Cumin and similar spices

Cumin or Jeera is a very important ingredient in Indian cooking. There are various other spices which are named as variants of jeera like shahi jeera, kala jeera etc, and i realised there is a lot of confusion around them. The objective of this post is to document the many similar spices, so that the confusions are cleared.

Cumin

Indian names - Jeera,  Safed Jeera, Zeera, Jeerakam, Jeerige

Botanical name - Cuminum cyminum

A very primary spice used in tempering Indian dishes. When soaked in water, makes a cooling drink. Combined with other spices to make "Jal Jeera".

Black Cumin/ Black Caraway

Indian names - Syah Jeera/Shahi Jeera/ Shaha Jeera, Kashmiri Jira, Vilayeti Jeera, Kala Jeera

Botanical name - Bunium Persicum

Though called Shahi Jeera today, it was known as Syah (Syahi is ink) Jeera in the older days. I had seen this reference in an old Hindi cookbook. How words get twisted with time, isn't it?

Has an anise note to it. Much costlier than jeera. Thinner and fragrant seeds. Used in aristocratic dishes. This is also called Kala Jeera.

Caraway

Indian names - Sajeera, Shima Jirakam, Sajirakam

Botanical name - Carum carvi

This gets mistaken for Shaha Jeera/Black Cumin very commonly by Indian chefs.

Nigella

Indian names- Kalonji, Mangralia, Mogrell, Kalo Jeera, Karun Jeerakam

Botanical name - Nigella sativa

Used commonly in Bengali cooking and called Kalo Jeera in those parts. This has confused a lot of people. There is another variant which is also called Kali Jeeri, which is too bitter to be used in cooking. 

Some people also confuse these with onion seeds. The rule is - onion seeds are round and flat, while nigella seeds are oval and pointed.

Iron-weed

Indian names - Kali Jeeri, Bakchi, Vakuchi, Katuchirakam, Katu Jiragay

Botanical name - Vernonia anthelmintica

There are many similar plants in the iron-weed family, with similar properties. It is a bitter medicine and a very potent antiseptic. I wonder how many people mistook this either for nigella or for caraway by the name, and ended up spoiling their food preparations.

Carom/Bishop's weed

Indian names - Yavani, Ajwain, Owa, Omam, Ayamodakam

Botanical name - Trachyspermum ammi

This has an oregano note to it. People generally mistake this for Cuban Oregano (Sambarpalli) in India.

Men should not consume this too much as it causes a drop in sperm count.


Ajamoda/Wild Celery

Indian names - Ajamoda, Ajmud, Radhuni, Omam

Botanical name - Trachyspermum roxburghianum

The name Ajamoda is composed of 'Aja' which is the Sanskrit word for goat, probably due to its pungent smell.

This spice has been a part of Indian cuisine from a long time, though these days not many communities make use of it in cooking. The name makes one think it is same as Ajwain, but that is not correct.

Interestingly, this has aphrodisiac properties, unlike Ajwain.

This forms part of the Panch Phoron, used in cuisines from eastern part of India like Bengal, Bihar, Assam etc.

Fennel

Indian names - Saunf, Variali, Perum Jeerakam

Botanical name - Foeniculum vulgare

This has a sweet note to it as it is from the carrot family. Used as a mouth freshener. The oil of this plant, along with dill oil, is a major component of "Gripe Water" given to babies.

Aniseed/Anise

Indian names - Patli Saunf, Vilayeti Saunf, Sop, Shombu

Botanical name - Pimpinella anisum

More expensive than fennel. Used as a spice, and rarely as a mouth freshener. The saunf served in restaurants as mouth fresheners is fennel, and generally not aniseed.


Dill

Indian names - Sowa, Sabasige, Sathakupi Sompa, Shepu

Botanical name - Anethum graveolens

The greens of this plant get mistaken for fennel, as the leaf structure is similar. It is used extensively in European cooking and goes well with fish. In India, a lot of people are not big fans of this vegetable. The seeds closely resemble split coriander seeds.

References -

https://en.wikipedia.org
http://nishamadhulika.com
http://www.indianspices.com/
http://www.ruchikrandhap.com

http://www.savoryspiceshop.com/
https://easyayurveda.com

Leaving IT - Digging EPF Info

I left Infosys last month. Having completed 5 years, the final settlement will be a good amount, and now with my foray into a field which will not give me income for some time in the future, every penny counts. More so as it is rightfully earned.

