Indians and the Study Abroad Pandemic

The Annual African Migration of Wildebeest

Wildebeest, are members of the antelope family that inhabit the Serengeti plains of south-eastern Africa. For most of their lives, wildebeest graze in the grassy savannah and open woodlands of the plains, which straddle the nations of Tanzania and Kenya. Among Africa's many savanna regions, the Serengeti is the most well-known. More than 1.5 million wildebeest migrate in an enormous loop every year. The annual migration northwest, at the end of the rainy season happens usually in May or June. The search for greener pastures does not come without danger. Its migration route crosses many rivers, filled with giant Nile crocodiles, hungry lions, leopards and hyenas!

A similar migration of 1,50,000+ Indian students takes place in the months of August + September each year. With students bound for the USA, Canada, UK, Australia, Germany and even Ukraine! Much like the wildebeest these students cross the Atlantic & Mediterranean Seas in search of greener pastures! Competition and stampedes to get there is quite similar to the efforts of the wildebeest as witnessed in the mad scramble of SAT, GRE, TOEFL, IELTS, SOPs, Recommendation Letters. And finally the stampede at India’s Airports and in the aisles of airplanes as seen every year in Aug + Sept!

What does industry need? – Innovation, Capital and Labour

Mankind’s most basic instinct beyond survival is to be useful to the world and earn a living! This yearning has set aside Homo Sapiens from the rest of the animal kingdom. Earning a living typically means working for a business, company or organisation that creates a set of products or services that customers are willing to pay for. Or be the creator of these products or services by being entrepreneurs or investors. Innovation, Capital & Labour work together to create new products and services that obsolete older ones and keep the economy going with its peaks and troughs!

The World’s Best Universities

America and its universities created many new concepts that changed the world just like the thinkers, philosophers and universities of Ancient India created many of the innovations that were the harbingers of human scientific progress (0, Astronomy, Maths, Alchemy, Metallurgy, Textile Tools, etc.) There is no doubt that the World’s best universities, since the 18th century have been in the USA, UK, Germany and have created the world’s modern innovations and driven the wheels of the world’s economy. MIT, Yale, Stanford, Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge being some of the institutions of eminence. 

In the last few decades, whilst basic research continues in these universities, innovations have mostly been delivered by the ecosystem of innovators, venture capitalists, SMEs, MSMEs, Israeli Kibbutz and startup hubs of Israel, California and Bengaluru!

What do Corporates need?

The job givers are typically corporates who have a set of products and services on offer and need innovation and labour to maintain or scale their businesses in the jungles of domestic and world markets. These businesses need fresh recruits who have the technical, communication skills and the sincerity, accountability, aspirations, team work and sense of responsibility to accomplish their given tasks. Whilst, technical and communication skills are best honed in the best universities the other “skills” are learnt through living life in the universe!

Learning away from Comfort Zones of Home

The best learning happens with exposure to challenges, guidance, mentors and tools that help create solutions. The first step of going away from Comfort Zones of Home helps youngsters access the opportunities to acquire this guidance and solution toolsets. And this does not happen when the same comfort zone of home is recreated through hyper parenting of indulgence, daily phone calls and messages and the supply of $s, #s and ₹s!! 

Learning happens when parents let their children be!! When they allow them to take risks, decisions, trip and fall! When the children learn that the world is not as bad and cut-throat as is made out to be by their parents. When they experience the give and take with other students, hostel & dorm mates and professors. As they experience the “working world” through deep academic and industry internships they learn the team work, analysis and synthesis skills to take on the world!

And this does not happen if it’s done in your home city or in universities abroad, studying and staying with other Indian students and eating Indian food everyday on parents funded stretched allowances! 50% of a person’s capabilities are supposed to be determined by his/her genes, 40% through their experiences and learnings until the age of 20 and another 10% acquired over the rest of their lifetime! Choices that are well known to parents through their own life experiences!

Masters Degree – who needs to get one?

