the guy is out of his mind and is simply confused between the cause and the effect. Our conventional wisdom clearly establishes supremacy of the Mind over our Body. Right? We are all taught that Mind and Mind alone controls the Body – that is, first the mind feels the emotion and then it is transmitted to the body which is shown up as the corresponding movement or gesture. But consider the following recent astonishing findings from Neurology on how our Body influences the Mind:
In a recent paper published in the famous American Journal NEW SCIENTIST(15 October2011), it has been claimed that our entire body is actively involved in the thinking process. Mind no more enjoys the monopoly of thinking! It is influenced in many ways by the body. The mind is constantly receiving information from the body. And this information surely does influence the way the mind processes the information.
For instance, does happiness cause a smile or the other way around? Studies show that the physical sensation of smiling triggers a happy feeling! Thus it seems that physical sensations are closely associated with emotions. There are more examples. When we feel cold, it seems, we feel lonely or alternatively our bodily warmth is linked to a feeling of friendliness. There are even more bizarre findings – Mathematical thinking is affected by our posture. For example, a study shows that when people are asked to think of random numbers, the guys who look down and to the left are more likely to come up with smaller numbers, while the guys who look up and to the right think of big numbers. In another study, it appears that those who were encouraged to indulge in hand gestures understood difficult explanations better in comparison to those who didn’t make any gestures.

Here are a few more interesting and useful body-mind correlations:
A bursting bladder was found to improve your will power and resolve. So before taking an important decision next time drink lots of water and experiment with putting off the visit to bathroom for a few hours. In fact walking backwards or tensing your muscles also gave similar results on will power and resolve. And what will make you quite persistent on the task on hand? The answer is, as you might have guessed, folding your hand. Mind you, these are well experimented and researched correlations.

Among the reported Body/Mind correlations, this one tops’em all and I bet you will love it! The studies say that people solved puzzles 10% faster when lying down flat compared with standing! The reasons are not far to seek. Supine position is the most relaxing and stress free state in which creative juices would flow freely. In the light of this evidence, if you can’t convince your boss to provide you with a relaxing bed in the office to enhance your creativity, you may, alternatively, try a more mundane posture of stretching your left arm out in front or bending your arm at the elbow, which also apparently has the same positive effect on creativity.

So, now the scientific verdict is out on how meaningful and significant are one’s bodily movements. Interestingly, in the Hindu tradition, there is not a single ritual without hand or body movement. I am sure all these movements have significance which none of us understand now. Perhaps some Indian scientist may get motivated to take up a research project on this subject after seeing this NEW SCIENTIST article.

This is how you break a Tiger – Says the Ringmaster

“This is how you break a tiger”, said the ringmaster, having tamed a rebel tiger in captivity to carry out circus tricks. This is a line straight from a movie titled ‘Two Brothers’, which was telecast a few days back. Through physical and mental torture,the ringmaster virtually breaks all resistance offered by the tiger and ultimately the tiger starts obeying the commands and jumps through a flaming hoop.

I watched the movie with great interest as it depicted quite graphically how two tiger cubs(brothers) were captured by villagers – one of them was sold to a circus while the other cub ended up as a pet at the village officer’s home.The mother tiger, which escaped being captured had to go through a lot of mental agony,having lost her cubs. Finally,the cubs managed to make a great escape in the midst of an utter confusion that followed a ‘Great fight’ arranged between the two beasts by the local village prince. The movie was shot somewhere in Combodia (Indochina)in 1920′s setting in an ancient temple.

The main provocation for writing this post is that one line from the ringmaster – ‘This is how you break a tiger’. It occurred to me that we might as well say the same thing about human beings in general! Can’t we? The only difference is that while the tiger in the movie had just one ringmaster, we have several – starting with our religion, the education, the society, the institution of marriage, our jobs with 9 to 5 or worse still 9 to 9 routines etc. Each one of these ringmasters is ‘breaking’ us into submission through indoctrination,bigotry,harsh discipline and mindless compliance. Tamed thus, we lead lives which are completely devoid of freedom and creativity. Most of us go through our lives mechanically like the tamed tiger in the movie and before we realize what is happening it is time to retire. Then of course we have our role cut out for ‘shaping’ the next generation to follow our footsteps.

And Now the 3Cs for the Consumers to Counter Marketing Gimmicks

The 3 Cs I am talking about are: COLLECTION of Data/ information/knowledge, CAMPAIGN and make a wise CHOICE.