While leaving i had done my calculations - leave encashment, gratuity, PF etc, the sources of this corpus. Today i received a message from my bank about a deposit calling it the final settlement, which did not really add up to my expectation. So i started my late effort to view what all had gone in the PF account on its official portal (i already know the amount from my infy portal, but that is no longer accessible)

Thankfully, a mail came later, that the amount excludes PF and other items, and that was a breather. But i went ahead to complete this long overdue exercise. The actual reason why it wasnt done earlier is that a UAN had not been alloted to my PF account till last month. Now i had it and hence it was possible. ( I will assume you are aware of PF jargon.)

The salary slip mentions the PF account number and UAN number. I went on the EPF site with this information.

The first step is to activate the UAN

After entering the UAN and the mobile number, the real challenge started. The member ID/PF Account number has to be arrived at by giving a combination of state and office, and this is tricky.

In my salary slip, the account number was like KN/XXXX/XXXX. Knowing that Infy HQ is in Bangalore, the usual guess was Karnataka (State) and Bangalore (Office). This gave BG and BNG. After adding the other digits from the PF Ac num, i was not really making any progress.

At this point, this site came to my help - the EPFO Search Directory

Click to Enlarge

So the combination was Karnataka (State) and Bommasandra (Office). 

Was able to complete the UAN registration with this data. Hope it helps.

One day visit to Maitri Farms

1. Its a 20 acre plot jointly owned by 3 friends from Pune. Out of them, Shreesh Ponkshe is very serious about farming and spends most of the time there.
2. The original idea was to create a fruit orchard on the plot, seemingly because not everyone was going to spend too much time in active farming there. However things are not as easy as it seems.
3. The soil in Konkan is deficient in organic matter and essential mineral nutrients. Folks have spent a good deal getting experts in assessing the soil quality to ascertain what all will be needed.
4. Shreesh is a well read guy, part of a lot of forums and an avid organic farming experimenter. To improve the quality of the soil, a lot of cow dung manure was used and the situation is better today compared to 2011, when the plot was taken.
5. The Konkan soil is not good for many crops, but he wants to grow items like bananas and that too, the organic way. Hence he is keeping his experiments up to date.
6. To understand the plot, it is composed of a small hill and quite a deal of plain plots around the hill.
7. The fruit plants are cultivated on the hill slopes, which have been dug out in a terraced format/bunds to reduce erosion and water flow, which can potentially destroy the crops in the plots in the plain area.
8. The mango trees are planted on the western slopes, into the bedrock soil - an ideal way of getting the best mangoes.
9. The farm houses Prakash and his family consiting of a wife and two kids. They are from Bijapur and help around with the farming and food. They stay on the farm.
10. There is one room where probably two people can stay. Generally there are no long term volunteers on the farm, folks come from around the world to stay for a week.
11. When i reached there was a french boy named Alex Clet on the farm, and he was in the last week of his visit to India. Like me, he quit his engineering based job 4 months ago, and now wanted to do farming on his granny's 3 acre plot back in north eastern France. A very good natured fellow.
12. The farm has a couple of cats and dogs, some poultry, a small rabbit. I am not sure if there are cows, could not visit all the places.
13. Active farming projects include banana plants on one side of the house, and a mixed cropping area cultivating okra and pulses on the other. The mixed cropping area is done on a raised bed basis to reduce leaching.

I intend on spending a good deal of time on this farm to learn the basics and help out.

http://maitrifarms.blogspot.in/

I Support Net Neutrality. But not this...

Note: Names changed to protect identities :P

The internet must be free to access, at high b/w speeds as it supports the freedom of information which has caused the recent enlightenment in humanity - where knowledge cannot be controlled by the elite and people can make a choice of their own. Hence the hue and cry over net neutrality in the recent times.

There is, however,  one online behaviour which many of us have recently acquired, which is not in congruence with some of the points which we are trying to support, while supporting net neutrality. I want to know whether you think this behaviour is good to go.

In my opinion it isn't. I will elaborate on why i feel so.

Take the example of Wassup. Started as a free service and is still free. Used a simple business strategy - Make people dependent on your services, and then you are the sole player in the market. Beyond this, provide customised services in the name of enhanced privacy and other things, to make money.

Today using the internet, someone is helping us order food and get discounts. Someone is selling vegetables, someone mobile phones, a many others are selling clothes. The internet has become a huge kirana bazaar and thanks to the huge volumes involved, people are being offered amazing discounts. Buying has become a daily habit.

We are also acquiring a habit of buying the the brand new way and shedding the old, inefficient ways of shopping. The side effect here is the players who are helping us do this are also controlling which provider of goods/services flourishes in this growing craze for faster delivery of goods/services to our homes.