As the skills and jobs marketplace can be very competitive, job aspirants need to be smart in navigating this competition to be noticed by dream employers by standing out through demonstrated understanding & skills, a stand-out project, internship or papers they published! Being part of campus placement in a well-known college/university helps and the work done in approaching stalwarts in the industry by seeking internships or mentorship helps convert them to job offers! So does industry really look for a Masters Degree from an applicant? Masters Degrees are most required to:

• A student wanting to switch to a field/course that he/she did not study in the undergraduate course. A Masters’ degree helps course correct and build a network if the Masters’ Degree is of higher standing than the university that awarded the undergraduate degree. Doing a MBA is also a “stream switch” to get to more lucrative “managerial” opportunities.

• Get into a PhD, Research or Academic program. This definitely needs a Masters’ Degree for deeper knowledge and skills in a field and to follow rules, regulations and "templates" of entrenched people/hirers in these programs.

• Go to America, UK, Australia, etc. that systematically attract, lure and entice students to apply and secure admissions in these well-endowed Universities ($980 B across top 100 US Universities). Prime time advertising and travel planning like websites (like Unischolar) of these "university recruiters" layout the red carpet to entice aspirants!

The exclusivity of the Intellectual, Economic and Social ROI of this may now be fading and is something to think about for the “herd” that wants to get there for that American degree at a huge cost to the family and student!

The new Universities of India

As Indian parents grew up in the stagnant and ration economy when many resources including access to professional and higher education was limited, they still tend to think that it remains so. The number of IITs, AIIMS, IIMs and NIDs have gone from 4+ to 25+ each now. Other professional degree institutions have exploded from a few 100 to 10,000+. Many new universities like Ashoka, FLAME, Krea, Jindal, Bennet, Azim Premji, Shiv Nadar, MIT PDU have brought in new experiential learning and research based academic ethos and world class physical infrastructure. They invite and attract some of the best academic brains, mentors and teaching methods to these universities. The philanthropists who fund these institutions are themselves world class achievers who are passionate about providing the best education. Here is a list of Indian University Rankings and number of Unicorn Founders from some of them. 

The narrative needs to be wrested away from the elite who paid for and sent their kids to institutions abroad and who control the narrative and beat down these institutions in India as not being good enough! 

Opportunities in the World | Led by India

As the Indian economy grows through government initiatives, large corporate investments into new and existing industries and the 1000s of startups that have mushroomed in the fintech, edutech, agritech, transportation, defence, space, clean energy and other sectors of the economy, it is creating, arguably the best opportunities anywhere in the world for youngsters to be a part of this growth. And many of these are export led with full integration with the world’s best! Therefore, working in India, creating for and selling to the world, will give the global exposure the degree abroad is supposed to give!

The Home Advantage of Support & Opportunities

I often ask my friends who studied for their masters and have lived in the US for 20+ years, why none (or only a few) of them have founded startups or taken the risk to take up alternate career paths in the land of opportunities, venture capital and the mecca of entrepreneurship. Some of them talk about the costs of educating their kids in the top universities, their home mortgages, medical insurance and future Medicare costs – the fear of many of these for sure! And how most of us who didn’t go abroad at least have a home already paid for and no fear of the great uncertainties of life like in the US! Contrast this with a good % of people who stayed back (especially in the IT industry) have been able to take the risk to do so in India! 

The home advantage definitely helps in navigating many aspects of careers, entrepreneurship, bringing up children, house help with a “cushion” that helps overcome fears of lifestyle sustenance while taking risks! And starting the day with the convenience and pleasure of a water jet for your daily ablutions is surely better than the toilet paper industry that needs to be supported for these daily tasks!! 😊

Work & Earn Anywhere

With the proliferation of inexpensive Broadband Internet Connections, the Internet, Data & Applications on the Cloud, the culture of Work from Home/Remote work has now been accepted by the world. This has enabled youngsters to work from anywhere in the world and access global opportunities. A hybrid work culture enables work from India with occasional/regular visits abroad to deliver projects as a part of global teams. Many of these opportunities are centered around the Global South and India in any case, with its many opportunities and economic growth. Don’t need a foreign degree to access these or if you did have one, you would be deputed to work in India on an Indian salary! Don’t need to be part of the education debt mountain that’s being incurred by the Indian middle-class to access these opportunities! 

