When culture calls…

The blog is getting a series of travelogs, from the recent ?! Jaipur trip. Things have started to blur already and I have to go look at photo time stamps, to recollect what we did in those 4 days!

Day 1 was just landing there, visiting the city palace with a tour guide and having dinner at Choki Dhani.

Day 2 was spent going to Pushkar. It was a 2+ hour drive from Jaipur and the kids pretty much went on a fighting match right after we got into the van.

It was one of those days!

The adults in the van decided that we would physically separate the kids, by using daddy as a divider. That worked out well for all parties in the van, driver included, except for daddy!

Simply could not move as they slept with their mouths open, on either shoulder. 

There was really nothing scenic on the drive to Pushkar. A large man made lake near the town of Ajmer, which was full of garbage as far as the eye could see, and a temple that did not look that old.

It kooked more like a recent addition, within the last 100 years. I expected a temple that was a few thousand years old. It looked like a replica of the Mahalakshmi temple in Mumbai, without the beautiful ocean view in the backdrop. 

It definitely did not live up to the hype as a "one of a kind" temple for the creator, Brahma. Someone needs to build a better temple for the dude. Also the vendors outside the temple, both at the stores and the ones hawking stuff off their hands and shoulders, were not nice. They were rude and bitter, with all tourists. We were so turned off by the experience, that we did not bother to go take a look at the Pushkar lake behind the temple. 

Some temples give you goosebumps. Let's just say this was not one of them and leave it at that. We drove back and had to find lunch somewhere and this sign board caught our eye!

Now that our interest was piqued by the Sweaming Pool, a little closer inspection showed more details..

The kids who usually are very cranky when woken up in mid van sleep, were laughing at the prospect of having Tost and Burgar's. We were sold! 

So off we went to the counter of the Family Garden Restaurant and the kids got another education.

Now you try and explain a gramaphone record and a rotary phone to kids who think CD's are a relic! 

We paid, went inside the Family Garden and sat down to see if the food was going to be good..

When the food came, we were not disappointed! It was yummy. They made a very nice dal, jeera fried rice, nice rotis, gave us fresh dahi and some side dishes to go with the rotis. It was simple dhaba food that was delicious.

After a full meal, we got back to Jaipur and did a replay of the kids sleeping on my shoulder. There is a famous Mosque in Ajmer where everyone is allowed inside, but we passed on the chance.

I was wearing shorts and the kids were in skirts. Our driver mentioned that while everyone was okay to go inside and it was not restricted to Muslims, there were clothing restrictions. We had already had the same experience with clothing restrictions, a few days earlier in Kerala, where I had to go get a dhoti to enter a Hindu temple in Kalady, which was only restricted to Hindus in dhotis.

We then came back to our hotel, for a short break and also explored the hotel better. Looked at the artwork displayed in various entrances etc.

This one sculpture of dancing folks was really beautiful.

Then we went on, to an evening of Bangle shopping in the old city market of Jaipur aka "Jewelery" Bazaar. They say "Like a kid in a candy store", but I suggest that it should be replaced with "Like a girl in a bangle store" after going through this experience. 

Wife, MIL, Jr. and the Little one, spent a full hour in a bangle store, while my FIL and myself fidgeted patiently outside, saying polite "no"s to guys who were trying to sell us everything from hand puppets to Hello kitty bedroom slippers, all at discounted prices.

While this was going on, did take some pictures of the bangles from the displays outside the next store, with the iPhone. My camera was given the equivalent of a "gag" order by the ladies when it came to shopping. A 5D Mark II around the guys neck, ruins the bargaining power of the ladies, or so they tell me. 

Finally almost an hour and a half later, the ladies walked out with a small subset of the bangles they started out to buy. We were really not sure if we got ripped off, but the smiles on their faces was priceless!

Then to round up day 2, we walked quite a distance to LMB which is short for Lakshmi Mishtan Bandar (sweet shop). Walking into the shop was like walking into heaven. 

There is a quote on the walls of the Cupertino Library from Jorge Luis Borges that says "I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of Library".

Here is my quote. "I have always imagined Heaven will be a kind of Mishtan bandar".

