Soap Inauguration

One of those little things in life that bring you cheer is waking up realizing that you are going into your bath with a new soap.

The thrill of opening a new soap is always an act of personal celebration for me.

No. Not the champagne and the jazz.

But just something that gives you a spring in your step.

The night before is when the previous soap is at its tiniest bit.

I know it wouldnt last till the next day.

Even if it did,  I wouldnt want to trade the opportunity to inaugurate a new soap at the start of a bright new day!

I laugh in a glee of contempt as I crush the last bit of soap and make such deadly lather out if it that the pores on my skin cry for peace.

In a jiffy, there is only lather.

No more soap.

The next morning as I reach out to my soap box, there is a joyful reminder that hits you that its time for the new soap.

I then dig into my personal warehouse in one dark corner of my closet.

It usually houses additional toothpastes, cartons of tissue paper, broken combs (the kinds you see in Dracula movies), accumulated but useful junk, and ofcourse, soaps.

I pick my new soap.

When I was in India, the soaps would be housed in a separate carton.

And depending on the length of your hand, your ability to see in the dark, and some luck, you would either end up with a refreshing Cinthol Lime or a dumb-u-smell-like-a-pig-Lifebuoy.

The latter was mainly used for domestic purposes until Hindustan Lever re-branded and reinvented those soaps to a much more (thankfully) saner soap. Yet, if you were not lucky or were having a bad morning, you would end up picking a Red Lifebuoy soap over and over again until you found a rose-petal-Aishwarya-Rai bathing-Breeze soap.

If it was the end of a quarter, you would probably just have the Red Lifebuoys (yuck!)

Sometimes you would end up with a Mysore Sandal. These were mainly meant for the women in the house, but men relished these as well. These were also grim reminders about the brigand Veerappan. But the aroma of the soap made u forget all your worries in the shower.

Sometimes one would end up with a "Lux Beauty Bar-Sitaron Ki Pasand".

The soap cover often had the attractive Kareena Kapoor or other size-zero Bollywood actresses that made me forget my morning rush as I stood enchanted in my solitary towel. As much as these soaps are targeted at women, men love to use them only occasionally (good break from the Hamams, Cinthols and Dettol soaps)

Some of these versions also had the words "Made with Milk, Honey, Amla, Pista, Protein and 100 other nutrients"

Two special soaps that brought a smile on my face were Hamam and Dettol.

Both had a wonderful fragrance that even made guys feel conscious about.

Both also had lovely advertisements played out on television.

So u always long for them.

Another popular soap for medicinal value was Medimix.

The best part of this soap was that you could use it on ur body as a soap and onto ur head as a shampoo.

Back to what I was talking about: so..yeah..i find my soap for the day.

And then unravel the neat packaging.

This is the soap that I would use for the next 2 weeks (or lesser depending on how many times I would fall into the dirty puddles while playing football).

The relationship gets pretty emotional.

The first day the soap is given a nice welcome.

I splash some water on the soap and get a feel for how I would smell for the next 2 weeks

As days progress the soap starts thinning.

You dont realise it till one day you are able to hold it with just 2 fingers instead of ur entire palm.

Thats when you start thinking about the soap.

How it had served you well.

How it would be missed when its gone.

How you pray that you would get the same soap when you searched your closet in the dark.

You scrub the soap one last time!

And then its time for a new soap :)

How Wonderful It Would Have Been If

 The Akshaypatra provides the meals for mid-day meals in schools across various locations in India - you can also be a part of this noble cause by donating - you can donate at ISKON centers. Akshaypatra has been started by ISKON and is an integral part of ISKON

The kitchen from the outside - a three-storey building which uses Gravity Flow Mechanism developed in-house
by our team. Each kitchen has the capacity to cook between 50 000 to 100 000
mid-day meals per day. Costing approximately 9 crores to set up, they are built with funds from public donations.

 The kitchen from the inside, consisting of rice cauldrons each of which
cooks up to 110kg of rice in 20 minutes. Sambar cauldrons cook up to 1200
litres of sambar in two hours.

 It is washed thoroughly on the 2nd floor

Washed rice is sent down the chute to the 1st floor

Rice pours down into steam heated cauldrons for cooking. The entire cooking process
takes place on the 1st floor

Super heated steam is used to cook food instead of flame.

When cooking is finished, it is loaded into trolleys

Cooked rice is sent down the chute to the ground floor

It flows down the pipe into containers

Piping hot rice on its way to being loaded into food vans. Around
6000 kilosof rice are cooked daily in each kitchen.