The “are you in the educating kids abroad camp or not” competition is putting pressure on many middle-class finances, wasting resources or incurring debt without much ROI!

Be a Learner forever

With technologies, work tools and work ethos changing rapidly, being a learner forever, will not only keep you going in the workplace and corporate career but is essential to the very survival of the employer organisation and your continued employment. "Learning to learn" is the new mantra and can be applied regularly with easy access to mentors, information, data, knowledge and online courses being just a Google Search away. And you don’t need top $$s to access many of these! 

All the best for your or your children's education and careers. Wish them tremendous success in this world of wonderful opportunities!

Disclaimer

This article is based on my observations and heuristic data collected over many years of being in the IT and startup world with abundant global exposure, extensive and repeated travel to many of the countries mentioned. Also based on the observations of careers of many of my school, college friends and ex-colleagues who went abroad vs those who stayed back in India. 

I did not go abroad to do a masters’ degree in the US myself, first as a nationalist! and not wanting to put any further financial burden on my parents. A good first job of learning, doing world class R&D work in India then convinced me that it was not required anyways! Over the years, observed people who did go and many others like me who did not, and who rapidly got unique opportunities in the Indian corporate and startup worlds. 

My elder daughter studied at FLAME University in Pune studying Public Policy & Environment Studies. She got exposure to many subjects as a part of the liberal arts ethos of the University and was taught by professors in India with PhDs from many of the top universities in the world. The infrastructure was great, class size small (some classes had 4-5 students) and she was guided to pursue publication of technical papers as a student. She pursued internships with Centre for Policy Research, Centre for Environment Education, Kalpavriksh, Nature Conservation Foundation. She was exposed to the deep study of the Indian Coastal Policy, migration of Olive Ridley Turtles, man-animal conflict of Himalayan Bears, field study of long tailed macaque habitats in Great Nicobar and many other interesting projects. This work helped her get a fully paid Weidenfeld-Hoffman Scholarship for a Masters Degree at Oxford, the #1 ranked University for her course.

My younger, daughter is studying Product Design at NID, Ahmedabad and opted to go for a semester abroad to Holon University, Israel. She could not travel there since the Hamas attack happened a day before her travel. She had chosen this university over many others in the US, UK, Germany, Italy since it was a serious and involved course with abundant learning as compared to the easy paced, "concepts only" courses (as per observations of her peer group and institute seniors) available in the other countries. A point to note before spending the $s, #s and ₹s and incurring those ever mounting student loans!!

Both are adults now and free to make their own decisions as long as we don’t pay for their choices beyond good school, under graduate & masters’ degree education in India!

US Patents and Innovation

An old article that had gone unpublished - a little dated, but still relevant for sure!

Following my earlier article on the IPR Regime (http://suniljalihal.blogspot.com/2009/05/ipr-regime-whom-does-it-protect.html) came across an article from BusinessWeek (via Rediff). I don't think patents alone have helped innovation thrive in the US all these years. I think its their excellent Universities, their Venture Capital industry, huge domestic market that is full of "early adopters" and their well cultivated consumers hunger for more innovation that has been the main reason for its success. Their sense of scaling an idea and hard work to cross all the chasms from Innovators, Early Adopters to Mass market and their marketeers relentless work on this path has created markets out of Ideas.

The article talks about "the cost of protecting patents", the cost of lawyers fees and time to hand out patents that's "distracting" marketeers from taking a product to market.

The "Cost of Innovation" in terms of product engineering and marketing will soon become a major factor that will slowdown US innovation. Many other (low cost) countries now have large domestic markets and global platforms (like GSM in the mobile telephony world) and therefore have similar market access as the US has enjoyed for many years. This competition will slow down innovation in the US along with its (over) dependence on fresh immigrants to do much of their innovation.

Here's a link to the BusinessWeek Article ... (http://business.rediff.com/report/2009/apr/11/whats-stifling-us-innovation.htm)

Romancing the Chilli

Have been off Blogging for a while, was working on having this published..... Its now published, by Rupa Publications and available in leading bookstores in India and online at http://www.flipkart.com/ . Do buy a copy and let me know your comments. Happy Reading!!

