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Kerala

Coconut Plant: Kalpavriksha

Coconut grow in the coastal areas. In India, whole of the coast is dotted with coconut trees. Kerala tops the list in coconut plantations. Known as Coconut in English, Narikela in Sanskrit & Nariyal in Hindi, coconuts can grow to between 15 and 30 m tall in plantations. Their trunks are ringed with scars where old leaves have fallen. The top of the trunk is crowned with a rosette of leaves. Fruits are called coconuts. They are oval and covered with a smooth skin which can be bright green, brilliant orange or ivory coloured. Below the skin is a thick… Read More »Coconut Plant: Kalpavriksha

Frescos

Uttrakhand is called Dev Bhumi meaning the land of Gods just as Kerala is called “God’s own country”. There is no doubt that the state is endowed with nature’s blessings in the form of beautiful Himalayas, Hill stations, Lakes and sacred rivers like Ganga and Yamuna. The state was created in the year 2000 and carved out from the Uttar Pradesh. There are many tourist attractions like hill stations of Mussoorie and Nainital. There are sacred places alongside the Ganges path in the high altitudes like Devprayag, Uttarkashi, Rudraprayag, Haridawar and Rishikesh. Dehradun is the capital of the state. It… Read More »Frescos

Hanuman Ji

Hanumant or Hanuman is considered as the rare combination of wisdom and strength. He was loyal to the core to his Lord Rama and played a stellar role in Rama’s war against the demon Ravana who had abducted Rama’s wife Sita. In fact, many demons belonging to Ravana harassed the ascetics living in the jungles and Rama destroyed them. This enraged Ravana who to take the revenge abducted Sita coming in the guise of a ascetic coming to beg alms. While Rama and and his younger brother Lakhsman were roaming from one place to another in the jungles in search… Read More »Hanuman Ji

Is Collective Wisdom always Correct?

At the starting point of human evolution timeline, the progress was very slow and full of dangers. Learning was at the cost of many human lives. In the beginning, man was a hunter and did not have a stable life. He was always on the move because animals which he hunted were also capable of running. Life of hunting was not easy.They were on lookout for more stable life. To be able to stay put at one place. For this, humans had to enable themselves replace their diet with grains and cereals which could be grown near their abodes. As… Read More »Is Collective Wisdom always Correct?

Golden Flowers: Amaltas

Amaltas is a tree which blooms during the onset of summer. It is called Cassia Fistula in the botanical language. The trees hardly bear any leaves when the plant flowers. From the skeletons of the branches hang the beautiful bunches of golden colored flowers. Before becoming the full fledged flowers, the buds are like “Ghungroos” of gold. Normally maximum flowers are seen in the spring season when the winter is slowly receding giving way to the most pleasant season of spring which transits to the hot weather. In fact with each passing day, the heat is building up and vegetation… Read More »Golden Flowers: Amaltas

Mango : The King of Fruits

Hiuen Tsang, Chinese scholar after being in India is going back. Time AD 627-643, on the fabled Silk Route. Apart from his knowledge of Buddhism, his rucksack contains an extraordinary fruit called Mango. The name in hindi AaM is derived from Sanskrit word AMRA which seems to be the loan word from Dravidian and is related to Tamil words for Mango like “mamaram”. Portuguese were responsible for transferring the name to the West. It is growing in India since 4000 years at least. Moguls were great connoisseurs of the fruit. Akbar got 100000 mango trees planted in Lakhi Bagh (Lakhi:… Read More »Mango : The King of Fruits

Moors Last Sigh!!

Last of the Moors to rule Granada was Boabdil (Arab. Abu-Abdallah or Ez-Zogoiby, the Unlucky). In 1491 the Moorish capital fell to Ferdinand, though Boabdil fought with a courage strangely at variance with his infirmity of purpose. As he rode away to the coast he halted on a ridge at Padul, still called El Ultimo Sospiro del Mora (The Moor’s last sigh), to take a farewell look at the Alhambra, and burst into tears at the sight. Whereupon his mother is said to have thus reproached him: “You may well weep like a woman for what you could not defend… Read More »Moors Last Sigh!!

Parvathy Baul

The name is a fusion of two cultures, two art forms.  The proper name Parvathy belongs to south India and the suffix is the title of the wandering mystic minstrels from Bengal. Actually the real name of the girl is Moushami and she belongs to Bengali Brahmin family. Bauls philosophy is that like the end result, journey is equally important. They don’t need any instruments or the usual rules controlling the songs. They sing what comes from the heart without any care  of anything else. When she was a student, she happened to listen to a Baul singing in the… Read More »Parvathy Baul

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