@strawsInTheWind sir had asked me to write about the tradition of Uzhavara Pani a few days back. Let me share the little I know. Uzhavarapani is a form of service where devotees take up the maintenance of temples as an offering to the deity. It is a form of Karma Yoga where /1
you take up the simplest of tasks, which anyone can do, namely sweeping, repair of wear and tear. Small town Tamil Nadu has many Uzhavara Kuzhus or volunteer groups that take this up. The Dharma Shastras place high merit on the following activities
- Maintaining groves /1
or nandavanams.
- Keeping water bodies clean and free of silt.
- Planting and maintaining shade giving trees along highways
A leading astrologer once told people, it doesn't matter what defects you carry in your horoscope. Doshas in a person's kundli are nothing but mala or /3
impurity carried over from past lives. Removing the dirt in a public place, such as watering plants, deweeding a nandavanam, cleaning a temple, desilting and cleaning a water body, cleaning a cowshed, serving food and water and cleaning the dining hall for shivan adiyaars or /4
sadhus are means of removing the mala or dirt in your lives by cleaning a public place. /END
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While humans may have been consuming spirits for a very long time, it appears large scale consumption is a relatively recent phenomenon. Historically, people in colder climates have only consumed beers, ale, mead in quantity. Even these were not fortified and rarely
exceeded 3% w/v. Production of spirits was not possible in large scale and hence spirits were expensive and rarely consumed. Historical records show that 18th CE was when spirits consumption picked up. In frontier regions like America, spirit consumption was very high, but low
among rural populations. In Thomas Hardy's Far From The Madding Crowd, the only character that consumed spirits was the brandy-swilling city-slicker Sgt Troy.
Trends in consumption of animal flesh in the United States over the last century. Red meat is preferred by older people. Now, ask yourself the question - Why beef politics in India?
Trends in alcohol consumption in the US. From a peak of 70% in the late 70s, consumption is declining and plateauing. The decline is more in younger age groups, which point to a shrinking market. Europe is a declining market, having maxed out (10% of adults are daily drinkers)
and also due to their shrinking populations. Same is the case with Japan, China and Korea. So, which country is home to a large, growing population and where younger people are more likely to drink? Now, watch what all State Govts in India are doing.
From Robert Conquest's The Harvest of Sorrow, probably the most comprehensive chronicle of the horror that Stalinist economic policy was.
How the term 'kulak' was conjured up as an exploiter and target of hate, with little basis in reality. It holds lessons for all of us
- How the 'Aryan' as a class was invented in 20th CE India is similar
- Same technique is used by assorted groups claiming subaltern situation and create a target of hate.
What this resulted in was that the most productive 5-6% of the peasantry, which produced 20% of the grain was hounded, dispossessed of their land and herded off to collectives and labour camps. Forced collectivization and forced grain acquisition resulted in large scale hunger.
Manufacture of consent, Great Power politics, strategic overreach and back-office skulduggery.
How one of humankind's most terrible moments - the nuclear attack on Japan - was brought upon us by a combination of sociopaths in positions of power.
🧵
Our story needs to begin in 1931, when the Japanese invade Manchuria. The ball was set rolling by Henry Stimson, Secretary of State in the Herbert Hoover administration. In 1912-1913, Stimson, as Secretary Of War under the Taft administration, had run a simulation and come to
a contingency plan of containing Japan by economic embargo. In 1931, Stimson saw that the plan had now to be put in motion. However, the US being the biggest supplier of raw material to Japan, could not do so, until public opinion was turned. In comes the next sociopath
OK, here is another rabbit hole.
What's Ukraine famous for? Rich black earth, agricultural soil.
How much of it is there? 41.7 million hectares, 70% of the country's surface and get this - 25% of the entire world's black soil land. 2.5 million people worked on this land
8600 entities held between 200 to 2000 hectares, 22 entities held more than 50,000 hectares and 1 player - Kernel - held more than 500,000 hectares.
In 1991, Ukraine gave agricultural land titles to between 6-8 million individuals. In 2001, they placed a moratorium on large sales
The IMF recommended against it (of course!) and (surprise!) identified as a factor holding back the economy.
2020 - Zelenskyy lifts this moratorium.
Cut to 2024 - 9 million hectares of Ukraine's farmland is owned by oligarchs, MNCs, Saudi Arabia's SWF, American pension funds