Romancing the Chilli is a book about the enduring heritage of the chilli in India and across the world. Visually and intellectually stimulating, this book traces the history of the chilli in the Indian subcontinent and around the world, along with its morphological, genetic and farm-to-plate journeys.

The effect of the chilli on Indian and world cuisine, popular culture, the human body, its science, biology and applications are described in detail. Accounts of Chilli Bombs, Pepper Sprays, chilli colour extracts in cosmetics, influence on brands and movies such as Woman On Top & Mirch Masala will fascinate readers on the chilli’s far reaching influence on lives globally.
More than forty varieties of chilies from India, Mexico, China, Africa and their applications have been photo-documented. The Habanero, Jalapenos, Santaka, Peri Peri, Byadgi, Guntur and the world’s hottest – Bhoot Jolokia and many more are covered in this book.
The book includes more than forty-five traditional dry and wet chutney recipes from different parts of the country and a few from Mexico, Africa, China and Thailand. Each chutney is illustrated with snippets of history, gourmet tips and traditional health benefits of each.
Chutneys from across India, from traditional vegetables, fruits and oil seeds - flax seeds, niger seeds, pumpkin, gongura, dal, garlic, brinjal, kokum and many other chutneys will spice up the palate of readers!
Each chutney has been photographed in its historical and traditional context. The book has been thoroughly researched by locating traditional recipes, talking to grandmothers, gourmet chefs, chilli PhDs, chilli traders and farmers from various parts of India.

Of Living on a Farm

Three years ago we decided to live on our farm at Lohegaon near Pune for a few months, while our home in the city was getting ready. Could we live on the farm – could kids go to school from there and will it be safe? Are you crazy? Don’t try to get this rustic – its OK in the movies and to stay for a weekend, but for longer – forget it! Advice, admonitions and opinions came pouring in from friends and family. We ended up living there for just over a year and learnt so much that’s worth sharing –

Waking up to dynamic mornings
As we settled down, and started waking up to those dynamic mornings, hearing different birds, the squirrels and absence of the doorbell ringing every 15 minutes, it was evident that it was going to be different! We needed to get used to natural sights and sounds and learn to appreciate the sound of silence! Each morning would be different, hearing a different set of birds depending on the time we woke up at.
As we started getting used to the new sounds, the sounds of man’s greatest and meanest machines – the Boeings and the Sukhois made us feel at home. At least it wasn’t the mundane sounds made by man – honking cars, two-wheelers, washing machines and mixer-grinders. Thank God for big monstrous mercies! We would wonder if we saw the same birds the day before – our daughter pulling out her Salim Ali book on Indian birds, trying to get the ornithologists term for the birds that we saw each morning.

Conveniences & Supplies
Where do we get our regular grocery supplies – the most frequently asked question was soon answered by some disciplined planning of weekly supplies. The small errands to call the grocer for the fresh coriander and mint leaves became unnecessary, all of it available in the kitchen garden a few steps away from the house. Fresh milk from the nearby gotha, the newspaper being delivered at the front door and the kids being picked up and dropped at our doorstep by a private van, made it easier than living in the city. I must admit that it helped that the farm is just behind Pune airport right next to a prominent Sukhoi squadron base of the Indian Air Force.

Gol Market – and the one shop wonders
The air-force base close by helped with a few more conveniences – complete with national integration of supplies from across the country – at the local Gol Market – the ubiquitous markets found in most defence colonies around India. The Gol Market has one shop for each commodity and service we required – one florist, one sweet meat shop, one grocer, a barber and a newspaper shop that - come Sundays had newspapers in at least 15 languages available for the people from all over India posted at the air force base to feel at home!

