TWISTY TALE OF FOOD

Foreigner: These days I hear Holy Cow, Holy Cow a lot in India

Indian: Yes, yes the cow is our holy animal

Foreigner: Oh…

Indian: But what is less heard or maybe more heard these days is about its milk. Nowadays they say that the milk of Indian cows is the most nutritious and best for us Indians.

Foreigner: What does that mean?

Indian: I was buying milk from my local vendor but then they said my calcium and vitamin D is very low because I drink unbranded milk which is not pure milk. So they suggested I buy branded Anand Milk which is the pure milk as Anand has its own farms and the cow gives milk which is rich in vitamin D. But then I was told that Anand milk is milking the foreign hybrid cows and not the Indian cows. Those cows that have a hump, yes those are Indian cows and we should only drink milk of these cows.

Foreigner: Who are the they, they you keep mentioning? Any specific research or scientific journals?

Indian – They.... er..... they, yes many journals, friends, google, youtube, whatsapp, facebook. But more importantly the yogis in India are coming forward to enlighten us on what is desi.

Foreigner: So where do the milk companies find the humped cow?

Indian: Ha, ha don’t you see all of them walking on the Indian roads without any vigilance. They are not even scared of our Indian traffic.

Foreigner: No I mean how do you know that the company from where you buy milk is giving you Daisy milk which is from these humped cows.

Indian: Firstly it is not Daisy but desi which means locally made. And now to answer your question, well ‘they’ will ensure it is desi.

Foreigner: Ok fine, whatever. Oh you have got me South Indian papads, wow I love them, so tasty. And it is not even oily, which oil do you use?

Indian: We were using refined groundnut oil. We changed to refined rice bran oil recently as they say that it is more good for health. My grandmother always used coconut oil but those days they said that coconut oil is not good for the heart and builds cholesterol. But nowadays they say that coconut oil is the best. So for cooking food we now use refined coconut oil.

But they say that refined oil is bad. In refined oil they put a lot of chemicals to make it refined. Now they say that unrefined oil is the best and very healthy.

So the tasty papads you are eating are fried in unhealthy refined oil. I must change to unrefined oil, even though it is more sticky and smelly but that is what is good for health they say.

Indian: Taste this, dosas with tasty south Indian coconut chutney.

Foreigner: This chutney is very tasty, hope the coconut is organic?

Indian: Organic and coconuts! come on coconuts just grow everywhere in our state kerala and in India too. You mean to say that they put a lot of pesticides to grow coconut trees too?

Foreigner: Yes, yes better to be safe and spend that Rs 20 more and buy organic.

Indian: Well our government does not include organic food prices in the inflation index. So my employer gives me increment as per normal food inflation which I hear these days is coming down, so maybe my increments will be coming down too.

Foreigner: Well I buy organic everywhere I go. I need to buy some tomatoes.

Indian: Organic?

Foreigner: Yes

Indian: God bless you

CAN INDIA INTRODUCE ECO-CONSCRIPTION?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/17/utopian-thinking-students-working-land-university-eco-conscription?CMP=twt_gu

Reading this article by Hugh Warwick made me think how an eco-conscription would help India and its farming and agriculture sector. India has never adopted conscription of any kind. Many countries have a military conscription, India never needed it largely because of its huge population. Some say we must adopt it, if only to impart discipline amongst the youth. But many would not want a forced military training. Perhaps rightly so. We compensated for the lack of it when schools and colleges adopted the National Cadet Corps training which does an excellent work in imparting basic military and physical education to students.

But the idea of an eco-conscription is indeed exciting. Imagine 18-21 years old living in the rural areas, helping farmers, understanding their hard work and their hardships, understanding the financial problems they face, why increasing number of farmers commit suicide (in fact sending them to such regions), the irrigation and rain and water problems, what can be grown where, why the increasing use of pesticides, land fertility, fragmentation of land and so on. Imagine the ideas that can be generated from these youth with diverse education backgrounds to tackle the many issues that Indian agriculture faces today. This collective spirit will ensure that the farmer is not alone in his path to provide us all food.

Besides living amongst nature has many advantages. The youth will be more creative and aware of the ecological disasters making them environment conscious. It also takes them away from their laptops and mobiles and computer games. Staying in rural homes can teach them the Indian values and culture. Like in my travels, whenever I visited a rural home, they would not let me go without a good meal, however poor they are. For them even today guest is God. Such aspects of living can imbibe many positives of our culture in the youth,

We are a young country with intelligent engineers, doctors, IT, finance professionals and scientists. Imagine all these students begin their professional careers, with the farmer and agriculture in mind, developing ideas to create an agriculture revolution like never before.

While many appreciated Hughes Warwick article, it received a lot of flak too and many ridiculed it. So will many Indians to this idea. For any government it takes guts to implement any kind of conscription at a national level. But perhaps, if not a conscription for now, we can start with a NCC like model in agriculture training, which schools and colleges can adopt.

Let us change the way we educate our youth and in turn lets help farmers and the society as a whole.