We were ushered into an AC hall through the sweet shop to get our dinner. The service was nice, but the dinner got mixed reviews from the family members based on what dish they ordered. The side dishes and Naan and paratha were excellent. The chaat items were okay (based on what they said). 

We went back to get some rest and get ready for more sight seeing on day 3, a post for another day...

What does China have to do with Thachchi Mammu!

After almost a year, bought a book! Yes, this is a big deal now for a guy who used to buy books while going on walks near Pondy Bazaar or Luz Corner in Madras or Rittenhouse square in Philadelphia.. 

The book is "The China Study" and it was a recommended read from at least 12 of my friends who saw my rants on corn syrup, the difficulty in projecting the value of what good food is to our kids and my occasional fights with San where we have basic disagreements that typically goes like this..

I come back from Yoga class wearing a small shorts (dubbed Jigina Jetty by the little one and Jr.) and the little one says "Appa, your legs and hands look like horsies appa!"

Me : (on cloud nine) Really! See Sangeetha, while I don't have much body fat and cannot adapt to cold weather these days, the kids can see that I am all toned muscles now!

San : Naalukku naal nee skeletonaa aayindu vare! (day by day you are becoming a skeleton). You should be eating more protein. You come take 3 hour naps in the afternoon on weekends. all you do is Yoga and sleep these days.  etc. etc. etc. 

There were a lot of protein recommendations from friends as well and most of them also recommended that this book be read, ASAP!

Have finished only 64 pages so far and the summary seems to be .. 

1. Protein in excess of 12% in diet is bad

2. Milk based Casein protein is the worst offender

3. Vegetable based protein like Soy and fruits/veggies is okay 

4. Meat is totally off the table 

In order of badness Meat >>> Milk >>Plants

Now the last three weeks has been a study in Labels for typical foods that we eat. This is not easy because most of the lentils etc. we buy from Indian store just have a small sticker on them which show weight and price. With some more internet research have found the following % for stuff we eat most of the time:

Dal (lentils we eat with rice) 23% , Milk (20%), Buttermilk (20%), occasional ensure milshake for breakfast (19%), Sago (0% if label is to be believed), Sona Masoori rice (7%), Atta from which we make Roti (12%), Almonds which I eat raw almost every day (40%), eggo waffles (6%), popcorn (4%), Aunt Jemima Original Syrup (0% if the label is to be believed), Zico Coconut water (0% if the label is to be believed), Dry roasted Edamame which we buy from Costco and use as a time pass snack at work (40%), Potato as a sample vegetable? (9%).. Most of the green vegetables are ~5% if you compare by grams and if you compare ratio of Protein calories to total calories a lot of these numbers change. Maggi Noodles, which is part of the staple diet comes in at 9%!

Now, going by this book, a few things are obvious :

1. I am already getting way too much protein compared to what is required even with the original diet (without the extra lentils)

2. The good news is most of this is from Vegetable sources (given Lentils, Edamame and Almonds go in this category)

3. The bad news is I drink two glasses of Chai a day (50% milk) and eat lots of Rice with Yogurt (Thachchi mammu). That is all 20% milk protein. Don't know if cutting that back is even an option.

4. Corn is not a bad deal w.r.t. protein intake. 

All this only after first few chapters. Will keep reading to see what the authors say..

My feeling tired could simply be a combination of exercise and work or travel pressures and have nothing to do with Protein intake. 

Have not yet read the part about the Study in China.

One interesting thing that keeps coming up in my mind. These studies were all done with milk from American cows that are not exactly vegetarian holy cows that are fed better than the humans that feed them. The American cows are fed ground meat as part of their diet. 

Would a study of milk protein derived from Holy Indian vegetarian cows vs. Non Vegetarian body building American cows show a difference in instances of cancers? 

Just like all proteins are not equal, maybe all milk based proteins are not equal? 

I now have to go research if the Yogis in the Himalayas actually gave up Milk! The Yogis and the Shaolin Monks seem to have figured out all this stuff already?! Maybe all we had to do was listen to our elders instead of having to kill a few thousand rats to figure out the obvious?!