Feline Parenting
The farm had a sample of a few domesticated animals – one dog, a cow, a cat and a turtle and some fish in the well! Our cat, Mani soon got pregnant after the visit of a boka (male) cat from the neighbourhood. Our caretaker announcing that we will soon have a bunch of kittens to give us company. The cat soon became fiercely protective of the young ones in its belly, not allowing us to touch her any more. She soon disappeared and we found her up on the shelves of our store room with a litter of 4 kittens. Looking for her and the kittens the next day - they were missing and we found them in another corner of the house on a higher shelf and a few other places in two weeks until she settled with her kittens in a closed store-room. In about 3 weeks the suckling kittens began to play with each other and the mother protecting them nearby. After about a month, we found Mani, the mother of the newly born kittens relaxing and stretching out on a cushion on the chair in our verandah! A few of the kittens came along trying to get close to their mother – who gently pushed and shooed them away, getting them to learn to face the world. Her fierce protection of her kittens lasted one full month by which time she had taught them to hunt for mice and other food and then shooed them away to face the world on their own! In these days of human helicopter parenting, it’s something to learn - how we could be bringing up our children limiting our fiercely protective care to the human equivalent of the one month!

Cats & Dogs
Mani, our cat – relieved of her motherly duties was back playing with the dog Chikoo. Teasing him, running with him and angering him to end up in a hot chase where Mani landed up on the top of a 20 feet light pole with Chikoo trying to figure out how he could get up on the pole or bring her down from from her machan like perch – the helpless tiger waiting for Mani (a relative of the tiger species) at the base of the pole for more than half a day. The next day they were at it again running and teasing each other!

Learning about the Rains
Schools teach us all about the South West Monsoons – or do they? The rains began and the first burst of pre-monsoon showers with thunder and lightning helped accumulate some water in the bunded tank that we had cleaned up a month earlier. As I wondered whether the tank would fill up in the next rains our caretaker explained to me the 15 day periods during the rains – each governed by a nakshatra as he explained what he had known for many years and learnt in his vernacular school many years ago. Each nakshatra and its rains have its own characteristics – some have heavy rains and water flowing in from a distance – the type that can be bunded for storage but not good for the crops, some nakshatras the trickle yet percolating type – good for the crops as the water gets to their roots. The season ends with rains coming from the East, preceded by thunder and lightning – a reference to the receding monsoons that recede from East to West while most of the rains uptil then come in from the West.
This traditional and scientific knowledge seems to be lost on us now, where neither we nor our kids are ever taught about the season that is the lifeline of our (yet) agrarian country!

Watching plants grow
The kitchen garden with @ 20 types of herbs – sweet and normal mint, Italian and Thai Basil, Camphor Tulsi, Jaipatri/Cinnamon, Kachai, Turmeric lovingly planted – were in shock for a week, then stabilized and started growing. As they grew in different ways, it was a pleasure observing them as they grew slowly but surely and were then on their own. Patience, individual care and then wonderment - at how they all grew, giving us our herbs in the kitchen. Some of the ignored potted plants around the verandah grew by themselves without us noticing how they were doing, until we saw them one fine day flowering in full glory screaming – I can do it too, all by myself! We did our bit by putting together a list of native trees that we bought from a nursery run by Ketaki & Manasi – two eco-conscious entrepreneurs who run Oikos – they have grown beautifully without much care over 3 years; we still struggle with the names of these trees - and our guests were not impressed!

Seeing the seasons change
As the rains come pouring everything is green – for a few months; everything grows including the weeds. It’s impossible to remove the weeds, unless we used a de-weeding chemical. Do we need to use it is the question that we ponder on! We decide that it’s best done after the rains recede, taking care to de-weed just a small part of the garden. Come October, the sun shines in full glory, some of the trees bloom, in this mini-spring referred to by city folk as October Heat! The winters are cool, the green starts to brown and then yellow, some of the trees are in bloom, some have leaves that have turned white and some red. The Kate Savar (Silk Cotton tree, Bombax malabaricum), sheds it leaves, the tree is in full bloom with pink flowers, hardly any leaves remaining and then the flowers and the leaves are all gone. As we get closer to March, the well is almost dry, the Indian Laburnum is in full bloom with its brilliant yellow flowers and the Gulmohar and the Jacaranda the African imports are in full bloom too. The leaves start sprouting again in the heat of the summer, waiting for the pre-monsoons and then the rains that turn everything green again and - when the tank and the well will be full again! We are done with watching one full cycle of the seasons wondering if it’s the British who taught us to hate our “hot” summers ignoring everything that is in bloom during Vasant Rutu that had our poets write about in the days gone by.