Subsequent to my post on the present day Marketing gimmicks about a couple of weeks back (title: “3Cs of Modern Day Marketing”), I got a feed back saying that I ought to give solutions to the readers instead of simply complaining about Marketeers. While I don’t claim to have all solutions, here are some thoughts based on my understanding:
Vegetable Oils: As I suggested in my post, any oil other than Coconut or palm oil should do. It is better if it is simply a double filtered oil instead of a refined one which is being aggressively promoted in the market. Most importantly, one needs to change cooking habits. As far as possible, vegetable should be either steam cooked or water cooked and oil should be used only towards the end for finishing operations with a few spices, using a low flame. This will limit the temperature and time of exposure of oil to heat, ensuring that the oil is kept in a healthy condition. I believe that in the West they use an oven (operating at no more than 175deg centigrade, as against the direct flame temperature of more than 350 degC used in India. Microwave may be even better than an electric oven)

Shampoos & Moisturizers: These are modern inventions of the cosmetic industry. One is better off minimizing their usage since we don’t know the long term effects of these on the skin. It is important to wash and rinse off shampoos effectively from the scalp immediately after application. The debate among scientists on the side effects of the detergent used in shampoos(sodium lauryl sulfate)and moisturizers is inconclusive. I would rather not present those complex issues here. As far as moisturizers are concerned, I find that application of good old coconut oil before taking bath works equally well. It also gives one a ‘feel good’ experience of having used a natural product. It is also a cheaper alternative.

Hair Dyes: The less I talk about these the better! I have only one question to ask of people who can’t live without hair dyes. Why can’t we accept the natural ageing process and accept ourself as we are? If you must use a hair dye, you have to wait for a genuinely ‘herbal’ or natural dye. I have seen some brands which claim they are ‘natural’ but a close look at the ingredients revealed the presence of harmful chemicals.

Pain Relief tablets: My personal experience is that a head ache is best countered by a strong Tea or Coffee followed by a long walk in fresh air. If it doesn’t subside, only then take a simple Crocin tablet instead of a ‘Crocin Pain Relief’ tablet.
In this post, I limited my discussion to just a few products of immediate interest to me. There is a lot more to know and learn on a variety of consumer products for all of us in order to make wise choices.

Going forward, I think there is a strong case for simplifying life for the humanity. Look at the energy crisis and Global warming threats today. It is caused by human greed which led to excessive consumption of energy and consumer goods for almost 2 centuries. Nature teaches us to be simple. The message from Nature is quite blunt: “Live a simple life without harming Me, or else…….. face the consequences”.

Of Birds, Cows & God’s Creation

The Master said: “Acceptance of what is, is the key to Happiness”
The philosopher disagreed and said: “How can one accept the world when there are so many imperfections in the God’s creation?”
“Imperfections like…what?” inquired the Master.
The Philosopher said: “Look at the birds, for instance, which are flying so elegantly… but what is the earthly use of these birds. Instead, God should have created Cows with wings. They are so useful to the world and their ability to fly will only add to their usefulness”.
The Master merely kept silent and didn’t respond.
Just as the philosopher made these remarks and settled down to relax, a bird flying above shat right on his head.
Instantly, wisdom dawned on the philosopher and he exclaimed:”Sorry, God, You have done the right thing in NOT providing wings to the Cows…. one can’t imagine a world with cows flying all over and….!”.

Little do we understand the grand design of the Almighty in creating the world. We can never fathom the profundity of the creation in all its beauty and complexity. Trying to apply limited power of our logic will only expose our stupidity!

There is Beauty in Spontaneity

Consider the following scenario:
You have got into a reserved compartment in a train at a small station in the middle of a night (say,around 1am) and it is all pitch dark inside. You somehow manage to locate your allotted birth. As you try to occupy your birth, you notice that in the lower birth next to yours, a decent looking middle aged woman is fast asleep. You also notice that the bed sheet used to to cover herself is lying on the floor. Her sari is also not in place, partly exposing her body in an undesirable manner. What would you do? Would you pretend as though you didn’t notice anything and mind your business & go to sleep or would you collect the bed sheet that has fallen on the floor and cover her body?

Honestly, most of us would do the former and mind our business. Quite interestingly,though, one Swamiji, who narrated this story in a TV channel, did just the opposite when he was confronted with the above scenario. He picked up the bed sheet and covered her. She,then, woke up and thanked him and went back to sleep.

The Swamiji then goes on to narrate what happened on the following day. The lady in question was behaving quite normally with everyone except with the Swamiji. She was feeling too embarrassed and shy even to look at him and talk to him. As the train moved on, Swamiji happened to order some breakfast and offered to share the same with her. As she refused, Swamiji said, “Won’t I share this food if my mother were to travel with me…”. He elaborated further saying that for some one who sacrificed his own mother for the sake of taking up ‘sanyas’, it is easy to view all the women in the world as mothers…”

This minor change of perspective was enough to completely alter the woman’s attitude and behaviour towards the swamiji. At once she began talking to him with a lot of reverence and affection and eventually they parted their ways as great friends.

The moral of the story is that very often a simple shift in one’s perspective is all it takes to radically change an awkward situation. The moment the Swamiji invoked a sacred ‘Mother – Son’ relationship into their transaction, all shyness and embarrassment (on the part of the woman) vanished miraculously.
Our spontaneity & natural bahaviour always add beauty to our interactions. But due to our age old mental conditioning, we often behave in an unnatural or artificial manner which takes away beauty from our relationships.