Week 19 of 2025, Monday to Sunday, May 5 to May 11

This week started with me catching cold. Sneezing, Itchy eyes, Runny nose, headache… Common cold is common with me, from childhood. Sometime it gets over in a day. Sometimes it continues the next day to throat infection, cough and fever. I am very lazy of inhaling steam, gargling, sipping hot water or hot pepper-turmeric milk. Swallowing a tablet is easier (I know not good). Pheniramine, cetirizine, levocetirizine, levocetirizine montelukast, now I am treating this issue with Bilastine (All these are anti-histamines or anti-allergens). Sudden change in the weather, dust, stress, dry air from the ceiling fan, ice & cold drinks, over eating junk, few fruits like grapes and jamun, I am yet to find out what I am allergic to. At home we drink natural water that streams down from the jungle, collected in the pond and pumped. I think I am allergic to that too! I boil the water and drink now😪.

This week’s cold ended in a night. Next day I got back to work. On May 4^th a revolutionary controversial thing happened in Indian agri sector. ‘Indian Council of Agri Research’released two new varieties of rice which are ‘genome edited’, first of its kind in the world🌾. These are developed using a novel technology of gene editing called CRISPR (pronounced krisper). These are no threat like transgenes. I was introduced to this technology during my master’s research. A very potential one, I would say in a decade this would lead to Green revolution 2.0. Particularly in this situation of climate change. I watched the live program. Thought to write an opinion on this for Vijaya Karnataka newspaper. Wrote and mailed. Publishing may get delayed. No media (or even people) are interested in issues like this when there is war like situation. Not TRP worthy. Anyways, I am writing a longer detailed article on the  same topic for my column this month for Shramajeevi magazine (that’s my job even if no one reads).

With the war like situation; No comments. I am just sitting, watching, and reading news. I have lost belief in the media long ago. I am of the opinion that it’s better to keep quiet on things which are out of our control. Its allllllllllllll politics; It is never what you think. Me and Sujay were in Srinagar during April 2022. The place is too touristy, too commercial. We visited Gulmarg on day one. According to our itinerary we were supposed to visit Sonmarg and Pahalgam the next days. We cancelled the plan, went and sit in the gardens, just watching the mountains around. That was more peaceful. A young Kashmiri teenager came to us, He asked if we were South Indians. He is Aadil, a big fan of South Cinema. He was spending weekend with his father (who works in Kashmir’s education department) and his sister, Aarzu. They insisted us to join them. We decided to go with them. Blindly. We became friends just like that, even packed our bags, left our ‘house boat’ stay at Dal Lake, to their home near Baramulla, in their tiny ‘Alto’, just to realize their biggggg hearts. That day I learnt what ‘Atithi Devo Bhava’ means. They knew we were vegetarians; they shopped fruits for us instead of meat. They cooked delicious food, with the microgreens from their garden. That one curry with lotus stem ‘Nadru ki sabji’ was yummmmmm. They took us to their apple orchard. They introduced us to ‘Parsa’s (food here is top class- authentic Srinagar – Bangalorean’s can find in Koramangala). They even dropped us to airport on last day. We speak once in few months for hours even today. We send them spices, they send us walnuts (Kgs of walnuts). TOUCH WOOD. With the war like situation, I was worried about them😐, Aarzu said there is blackout, and situation is tense. Hope it resolves soon.

With Aadil Aarzu and their father, At Pari Mahal, Srinagar

May 10^th was also a special day. We have a place called ‘Sonda’, where there is a ‘mutt’ of Shankaracharya’s time. Present swami here is ‘Guru Shri Gangadharendra Saraswati’, who is famously called ‘Hasiru Sanyaasi’ (Hasiru=Green, Sanyaasi=Saint) because of his initiations driven to save environment. ‘Lakshmi Narasimha Jayanti’ every year marks a small fair (Jaatre) at Sonda, when thousands of devotees gather. On this auspicious day ‘Krishi Jayanti’ is observed at Mutt, to celebrate Agriculture. I don’t think there is any such mutt or any such Swamiji who believes in saving environment for the future, or promoting agriculture as occupation for the youth💚! Me and Sujay went on 10^th especially to attend ‘Krishi Rasa Prashne’ a quiz for middle schoolers on agriculture. Its fun to sit and guess in audience like Kaun Banega Crorepati.

At Shri Sonda Swarnavalli Mahasamsthanam attending Krishi Jayanti

As I promised last week I attended the wedding on May 11th. That day was also Mother’s day, I celebrated myself clicking photos with Dhruva, posting on Insta. I expected to get scolded by Sujay for sharing personal things on social media. Surprisingly he asked me why I have not put even a single picture of him with Dhruva. I promised to do it on Father’s Day😂

Happy Mother's Day to me and all the other moms 😍

Picking summer fruits like water apple, Jamun, Sapota, mangoes from our orchard; Propagating plants at the green house; Passing time with Dhruvaaaaaaa; helping at the kitchen; all the daily chores are up. I cleaned my small library, which consumed a whole day. I am still working on our company’s WordPress website. I am overwhelmed to learn that many of you read my blog regularly😊

My small library

Next week I will be towards writing for my column. I am looking forward to meet a special person, in a special kind of program, will be telling you soon.