Dealing with the dust!
Having travelled frequently to the sanitized, asphalted and cemented environs of Europe and America and living in gated communities in Bangalore and Pune where dust is at a premium – where you need to go to the ‘wilderness’ to find it – dealing with it on the farm next to dusty roads and a brick kiln – was quite a task. As the trucks passed the farm, clouds of dust seemed to settle on everything in the house. Getting the house cleaned every day was more than a chore! The dust got worse in summer, reminding us of the ‘dusty Indian plains’ often described by the British and that made them ‘go dullaly” – in Deolali, near Nasik, just @ 200 kms from our farm!

Satellite TV and the Dialup Connection to the Internet!
When we moved to the farm, we thought we could do without an Internet connection or Cable TV. We soon started missing both and work demanded that I needed an Internet connection – I could get one courtesy Reliance NetConnect, even though it was as slow as the erstwhile Dial-up connection operating at the lower KB range. TV connection was courtesy – the other wireless wonder – Satellite TV from Tata Sky. These two modern technologies helped us be in touch with the material world and could one day help people move to live on farms!

Inviting people home to the farm
Our friends and relatives came visiting once in a while. Most of them were curious to see the farm and see us living there! The usual questions – where are the lawns, the manicured trees and flowering plants – expecting a resort! Some questions about mosquitoes, dust, snakes and the dog that was not tied up! Some suggested we convert it into a proper resort, manicured and maintained, with the ACs, how it could be used for corporate get-aways to the manicured lawns and AC rooms. Some were interested in the trees and the kitchen garden trying to recognize what they were. They wanted more fruit trees that would yield an income. Those who were more inclined wanted to know which paddy was being grown and how it’s harvested! All were relieved that they did not have to drink well; hard-water and that we had some bottles of mineral water handy. “Fence it up and keep the villagers and snakes away” said many.

No more say the kids
Our 10th floor house in the city was now ready, with a small garden and a lawn to go with it and a functional farm next to our building. The kids were relieved that they were back in the city, but missed their long bus ride to school! They sometimes missed the openness of the farm but vowed not to visit the farm for at least a year! We did not go back to the farm much for two years; we are visiting more often now in the last few weeks, getting it back in shape – for guests who were expected to come from the big cities! Our caretaker - Jadhav, is happy that we visit him again and spend time on the farm. This year we are looking forward to spending the Diwali week at the farm; the kids sure that it won’t be for more than a week!

Whats Organic About Food!

A few years ago, after having spent many years, in the “virtual” IT industry, I decided to take a sabbatical and do some “real” things. Having been an IT entrepreneur for a while, I thought the best way to do it was to setup a green business. It was becoming fashionable too!, was close to the earth! and the world seemed to need it? Or did it, really? Most friends were wondering what I was trying to do – they thought I was crazy, Indians did’nt care about Organic Food, it was only understood in Europe and in the US and even there it was purchased by a small percentage of the population! Thanks mainly to some good PR by large chains like Whole Foods that imported organic food all the way from New Zealand!

We invested in a Organic Food Store Chain concept and set out setting up franchise stores in Bangalore and Pune. We had to compete with the conventional food chains in the city, make the store “appealing” with good décor and setup all the “cold chain” equipment to preserve food and make it “look good”. So far so good. Friends showed up for the inauguration of the stores both in Pune and Bangalore. Sales on inaugural day were good, we thought we had hit a gold mine of a venture! Good press coverage, lots of curiosity and a pat on the back for our “noble endeavour”

A few weeks into the venture, with friends having tried our “organic groceries, ice-creams, salads, bread and fruits and vegetables” already, the new and curious customers came, asked many questions, enquired about prices and why there were no “Kurkure” like products in the store and never came back.