Food materials in Kitchen

Stock in the kitchen

Washed dal and vegetables flows down the chute into sambar cauldron on
the 1st floor.

Vegetables and dal ready to be cooked

Sambar being cooked on the first floor

Cooked sambar is packed and sent to the food vans to be loaded.

Chapati dough is mixed

Heavy rollers flatten the dough into thin sheets

Dough is cut into the classic round shape

Making chapatti

Collecting all the chapattis

Transporting akshayapatra food through bus

Happy Kids

Students benefitted from Akshayapatra!!

NOW SOMETHING TO REFLECT

How wonderful and thoughtful it would have been if lavish money thrown over IPL cricket matches was used for something like this by the sponsors

How wonderful it would have been if the Rs 96 Crore that was eaten up greedy individuals in the CWG scam was used to sponsor more free lunches for hungry children in the country. We could have fed hungry children in about 11 different cities.

How wonderful it would have been if the Rs 176,379 Crore that was eaten up by greedy individuals in the 2G scam was used to create more such Akshaypatras in the country. We could have built atleast 19600 such Akshaypatra Centers in our country!

How wonderful it would have been if our governments ensured that the poorest of the poor kids in the country had access to something like this. They would study. They would be educated. They will earn a livelihood for their families. And the number of people living below the poverty line in the country would decrease. We would be a happy nation. And thrive in prosperity.

 The Akshayapatra centers are not a government venture but built from public donations

How wonderful it would have been if you were reading this and felt like doing your bit for organizations like Akshayapatra

http://www.akshayapatra.org/

This is not a post written by me, but from an email forward

Little Vishwamitra

I was walking back home from work today evening.

The streets of New York were back in the summer glee.

I crossed the street and took a turn.

I kept walking towards my train station.

A musician was playing on his guitar on one of the sidewalks.

A few people dropped some pennies for him. He wasnt counting. He was lost in the melancholy of his song.

I felt for him.

A Chinese lady was walking with her husband.

I couldnt but help notice the shoes that she was wearing. They were of leopard skin. 

I was tempted to call this post  "The Leopard in NY", but I had other ideas.

Read on.

I entered a park.

People were pacing up the streets.

All headed in one direction - to the train station

A host of people were also coming in the opposite direction - from the train station

Men were pacing up towards the station.
The street sellers were housing their wares for the evening.

One man was standing outside his salad shop and cutting carrots as if it was the end of the world. It appeared as if he wanted to serve the whole city of New York a dish of carrot salad.

Larger showrooms had set up the evening lights.

There was a buzz of activity at this time of the day.

A man was playing drums using a pair of paint buckets.

These are the unsung heroes with abundance of talent that no-one notices.

I kept walking.

I was nearing the station. But had to cross a couple of streets and then one mini-park.

There were tourists everywhere.

Of all shapes and sizes.

A guy was taking a picture of his girl with the Empire State building as a backdrop.

But he was squatting at the foot of the girl.

It looked weird. But he essentially wanted to click a picture with the Empire State in her fingers.

It worked I guess!

An old gentleman was adjusting his camera to click the picture of his wife.

I think they were on their 25th honeymoon.

By now I had entered a mini-park - sort of like the final exit point before I reached my train station.

The park was a small one.

The lanes or walkways were ventilated.

Basically they were covers for pipe systems that ran underground. 

There was air blowing from the pipe systems.

And since the covers had holes there was air blowing out to anyone walking on those covers which were the walkways!

I was walking on them.

There was a blow of air from beneath as I walked.

There were people sitting on the chairs in the park.

And a whole sea of people were making that final cross across the park to the station

Then suddenly amidst the rush of all the activity in New York, a little boy wearing a red shirt and a blue trousers landed in my sight.

He must have been about 3 or 4 years.

He stood on the ventilated walkway.

He just stood there as the cold air from below blew upwards onto his face and causing his brown hair to curl up.

Then he sat down on the walkway in Yoga or Padmasana style.

And put his hands on his knees, the way sages did penance in the Ramayana and Mahabharata serials.

And he closed his eyes

I just stopped. Smiled at the little boy.

And continued walking.

I turned back, the people behind me were also looking the boy - who had squatted for doing penance in the busiest of walkways in the city.

They smiled.

I smiled too.

Then after a while the boy opened his eyes.

"Maum! Where r u??"

"Come here Steven! I have a bagel for you!"

And the boy rushed to meet his mother who obviously had no clue what her boy was upto!