Navin Kabra Profile picture
Sep 24, 2020 10 tweets 4 min read Read on X
This is a non-foodie thread for foodies.

Recently, I've been stanning @krishashok's fabulous threads and videos on the science of cooking. Practical tips, not just theory. For Indian as well as non-Indian food.


Follow him if you like cooking

But /1
In a completely different way @prachi_ has been cooking and instagramming heartwarming stories of dishes-with-memories-attached shared by her friends and readers over at instagram.com/via_dil/

Follow if you like food, feel-good, feel-bad, feel-better all rolled into one

But /2
But all this has been reminding me of an incident shared by my mom about 45 years ago

My dad was a building contractor in Malegaon, and for some reason, my parents were temporarily staying in a shed on the site. Some of the construction workers were also staying there /3
One day, my mom ran into one of the workers and asked him if he had eaten. He said yes. And she asked him what he had eaten. He replied "तेल मीठ मिरची चा पाणी नि भाकरी"
(water flavored with salt, chilli powder, and oil with bhakri (basically roti made from bajra)) /4
Apparently, he did not have enough money to spend on vegetables, so was eating bhakri with spiced water.

I heard that story only once, 45 years ago, and it as stayed with me.

I wondered if this is a common thing in India. /5
I shared this story with @prachi_ for via_dil (instagram.com/p/CFfGr3fMBwP/). She points out this is not uncommon.

And the oil is a luxury. Usually it's just salt and chilli powder. And if you're very lucky, you might get an onion to crush with your hands and add to the feast /6
And these people are eating bhakri with spiced water on the good days, when they have the bhakri. /7
I love experimenting with various cuisines, trying out new restaurants (take-out now), and cooking, but as Faiz says: "lauT jaatī hai udhar ko bhī nazar kyā kiije" (my gaze gets drawn towards those other things, what can I do...)
rekhta.org/nazms/mujh-se-… /8
We live normal, what-feels-to-us-like-middle-class lives. But as I discussed in another thread, we don't realize that we are all in the top 0.5% of India. And we have little idea of what the rest of India looks like. /end

Don't get me wrong. I love Krish's cooking tips, and Prachi's via_dil stories and I plan to continue enjoying them. And comparing this behavior to my other threads, I do see the contradiction. And not see it too.

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More from @NGKabra

Mar 4
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What?!

The more I looked into this, the more insane it is. 🧵
I had so many questions...

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Including Sankara Nethralaya in India. 🧵
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This is rare, but in such cases, a tooth is the only thing that works well. 🧵
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Tall Quantum Claims: Microsoft has a breathless (but difficult to understand) press release about a new quantum computing chip which makes it appear as though they've solved Quantum Computing. This isn't true, but the science of the claims is fascinating 🧵
We don't know for sure if Microsoft have (so far) invented a new type of material (topoconductor) which allows a new type of qubit (Majorana zero modes) that could revolutionize QC. But let me give a high-level explanation of what's being claimed and why it could be a big deal 🧵
This is a rather complex topic: I'll have to explain bits, qubits, why error correction is so important in qubits, Majorana particles and how qubits based on them help with the error correction problem 🧵
Read 28 tweets
Dec 14, 2024
I recently found out that Akbar's wife, popularly (but mistakenly) known as Jodhabai, was an accomplished international trader and her business problems possibly resulted in changing the fate of India: ensuring the British colonized India instead of Portugal 1/36
So, this is the story of how a Hindu queen's Muslim ship, carrying Hajj pilgrims in Christian waters patrolled by the Portuguese armada resulted in changing the course of Indian History. (Sorry can't find the original source of for this wonderful sentence) 2/36
But first, what do I mean by "mistakenly known as Jodhabai"?

The name of Akbar's wife, mother of Salim (aka Jahangir), was not Jodhabai. Women of the Mughal harem were referred to by their birth place (or place where they were "first viewed with affection by the Emperor") 3/36
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Who are Indians descended from? Aryans from Europe? Dravidians who've been "here" forever? The Indus valley civilization?

A controversial question for 150+ years, but now we have DNA evidence that answers these questions with a high degree of certainty.

🧵 Image
The controversy originated with the (now discredited) "Aryan Invasion Theory" which began as a respectable theory of how Indian, European, and Persian languages all have a common ancestry: but was quickly adopted by racist white Europeans
It started in late 17xx when William Jones, a linguistic scholar, was appointed a judge of the Bengal Supreme Court. He came to India and noticed striking the similarities between Sanskrit, Persian, Gothic, Greek, Latin.
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Devanagari is an extremely elegant script. But this was never explained to us in school.

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Let's start with the things that my teachers did *not* teach me in school:
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Dec 13, 2023
Ever wondered why "sin" (of trigonometry) is called "sin"? Today, I decided to find out, and the history is fascinating. It comes from the Sanskrit word for bowstring which somehow got translated to the Latin word for the "pallu" of a toga.

Follow me down this rabbit hole 🧵
Let's start with this wonderful image I received from a friend on WhatsApp (source unknown). Here, you can clearly see why "tan" is called "tan". But what about "sin"?

If you think of the solid yellow arc as a bow, then the solid blue line (sine) is the bowstring 🧵 Image
jīvá (जीवा) the Sanskrit word for bowstring is the name given to sin by Aryabhata the inventor¹ of the sine and cosine functions.

How do you get from there to a toga? A series of interesting accidents

--
¹ Ok fine, discoverer 🧵
Read 7 tweets

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