It has been an interesting read and it is not going to be easy to take recommendations that come in this book and put it to practice. Not because we are just fighting a food industry and its marketing dollars, but because we are trained on a diet from the time we are kids and those preconceived notions are hard to change!

Hair styling..

Photographs on the iPhone taken with a few days..

One was of the kids, just before they went to school with matching hair bands and shirts. It was pure coincidence that they had those flower bands that were an exact match! 

The second was me tying up a towel which had a ziploc bag with crushed ice folded in, to combat a severe migraine that was part of a food poisoning (or allergy) attack last Friday. One targets the forehead and the other one the lower back of the head above the neck. Somehow ice in both these places helps fight the urge to throw up...

Never found the real trigger for the attack, but there was a lot of throwing up, no Yoga for six days and an almost complete system shut down. Yoga has helped make these attacks less frequent, but sometimes there are a few instances where the symptoms hit pretty hard. 

The good news is that things are back to normal again.. but my stylish Head gear has to be documented for posterity, no?!

Resistance is futile..

Had sent an email to both kids a few days ago after someone forwarded me this article on healthy food vs. unhealthy food.

My mail to the kids with the subject "Why I don't want you to eat outside" :

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Dear (Jr. and LO),

please read this report.

outside food is not nutricious. lunchables, school lunches, packaged foods etc. are all bad.

http://cspinet.org/new/201303281.html

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Jr.'s reply :

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Not true! You can eat out once in a while but never always!

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Little One's reply :

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appa it is kind of good to eat bad food then your body will get energy.

===

Obviously, they know everything and they also have an answer for everything.

We made the mistake of letting the kids pick what they want for snack time in school and that has slowly gone from granola bars and brownies to things called skinny cow, ding dongs (!?), Pirates booty !?

I am pretty much tired of fighting the system. My personal advertisement budget for health foods is not as good as these companies and I also don't have the equivalent time of a few hundred people marketing department.

No amount of effort in me packaging a banana or idly will appeal to these kids like the "ding dongs".

Jr. wanted popcorn. We have a popcorn maker at home. So I picked the bottle of popping corn the other day thinking "this is probably some genetically modfied stuff that will slowly turn into poison if left in her intestines.. but this is the best option in this aisle". She quickly insisted on putting that back and picking up the Orville Redenbacker Movie Theater butter flavored popcorn saying "Daddy, this one tastes good. I have had it in my friends place. We NEED this!"

That one had fat and sugar ratings (even if that was a conservative estimate to con consumers.. for who is to know if they are the real values given the type of money they spend to rig the system) were over the top.  I had to fight to get plain corn to pop!

The only good thing that was done? Told her that if she takes the box of things called "skinny cow" which was clever advertising but creates a fat kid in all probability, she has to buy some fruit. So she picked not fresh fruit, but Dole's pre packaged fruit bits in guess what ? Sugar syrup!

As a dad I feel frustrated trying to mandate these things in the house. Pretty soon we will have to start showing them what happens to folks who eat too much sugar with gory pictures and videos. 

We don't need North Korean nut jobs to threaten our country. We have our own guys who put these sugary processed foods on the shelves, threatening our very future. Our kids!

Treats from around the globe

This post is about two treats.. 

The first one, was served to us as dessert at a Christmas party from work just before the holiday break..

San enjoyed it. I stayed away as Strawberries (most berries for that matter) create a violent reaction in my body. The presentation of these mini sweets was truly amazing. They got such detail into a 1 inch cube...

The second treat was something I happened to see at Walgreens. It was an alltime favorite snack in childhood days.  Pala Cholai Varuval (பலா சொளை வறுவல்) as we used to call it! My grandpa used to get us freshly fried Jackfruit chips from a store in Mylapore. It would still be hot when we ate it. Absolutely delicious. Grandpa was not a big fan of eating on roadside stalls. The one exception he made that I can remember is this. Jackfruit chips were extremely seasonal in Mylapore and we would devour it in no time.

With a lot of high hopes, picked up this packet only to find out that the fruit had gone stale. It was fried but it had a very bad smell and totally spoiled the experience and now the memory of those "freshly fried" Jackfruit chips from Mylapore is haunting me. 

Looks like we have to wait for the next India trip to get that tastebud gap filled!