Once we all start doing everything online, these portals will become the gatekeepers as to who can operate and who cannot. Give me a fee and go to work, this is the New Age Digital Dadagiri!

Evil Commerce? (source: http://www.kassenzone.de/)

Foozpanja, for example, charges commissions to hotels on successful transactions, for using it as a booking gateway. It offers discounts to consumers, to get them hooked to its services and become habituated to the brand new way of ordering food.

Now you may say that the market will have a number of players who will come an even out the competition, so Foozpanja will not have all the cake to itself. But think about the hotel vendors/service providers - they will have to eventually shell out money on each popular portal to survive, and this is not good. However miniscule it may be, it is as good as hafta vasooli done in Mumbai by the bhai ka chamcha, so that the roadside vendors can carry on with their business. Each online portal will become the bhai ka chamcha and the hotel folks/service providers will have to shell out their hafta.

Now couple this up with what our telecom companies (Telcos) are doing to quash net neutrality and you have this "absolutely mindblasting, economically profitable arrangement" -

1. Hotels pay Foozpanja to reach customers
2. Foozpanja pays Telcos to survive in a restricted internet scenario
3. We pay Telcos for the network service, and Telcos makes us feel we are using the internet for "free"

The actual producers and the actual consumers become slaves of the system - and the middle folks make money. Sounds familiar, doesn't it...;)

Psychedelics - A view

The west has experimented a lot with psychedelics. And given rise to non-confirmist individuals who have grown powerful. India always knew about psychedelics, but it was not necessary for all, as the education and way of life were different - thought processes and priorities were more natural.

Today psychedelics will be employed by escapists, and people who want to explore the inner world, however the number of the latter is always less. The utility as i see today for Indians to explore this stuff lies in the answer to this simple question.

Why do path breaking innovations never happen here in India? - Break this into another question

What is innovation? And what does it involve?

Innovation involves creation. Creation implies something new. Something new cannot be created from knowledge as knowledge is something which is known and hence old. Hence inspiration - the creative flash in the mind, is the progenitor. Things are first conceived in the mind then in the physical plane - we all know this.

Inspiration involves a part of the Whole, acted upon by a super computer which can never be created by human beings - the complete human brain. And let me tell you, there is only one Consciousness throughout Creation, and we are all connected there. Our brains are just caches.

Now how do you transform a population which has been enslaved by dogma and even by foreign powers for hundreds of years - and still enslaved by their definition of life and success, into an innovative one? By wiping off the conditioning, so that the slate of mind becomes as clean as that of a new born child.

The mind has to stop believing that the given way is the only way, so that other ways are thrown open. I do not mean the other ways come from nowhere; they are always there but our limited awareness always keeps them out of our grasp.

Remember the iceberg theory of human consciousness? The conscious mind is the one which deals with what is known, and hence it has can offer us a limited view. The unconscious part deals with reality, and with the dimension we call the "unknown". Now the phenomenon is called the "unknown" because it is unknown to the conscious mind and we always operate in that field.

With psychedelics, we can choose to channel the right chemicals through the brains to break the patterns acquired by conditioning of all sorts, so that we are able to think freely; bring the conscious more in connection with the unconscious.

However i believe that psychedelics should be instruments of change, and not things which should become a part of life. And only the natural ones. You need training wheels only for a limited time. All aspirants should have the urge to break free, and not get caught in the shackles.

The risk of imprisonment in the web of addiction exists, because we have always been imprisoned, and getting imprisoned is hence, natural to us. The current social framework will never let a man stand on his own two feet with his own mind and freedom. It offers a comfortable prison and most of us do not even bother to look up and see if there is anything beyond this. This will repeat in the arena of psychedelics and hence we need to be careful. There should be a preliminary preparation to make the mind healthy so that it doesn't make a habit out of this useful tool.

Why I support the movement againt the movie PK

We live in a democracy, where everyone is entitled to the freedom of expression. So am I. This is a post celebrating this freedom.

This post is also an attempt at expressing my opinions which, I am sure, would not be easy to digest. And that is why it is necessary.

There are many reasons for the recent conflict surrounding the movie. But one strong reason for majority of people on both sides of the argument is one - they are Hindu.

This religion teaches us tolerance. We are sporty enough to joke about our idiosyncracies, apparent ambiquities which exist in our practices.

And we have been doing this all the time. We are aware of the loot which goes on in the name of religion; the fake godmen that exist etc. But mark one thing - this is prevalent everywhere. Not that this justifies it, but it only means that these are the characteristics  of the times that we live in.

