Does Diet have to be boring ?

When planning your diet it is extremely important to note whether it is balanced. Most of the crash diets, like eating only fruits or only vegetables are a recent fad. They are either rich in only carbohydrates or only protein, but we need to note that our body is not designed like that. Most of the weight lost by starving oneself via crash diet is gained back in few days, Also body goes into starving mode and tries to store more fat. Body needs a good dose of carbs, proteins and also fats! (Yes Very Important) along with minerals and Vitamins to be healthy.

When carbs provide Instant energy, proteins help in repairing wear and tear in muscles. Fats are must have to absorb various vitamins like vitamin D and minerals. So what happens when you go on unbalanced diet ? 

Say you remove fat altogether ?
Then your body will have carbs and proteins no doubts, but vit D absorption goes for a toss, so does A, E and K. Which mean weaker bones, weaker eyes and bad skin. So add some healthy dietary fats.

Likewise removing protein in diet can cause weaker muscle and tiredness.
Now what do we do ? Just have a look at the traditional south Indian Meal.

The rice can be para-boiled rice which is highly nutritious! and rich in carbs, The dal and sambar provides with the necessary protein content, The usal which is mainly moong dal, lemon juice and cucumber  is cooling and provides vitamin c. Fibres and other nutrients are provided by vegetables in the side. papad provides the fat. And then banana is a fruit which almost everyone likes and is available in almost all seasons. So this platter when eaten in moderation is one of the best balanced meal possible! Not to mention that if you can get yourself a plantain leaf it is easy to maintain,  biodegradable. polyphenols that it provides is a very good anti-oxidant.


Similarly for Breakfast having idli/dosa with sambar/chutney,  provides necessary  proteins and carbohydrates. Also most of the south Indian breakfast recipes like poha, upma, pongal are satiating and nutritious. Added advantage is that these can be prepared quickly as well.


Along with this, having a glass full of warm water with lime juice and honey in it first thing in the morning, This keeps digestive juices active, acidity at bay and builds immune system! Both Honey and Lemon have been lauded in the ancient wisdom "Ayurveda" as well.

Along with balanced diet adding workouts is great way to keep the body fit, As we all know Healthy body without healthy mind is the place of devil, so don't forget to add some meditation to your routine and lead a peaceful and happy life! Let me know your thoughts!!

A glimpse of Vedic Civilization - Part 1

आ नो भद्राः क्रतवो यन्तु विश्वतः  (rig veda)
(May good thoughts come from everywhere, from all the world)

 I have always been fond of civilizations and history or more so itihasa ( iti + ha + āsa - 'so indeed it was'). Although i am no expert in the field, it is curiosity towards the subject which has made me read about it. I think it is a deep injustice to call the vedic civilization as mere hindusim, As Vedic civilization is more of a ideology on how best to live than mere set of mindless traditions( Although i won't say we don't need traditions at all, my views are here). It hurts even more to see  that the contributions of vedic civilization is trivialized and tabooed in the name of secularism.

I have always wondered when we have archaeological evidence of stone inscriptions/scriptures to know about the earlier civilization, what would happen if our generation of silicon driven would go to dust, It would literally be sand with no trace of what we have achieved, may be it had happened earlier too.

If you have followed my earlier posts, you would have noted that I quote a lot of gita/ Indus scriptures, based on which there were quite a few who wanted to understand the vedic culture and were asking my source for what i quote on, as the list was exhaustive thought of writing a blog about it.

1. If you want to know more about the civilization itself there are quite lot of books, few of my favourites are  sarasvati-river-and-the-vedic-civilization by NS rajaram, or this interesting video by David Frawley. You can search for several books by these authors to know more about the civilization itself.

2. One of the biggest contributions of the civilization has been the vedas when it appears gibberish in the outset it has deeper philosophical meaning, Given the fact that The vedas, especially rig veda which is written in about 4000 BC is one of the oldest known written scripture available in the world makes it even more interesting. Most of the vedas and upanishad text are available here. 
Aurobindo's hold on the vedas according to me is unquestionable, You can find most of his books here, Including the secret of the vedas. 
Kannada audio discourses by shatavadhani R Ganesh here : 
Vedamantra-Parichaya-Vol-1 and Vedamantra-Parichaya-Vol-2
There are a lot of published books on upanishads especially by Ramakrishna Math.