A lawyer, walked in asked all types of legal questions and wanted to know how some of the food in the store can be preserved without preservatives! “I have done work for some food companies and defended them in court, they tell me food cannot be preserved without chemical preservatives”. Reminded that our grand-mothers preserved jam with the concentrated sugar or jaggery itself being the preservative or the lime and salt in the pickle being the preservative, the judge in the lawyer wasn’t too convinced with the argument.

Another customer wanted to know what the “free ranging organic eggs were”? If they are free ranging and the hens and cocks are free ranging too, are the eggs still “vegetarian”? Wont they be “fertilized”. We had to go back to the supplier who explained that some of them could be fertilized, (explaining it in Marathi with terms like “Safal” and “Asafal” meaning successful or unsuccessful fertilization”) and the only way to know is to check out the yolk and look for the presence of a “dot” (Safal). Oops, the “vegetarian” egg eaters never came back to buy these eggs which were in any case beige in colour.

A husband and wife, walk in enthusiastically, twelve year old daughter in tow, wanting to know “whats great about organic food”. We diligently explain about toxic chemicals in food, the Cancer Express as a train in Punjab that is known to take cancer patients to a famous Cancer Hospital in Rajasthan is called and the excesses of pesticides usage during the green revolution that has caused this. Not convinced, the husband quickly says “But hasn’t life expectancy gone up since we started eating conventional (non-organic) food?” I repeat my cancer story and explain how the incidence of cancer has gone up in modern times. Not convinced, the customer retorts “Oh so many people died so young in the olden days, people didn’t even know how they died, maybe many died of cancer even as they ate only organic food those days”

A lady walked in one day, very serious about wanting to eat only organic food, was convinced that its good and how she would thenceforth eat only organic food. Lifting a bunch of Palak, turning it over she notices a few “holes” and asks “But wont there be insects in Organic Food, especially Palak”. We try to explain that its possible, but why its not entirely bad, she says solemnly “ Well I would love to eat Organic Food, but it wont be quite appropriate with the possibility of insects in my food. We are Jains you see! “

Organic Food and Prices, the most commonly asked question – “If no chemical fertilizers or pesticides are used to produce all this, why is it so expensive, you don’t even bother to spend on these basic inputs” And there were those who walked in and asked “Whats the fuss all about? Is’nt all food in India organic? Explain all about excessive pesticide usage to them and they would say “Hey farmers in Vidarbha don’t even have money to buy fertilizers and pesticides”. Tell people why we didn’t have (organic) apples in the rainy season, they would walk away telling us that everybody in town had them but us!

An elderly couple walk in with a bottle and some carrots they had bought the previous day, demanding to know how the carrot juice is reddish orange in colour! Perplexed and thinking that its what it should be we try explaining that its natural! Not able to convince them, we recruit our farmer supplier who happens to be in the store at that time to explain to them, hoping that they will be convinced by the farmer who’s closer to nature than us. The farmer is perplexed that he needs to explain this, and is even more so when the couple are not convinced, as they repeat their allegations about the carrots being “artificially coloured by chemicals”

Talk to people about the film “Super Size Me” that shows what happens when a person has all his meals at McDonalds for a few weeks and how it makes the person obese and they look at you as though we are one of those orthodox Swadeshis! Talk about the book “Fast Food Nation” and what it has done to America’s health and they tell you “But America is the most powerful nation on earth” and you are not so sure you want to answer any more questions about the “naturalness of food”

The last laugh was by a farmer whom I visited in the Konkan, near Murud Janjira. When an accompanying friend told him that I was into organic food, the farmer looked at me and said “Oh we know all about it, I’ll show you what we do”. After we had seen all the conventional farms (using the forbidden inputs) in the area including his own, he took us to a ½ acre plot right next to his home. There he showed us what they grew and ate, “This is where we grow OUR food, without a drop of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The other fields that you saw we grow crops to feed you guys in the cities”

We soon started pointing to the poster in the store that explained “Why Eat Organic Food” hoping that the poster with its “scientific data” would convince customers better! And I am now back in the IT industry, keeping my views on food all to myself! Here’s the information from the poster for all those who would still like to be convinced!
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Why eat Organic Food?
Most people agree that they would like to buy organic and biodynamic food. Yet, instead of prioritizing certified organic food, the majority stick with old, inferior buying habits of processed or conventional food. These non-organic foods are nutrition poor, contain toxic residues, taste inferior and are potentially harmful to the environment, you and your family. So why eat organic food – can you really afford not to!