One thing however, remains forever true - the wrong doers should be brought to book, whoever they are - irrespective of whether they belong to a religion which has been accorded minority or majority status. But the popular approach to handling this problem is a bit partial in its nature.

Repeatedly, only the fallacies of the majority religion in India are highlighted in the daily media, even when we have reported cases of such issues going on in other religions as well. But the amplification is only reserved for the Hindu religion. And its adherents are either not concerned or have no power to defend their opinions on their issues in our secular Land.

An unequal manipulation power balance, based on religious division exists in this secular State. An imbalance of any kind of power is a dangerous thing, irrespective of whichever side it leans on. If the majority have it, we have a state like Pakistan where minorities are persecuted. If it is on the side of the minorty, we have India in its present state.

This is what the supporters of the boycott/ban think like. I hope you are able to understand their minds now. Now lets try to see why the other side exists among the Hindus.

We Hindus derive sadistic pleasure when someone tells us of the umpteen 'evil' things our religion has. This attitude is begotten from the years of slavery we were living in when we forsook the life of tapas/penance, and became servile to the hope of surviving by pleasing our "masters". Survival became the keyword, even if was at the cost of self respect. We gave up our way of living because our masters would not approve. We moulded ourselves based on the education our masters felt was suitable for us. We felt it would help us go about survival. What did we know that it would make us eternal slaves to their ways of thinking and perpetual enemies of our glorious ancient ways!

Now i am not saying our religion did not degrade. Time rusts out everything and what is needed is a revival. But alas! we are not doing anything in that direction, not even trying to stop the bashing which goes on. We either dont care or constantly quote the greatness of our religion and its in-destructability.

But our tolerance to this bashing damages our culture in ways which all of us are not aware yet. It does not probably affect the faith of the adherents who understand their religion and responsibilities. But it surely affects the outlook of the younger generations, and this aspect is concerning. Adherents of each religion have the personal right to defend their kids from going astray. These kids will consider that what media shows is the whole reality - they are the frogs of the well.

The broadminded adherents of Christianity, and Atheism want us to think like them and are very aggressive about their viewpoints - i do not blame them. But I blame us Hindus for being docile and giving an advantage to anyone who can present a "seemingly better" argument to us. We are not able to argue back, or even defend what we believe in. Why is this so?

This is because we have long given up the spirit of enquiry which our Sages had; the same spirit of enquiry which revealed to them the eternal, secular wisdom of the Vedas. Our scriptures are not the commandments given to some person by God, but contain eternal axioms which are imbibed in each later religion of the World. The Sun has always risen from one direction and that is how true ideas are - they never change and they cannot be contradicted. These ideas are the basis of Hinduism - there is no other reason why this religion and its associated civilization could have survived so long.

My opposition is for one thing - the widespread bashing of religion has to stop - not because we are hypocrites who cannot accept the dark realities of our religion but because

1. Every religion has its dark side, and it is the duty of the adherents alone to fight them.

2. No other religious adherent has the right to poke his/her nose in the matter of other faiths, let alone influence those people to his/her way of thinking.

3. India is a secular country, where religion is a personal concern and the conflicts should be solved by those affected by it; the media should not act as an interpretor.

People say PK is a movie with a message. My question is, is it some new message? We Indians are amused to see the same things from various angles, but will be the last to actionise. Do we not know of the evils of our religion, and do such movies even help actionise us? No they are basically to be seen, discussed, fought over and forgotten. 

A logical statement - might sound illogical!

Yesterday morning, I somehow got this logical statement in my dream state, and i started proving it there.

Thankfully, i was at a transition sleep phase, and felt i should record it. Recorded the same on my phone. Jotted down the ideas..

Logical Statement -

I have erred

My mind tells I haven't erred

Hence I have not erred

Prove whether this is true or false

Proof:-

Based on the root of the statement I have erred based on some universal idea. This itself is a proof unto itself.

But people basically do things dictated by their mind every time, hence the following will also need consideration;

Case 1 - Mind and conscience say different things

My mind tells me i havent erred. But my conscience being the moral compass will definitely tell me i have (since it is already proved by the previous statement). Hence i have erred.

Case 2 - The conscience is silent

Now it could be a case when my conscience hasn't said anything around this situation. This is more a proven case that i have erred because right or wrong is decided by conscience and if the conscience hasn't said anything, it is absent or has been successfully silenced. Such a human being has no compass for right or wrong.

For the mind, the definition of right and wrong is personal and situational.

Hence, i have erred. 

Ps. It's about keeping the universal law above the personal law. And I declare i have written all of this when i was in my senses. Now try to make sense of all of this...:P