3. For a novice like me,  Interpretations of vedas and upanishads are quite loaded  and thus it makes sense to start with Gita/ Mahabharahta.
It is not for neigh that it is written in Mahabharatha that which is not found here cannot be found anywhere , Because it goes in depth in dealing with the Dharma sukhmas ( Although Dharma loosely translates to religion, it is not correct, It just means What is right situationally, One should note that what is right at a particular situation may not hold always, perception of right is always contextual more about it later, On a side note regarding this topic of sample space and contextual there is a book Fooled by Randomness by Taleb!). 
Best books on Baghavad gita (Part of Mahabharatha ) I have come across are : 
a) Gita Rahasya by lokamanya Tilak 
b) Search for historical krishna  by NS Rajaram
c) Essays on the Gita by Aurobindo.
d) Audio discourses on Bhagavat Gita by Shatavadhani R Ganesh :
                                          Sri-Krishnana-Baduku-Mattu-Bhagavadgeete 
                                          Shrimadbhagavadgeethe
                                           Mahabharatha-Upakhyana-1
                                           Mahabharatha-Upakhyana-2
Also the list is not complete without the teachings of Vivekananda, You can find the link to his book here. If interested there are also quite a lot of books in sanskrit converted here.
I guess I have given quite a bit of books related to spirituality and philosophy, I would like to cover more on the science/material aspects of in coming posts. Also I would like to write on misunderstood concepts of take on vedic culture on women, caste etc of whatever little I come to learn over a period of time.

Om Tat Sat
Note: Most of the links that are provided for books are free to download books, All the links to audio discourses are free as well. Also they are available in pdf format, you could convert it to any ereader format using calibre.

From the diary of a Bit toggler

I chanced to follow few discussions happening on multitasking and it's repercussions which had initiated from the following article.

Although I'm not aware of how the brain is wired for processing or whether the lobes act as multiple core's that can work in parallel, I think whether we like it or not multitasking is part of life.. our own body is multitasking isn't it ? When your heart is busy pumping blood, lungs are busy processing oxygen,  and nervous system is busy passing messages.. so it's foolish to say multitasking is bad right, now if you say it is different organs which are doing it, then I ask you back aren't different processors doing multiple task then, it is only context switch that happens otherwise in a single core/ organ. Just imagine your organs going on a strike after reading the article and  start pipe-lining, you would be long dead !!  may soul rest in piece(sorry.. peace)

So setting the context, I am talking in the programming context , Especially on the part that it can increase the chance of making an error of about 50%, which translates to every other line of code you write is buggy when multitasking, That is great isn't it, you are creating job for so many people, Also aren't you the knight in the shining armor when a bug is fixed in the nick of the time, who wants to be a boring perfectionist who wants to do things to the best of one's ability? It's too elaborate to follow some best practices mentioned here. So what are you waiting for bug away to the glory! oops...bask away  in glory!(I'm multi tasking !).

Now getting serious, If I think about it, may be when doing mundane tasks when the brain is already trained it really doesn't matter when you are context switching, but yeah when it comes to doing something new personally i have always preferred completing a task before moving to next, else there is a daemon running in your brain, reminding you of the same like a cron job! which is just waste of mips, unless it is documentation ;0) , but would really like to find out the most optimized path! the best way ie to naturally organize one that can be multitasked ( task switched) vs rest but that again depends on individuals and the context, so as always take research papers/articles with pinch of salt and do what suits you best. I guess not context switching and doing one thing at a time is more in line with living in present, as it is noted by most of the people we spend most of the time in either cribbing/being nostaglic about past or fearing/dreaming about future.. and stop living in present..So it is best not to lose focus of future by start doing things well in present.

Disclaimer: These are my personal views based on my own opinions based on news articles and studies and does not bear any relevance to my current/previous employers.

Big Bang - Universe and some random thoughts...

I have always wondered why sunset and nightsky makes me elated and sad at the same time, so when lot of thoughts were running in my mind reading this cartoon strip on xkcd came to me as a surprise, there is nothing as pleasant as the awareness that your craziness is shared.

