Silverfish spill the Golden word!

By Dr R Sudarshan T hat's one of the most grotesque of fruits that the nature has created. Spiny, elephantine in size, wrapped in bundles of fibre, sticky latex that needs to be oiled away and so cumbersome to cut and peal. But this dinosaur egg resembling jack has lent to imagination in the farm. A child has asked how did they all climb the tree. Now it looks as if they rained down and the tree caught some. Whatever! In a couple of weeks from now, it will hijack our choice for fruits. Delicious, nutritive and grotesquely gorgeous. The high perching jack is back on track. For any relevant query,  message 81051 12990. * * * Padma Farms, Farmer's House, # 1A - 13th Cross, Kalidasa Road, VV Mohalla, Mysore.

By Dr R Sudarshan S he was perhaps the most famous geisha in Japanese history. She was taken away from her parents and groomed to be the best geisha in the world. She grew to extraordinary heights and performed for the royalty, celebrities and the most powerful people of the world. And at 29, at the apex of her professional glory, frustrated and disillusioned with life, she unexpectedly retired and receded from international limelight into oblivion. She hoped that her abandonment of geisha system will shock the world and bring in reforms. Now at 72 years of age, she finds that nothing did change in the geisha world even when the most famous among them, dropped the crown. And Mineko Iwasaki scripts her biography - her pains, pleasures, disillusionment and an unchanging world in her changing times. For any relevant query, message 81051 12990. * * * Silverfish Books, Farmer's House, # 1A - 13th Cross, Kalidasa Road, VV Mohalla, Mysore.

By Dr R Sudarshan A nne Frank filled her heart of courage into her pen and wrote a diary that the whole world has read again and again and honored it as one of the greatest testimonies of a war that tore her. Sapphire filled her tears of courage into her pen and brought out a diary that the world is reading now about how the teenager had to deliver her own father's babies twice before she even came of age and the world acknowledged it by kicking her out of the school. The holy Talmud says " every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers - grow, grow". Well, we know now that the fate need not honor the angel's voice. Two extraordinary diaries on the shelf. And two little giant icons of human cruelty to think about. For any relevant query, message 81051 12990. * * * Silverfish Books, Farmer's House, # 1A - 13th Cross, Kalidasa Road, VV Mohalla, Mysore.

By Dr R Sudarshan Y es. Culantro and not Cilantro. The long distance cousin of coriander that came from Mexico in the middle centuries to Europe and landed in India approximately some 300 to 400 years ago along with its Mediterranean cousin Cilantro, the coriander. Culantro is relatively rare but so much more stronger than coriander that once you are used to this, coriander recedes to a second choice. A couple of Culantro plants have been taken to the farm and are growing impressively well. Probably, there will be lots of seeds in a few weeks, so that we could propagate and feature the leaves in the weekly market too. And one plant of Culantro has prospered well in a pot at the store too.  For any relevant query,  message 81051 12990. * * * Padma Farms, Farmer's House, # 1A - 13th Cross, Kalidasa Road, VV Mohalla, Mysore.

By Dr R Sudarshan A tall papaya tree bit the dust when the night rider wild pigs dug into its base to steal it's succulent roots. And a curious little boy visitor to the farm chopped and sliced it to feel the power of an axe. We then rediscovered a string of hollow chambers in the stem that we had long forgotten after the college days. The pith cavities are the multiple hearts of the papaya vascularity. Raising water and nutrition from ground to sky, holding them in steps to strengthen the tall growing stem and gradually filling those fruits with the pulp and nectar, the hollowness is the substance of this existence. A plant is a wondrous source of symmetry, geometry, science, technology and food. And a farm is a relearning device. For any relevant query,  message 81051 12990. * * * Padma Farms, Farmer's House, # 1A - 13th Cross, Kalidasa Road, VV Mohalla, Mysore. * * * Opinion [27/01, 1:45 pm]  Neel Mathews:  Wonderful new knowledge….  nature’s magics… [27/01,...

By Dr R Sudarshan A nything that is believed to hold timeless relevance is bound to transform in perspective with changing times. Ramayana is a prime example. There is no single Ramayana; there is one that Valmiki wrote but that too has changed with the changing cultural consciousness. Across geographies in South east Asia, transcending faiths and contexts, Ramayana exists in a wide diversity. The Belgium born Camille Bulcke once counted over 300 versions in the world. Azeez has now chronicled the oral traditions of Wayanad in Kerala to show that the tribals believe that Ramayana happened in Wayanad. In their version, there are locations corresponding to all major Ramayana events in this hilly district. Azeez argues that human societies reshape narratives. And Ramayana must not be talked about as a mythological text of yore but as something that is alive, playing through the current consciousness and locally familiar geographies. That's the bubble of wisdom on the shelf this evenin...

  By Dr R Sudarshan Y ou can screw-drive your income expense finance engine. You can build your furniture using often un-understandable IKEA notes. You can use a washing machine or dishwasher or lawnmower or geared cars. But you just cannot cook, even with an instruction book.  This American Abhijit won a Nobel prize in Economics by suggesting fiscal recipes for poverty alleviation. And he now wrote a book of culinary recipes, giving ideas about how to make a hundred dishes and save yourself from hunger.. It is exciting to see an author pursue multiple identities - an economist by the day and a cook by evening. It is practical to appreciate that cooking too is art, science and passion of a highest order. And like every other subject in the world that needs the rigor of a methodology to succeed, cooking too is a systematic indulgence. Even for Nobel laureates. For any relevant query,  message 81051 12990. * * * Silverfish Books, Farmer's House, # 1A - 13th Cross, Kalidasa ...

By Dr R Sudarshan A whole world of fantastic creatures, an imaginary order of life and stories that are outlandish to the core - JRR Tolkien is the father of modern fantasy literature. For the ordinary us, it is so very beyond possibility to even comprehend the world we live in and resolve the riddle of visible life. But JRR Tolkien created a whole new world, a middle Earth, full of fantastic characters and unthinkable details. 'The nature of middle earth' is a compendium of the structure and functioning of a land and time that doesn't exist. Did they have a different time, was that earth functioning differently, how did life exist in that non existence and a whole lot of structured details drawn from Tolkien's unpublished writings. Its like a text book, a scripture, as if it all real history and geography, explained elaborately. On these pages, the suspension of disbelief is completed to the core. A rare imagination is chronicled in all its glory. Now, a whole heap of...

By Dr R Sudarshan I ts foliage is such an amazing green barrier in our farm that this Roxburgh fig tree neither allows the sun to enter nor the shade to exit. Under its imposing canopy seems to exist a very different world - one of seclusion and calmness. There is something enigmatic about the fig trees on the planet. A famous man in Bodh Gaya once sat under a fig tree and changed the world order. Under this humble one in our farm sat a doctoral scholar writing his thesis. A scientist wrote a chapter of his book in its shade. Children sitting on its floor have drawn out their crayons and painted their minds on paper. And scores of those who bought books at our store have read them below it, all day.  Silverfish Books has an enchanting reading spot under this gentle giant. And for those who want to romance a book, there can't be a better bench in town. To claim your time, message 81051 12990. * * * Padma Farms, Farmer's House, # 1A - 13th Cross, Kalidasa Road, VV Mohalla, Mysor...