Mineral Content of Food
A question that often gets asked is "Is organic food better?" Common sense says that it must be. Surely eating food without chemicals and harvested in a more natural manner is better. But is it? The answer is clearly yes. A Study from Rutgers University USA clearly showed this to be true.
Before these studies were carried out the idea that organic crops were nutritionally superior was widely accepted on faith alone. People hoped that the effects of organic cultivation were better for the earth. In recent years this has been proven time and time again. Researchers at Rutgers University in the USA, intrigued by the emphatic claim that "Organic is Better", decided to shop around for some answers. They went to a supermarket and purchased a selection of produce, which they analyzed for mineral content. They then went to a health food store and purchased the same products but grown organically and carried out the same tests. The Rutgers' team expected the organic produce to be slightly superior in this comparison, but the results were incredible! e.g. The amount of iron in the organic tomatoes and spinach (1938 and 1584) compared to the non-organic varieties (1 and 49). There is a huge difference. And we always thought we ate spinach for its iron content!!

Many other essential trace elements are completely absent in the non-organic foods whereas they occur in abundance in the organic varieties. Other studies came to the same clear conclusion.

Naturally Good Taste
Organic food is produced as nature intended. Crops and livestock are grown and reared naturally, at their own pace, without artificial fertilizers, synthetic pesticides, chemical feeds, growth promotion drugs or routine antibiotics. Because organic produce is allowed to develop more slowly, it generally contains less water (upto 70% less) and more solid matter, which means more nutrients and more flavour.

Would you like (70%) diluted taste of conventional food and the taste of chemical fertilizers and pesticides in your food?

Baby & Children's Health
Standards for safe pesticide use in foods have been based on adult tolerance levels. When selecting foods to feed your baby and children it makes sense to avoid foods with pesticides, since babies and children are far more vulnerable to the toxic effects of pesticides because of their small size, high metabolisms, immature digestive and detoxification system.
"More than 1 million children between the ages of 1 and 5 ingest at least 15 pesticides every day from fruits and vegetables. More than 600,000 of these children eat a dose of organophosphate insecticides that many federal governments consider unsafe, and 61,000 eat doses that exceed benchmark levels by a factor of 10 or more."
Surely, we all care for our children’s health!!

Its Better for the Environment – The Secret is in the Soil
Intensive farming exhausts the soil, depleting the natural minerals and trace elements essential for nutrient rich food. THE SOILS of many nations on earth - are low in levels of organic material; 80 percent of many nations’ soils have less than one percent organic matter. This reality is reflected in many countries like China, the United Kingdom and most European Union nations. Countries lose estimated billions of dollars worth of agricultural soils to degradation every year.
It is this degradation of our farmlands, which is the single greatest threat to sustainability. Farming is a mineral extractive industry, which progressively removes from the soil not only the organic fraction, but also minerals and trace elements. In India, the process of degradation of our soils costs us thousands of crores of rupees per year as a nation. Ironically, at the same time one of the factors in this degradation, chemical fertilizer is constantly rising in cost, both to the farmer and to the broader community. India’s fertilizer subsidy bill is Rs. 12,500 crores annually and keeps growing!
For the organic farmer, the soil and its natural fertility are paramount. Various non-artificial methods, such as mixed farming systems that integrate a range of crops with rearing livestock and crop rotation, green manuring are used to keep the soil in good health and replace essential nutrients.
Appropriate varieties, beneficial predatory insects and companion planting help build resistance to pests and diseases. Naturally strong crops grown in fertile soil take up a richer nutrient supply.

Wouldn’t we all like to safeguard the earth for our children and future generations?

This article was first published in the magazine - Reading Hour (http://www.readinghour.in/) in their inaugural issue in Jan 2011