Ok I guess i might have spilled enough beans to tell that i'm talking about universe.It's no surprise that it is coming just after I read simon singh's Big Bang theory, It would be an under-statment if I said I love his books!, It is the same amalgamation of history and science in all his books be it Fermat's last theorem/Code Book that grips me. Also I just happened to see this video about the magnitude of universe. Coming back to universe and his book, It covers quite a lot about how the cosmology has evolved and big bang theory was arrived at, but then it all stops into that assumption of primordial atom, expansion of which gave rise to space and time, It amuses me that science based on the inferential logic has to always stop at that, and fall back to meta physics or philosophy and still resort to never ending debate of that vs this.Only complaint i have about the book is that it completely ignore the beautiful concept of time and universe in the vedas, which you can read here.

Ideally when one looks the night sky there is an overwhelming feeling of humbleness and all the troubles seem to just seem like a whiff of dust(pun intended), truly the first thought that comes is, does really things matter ? and then what makes one motivated to live and keep morality ? , may be that is why there came the concept of karma theory or 72 virginal women waiting in heaven
or the judgmental day , so that one has something to look for or playing with the
factor of fear.

But there should be something more rational to have driven billions of people over years to have lived and propagated, this question is well captured in yaksha prashne that when yaksha asks yudhistira what wonders him most and yudhistira replies "Day after day countless people die. Yet the living wishes to live forever" .

so when you look further into gita krishna says

नैनं छिन्दन्ति शस्त्राणि नैनं दहति पावकः .
न चैनं क्लेदयन्त्यापो न शोषयति मारुतः २.२३
( Weapons cannot destroy it, fire burns It not, water moistens It not, wind dries It not)
The closest fit that comes to this definition in science is energy, as it is fundamental from the law of conservation of energy we as in the miniscule entity as that source of energy live on forever, so our actions matter after all!  Just like how a slight imbalance in air pressure or a small corruption in memory can crash a plane or a system respectively, we matter in the greater scheme of things. Just to think that one is responsible in the evolution of universe is good enough reason to live on in the present and not worry about day to day problems. You have a role to play remember :-).

At the end of the day Existence Exists !

A tribute to 100 years of Bollywood!

This post is triggered after watching R...Rajkumar!, Success of few recent movies like Chennai express, Ashiqui 2, Rowdy Rathore etc have made me very uncomfortable, but trust me R..Rajkumar beats them all.. An ultra bullshit movie just like a song bullshit in the movie! Trust me I wanted to shout many times at the movie for all those bullshit "Silent ho jaao varna mein violent ho jaaongi!!"

Whether we like it or not bollywood makes a lot more money than we would want to imagine! An Industry also used to convert black money. More money for a poor country which should not have funded a Low cost mars mission(If you don't get the sarcasm read this!) .
I am sure people might argue that these movies are made for pure entertainment purpose, meant for common people, others are anyways free to enjoy the message and concept in the literary world. But then semi-nude women who are good for nothing, objectifying women as pleasurable objects, projecting drug dealers, rowdy's, eve teasing, dropping out of college as machoism! seriously can't we do better than this ?? Women in real life have a lot better things to do and are lot more courageous than what is projected in movies! If you watch a bollywood movie  you would think women would have nothing to do beside impressing men! As a powerful media which reaches billions of viewers, isn't it fair to be more responsible?? A drunken uneducated person watching such a movie would get inspired to repeat more of nirbhaya's case, as he is inspired by such movies, where women are not supposed to be independent, if she is, then she is wrong!

What is even more painful is to see  extremely good actors like priyanka chopra, shahid kapoor, amitabh bachhan do such movies, may be others who don't like Rahul bose, shreyas talpade don't survive and vidya balan kind of actors are ridiculed.

At the same time i'm not for overtly done art-movies! Which have a bad reputation of always being shot in low light conditions!! After blasting so much I have to appreciate a few commercial yet  good movies like Oh My God, A wednesday!, chak de, Rang De Basanti, swades, Bhag milka bhag, Matru ki bijli ka mandola, to name a few Which comes with a message, Movies that celebrate life! Movies that have good intellectual conversations, understandable to a layman, Movies which have content and yet leaves you refreshed!

There is a Bechdel test,A rating for women portrayal in movies, Adding that as a significant contributor to a movies rating may do bollywood some good! Hail Bollywood!!

Where mind is without fear!! God Religion and everything else...

I have asked  myself this question, does humanity need religion and the following question would be do we need god? Considering the fact that except for human beings there are no other species which have concept of god. Is it because of our over evolved brain or sheer ignorance ? I was watching croods and I couldn't help but notice that when survival is the biggest concern we would not even think of anything else.

If one considers the recent history of few hundreds of years, religion has done more harm to humanity  than good, more than half the world's wars have been fought over it, considering the Nazi's anti antisemitism, evangelism by certain sects, terrorism in the name of religion, etc etc Isn't the whole purpose of  religion and god defeated by this ?  As it was meant to raise the individuals to a higher plane ?  Or is it the problem of people exploiting it for self-interest ?

If you think of it and rewind back to history of India to 2-3 thousand years back, or any other older civilization for that matter, there was no sense of religion but only a strong foot hold of culture, hence it was known as sanatana dharma which means age old, inherent way of nature , A culture that is based on righteousness, culture based on the curiosity, that inquisitiveness to know "the why", hence  most of our books on history are based on the question and answer sessions, there are many many instances to name a few, one's between krishna and Arjuna as the famous Gita, Ashtavakra and Janaka, yama and Nachiketa, Yajna valkya and Maitreyi, yama and Savithri. If you notice there is no differentiation that it is only men, women or children. It always stood on one fact 

"ekam sat tad ekam vipraha bahudha vadanti"( There is only one truth, knowledgeable call it in different names/forms) . One can argue that there was caste system and only higher ranks had access to knowledge, but again itihasa is full of stories of vishwamitra( A kshatriya turned bramhin), satyakama jaabala( A sudra turned Bramhin), satyvati ( A fisher woman turned kshatriya queen) et al, so it was purely based on merit and determination, That never give up attitude.

It is the same curiosity that has led to develop spiritually(With veda, gita ..) Artisitically(Natyashaastra), Lingustically( panini's vyakarana), Mathematically( Vedic Mathematics, astro physcics) Name it you have it. But the biggest mistake they did is, thinking us as kids who would like a gift wrapped in a beautiful package, they wrapped all the knowledge in stories and hymns, but we as foolish kids hasve only embraced the wrapper and thrown away the content calling it cock and bull story. We today either chide the process as either stupid or blindly follow without giving second glance to the content.

Does it mean we should give up all our customs? No follow it but just try to understand why it was introduced in the first place, it would give a lot more satisfaction i bet!!

I could not help but re-quote Tagore here :-).

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high

Where knowledge is free

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments

By narrow domestic walls

Where words come out from the depth of truth

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way

Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit

Where the mind is led forward by thee

Into ever-widening thought and action

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

© Rabindranath Tagore. All rights reserved

Happy Deepavali folks!!

when Present will be the past of future...

I wish I am what I was when I wished I was what I am!

I was reading an article about past in marcandangel, and my thoughts started wandering.

Any loaded philosophical book you read, they all shout out saying don't let your past affect you and ask you to live in present. To be frank it doesnt make one bit of sense to me..Isn't past is what makes us what we are ? Every time we look at heavenly distant object we are always looking at the past isnt it given the time taken by the light to travel record and process in brain? So the whole concept of time and past itself is goofed up isn't it?

Re-cognition itself means cognizing what is known right? Any action be it Object identification, color processing  is all based on the reference to past, then how is it that we can break the continum ? Or is not that past that is talked about ? If not what is that past ??

Now if I think of my recent past, then I can think of changing job,  I was in my all time low on concentration and not in the right mindset to change, so much that some people told that it would
be a career suicide that I would be committing to move out of my forte at that juncture
and plunge into something unknown, But one article on joyfear made me take that decision  and I am not dead yet so it was not suicide afterall, Thank god for that as I didn't have to be a Phoenix!

But thinking again May be I am not even 10% good as i used to be but then in the process and have been guilty about it at times, But then I have tried to make myself as uncomfortable as possible and this has given me a all new perspective which again would help me way forward.. As TS Eliot says the way up is the way down and vice versa..

See this is what happens, most of the time with past you tend  to remember the negative and we often ask "why me ?"(This song  perfectly reflects my sentiment now) May be that's why there it is said
that the biggest of the battle is always fought in the silent chambers of the mind.

So if i think breaking of the past needs not in not remembering the past but to build positively on it,Accepting things and moving on, The thought is well captured in this article by scott adams. So there is hope afterall. Probably  that would be the first step to living in present i suppose. When there is no way One can change the past, it's always possible to make my present the best I can do so that In future my past has something nice to say ??
Let me experiment and see how it goes..

Why am i writing this ? Somehow writing has been my thought cache flush.. Now for all of you If I have depressed you or this whole article didn't make sense listen to this Yeh hosla song ...

After All tomorrow is another day!