Indiblogger Pune Meet and Greet August 2015

Initiated by fellow Pune Blogger Kaustav Sen, a self organised meetup was scheduled for yesterday evening at 11, East Street Cafe, in Camp Pune. And it was a nice meeting where I met some very interesting bloggers. Conversations flowed over a pitcher of Peach Ice Tea, and some snacks.

About the fellow Bloggers

Tara Nair, Vikram Karve, Kaustav Sen, Vibhuti Bhandarkar, Rutuja Joshi, Shubhashree Patra, and Aziz were some of the attendees at the event. Tara, Vikram, Rutuja, Vibhuti are creative writers and their blogs are about fiction, mostly. Kaustav is a photoblogger. And true to the agenda mentioned on the event page, the conversations were free flowing and we discussed a lot of things under the sun, from differences between blogger.com and wordpress.com to Vikram's most thrilling experience during his time in the Navy when they actually sailed through the eye of a cyclone. While I have been surfing the blogosphere reasonably actively for sometime now, I was meeting these guys for the first time, and I am glad I could make it to the Meet and Greet event yesterday.

About the Cafe - 11 East Street Cafe
11 East Street Cafe is on, well, East Street, Camp. The cafe is themed like a high street in London, lined with mock shops along both walls of the entire length of the cafe, with the front of the iconic London Bus jutting out at the entrance of the cafe. The menu is a delight for people who eat meat, and the cafe serves alcohol as well. Good ambience and good food, this cafe is an ideal place for merry chitchat. You can find more details about the Cafe in this Zomato link


Here are some photos from yesterday's event

today's Environment,Health and An Immune India tomorrow

In the last 60 years since India became an independent nation, many things have changed. The country's outlook has changed. Economy has changed. New Industries have come up. New companies have come up. Style of working has changed. And with all this few very important things have also changed which are going to define our tomorrow.

1. Environment - The climatic conditions, the amount of green cover around the country, the soil texture, the water table, the increasing use of chemicals (pesticides,fertilizer, today chemicals are even used to ripen the fruits on the day the shopkeeper decides to sell the fruit)

2. People  and their lives - Mindset of people has changed from "I need to keep things carefully and preserve them" to a "I can get a new one if the current item is not around" - A consumerist mindset and increased level of affluence has become the norm today. In addition to this, the society has become highly performance oriented. There tremendous pressure to achieve and deliver results across age groups and across professions, even children.

And because of these two factors, today, the entire brunt of this is taken by the human body. With vegetables having much lower nutrition levels, and a polluted environment, a child's body has to fight hard to cope with the pressures of school and extra curricular activities and demanding parental expectations today. And it is going to be even more so, in the coming years. Hence it is very important to ensure a healthy body, for which a good immune system is essential. But how to strengthen this, when all external conditions are averse to this? This is where our ancient knowledge about herbs comes handy. It is time to revisit the value of the various herbs that grow in the nooks and cronies of our nation and harvest the best out of them.
Like Aloe Vera, Tender coconut, methi  for its cooling properties.
Like Mustard Oil to keep warm in the harsh winters of the north.
Like Henna,shikakai and reetha that condition and shine the hair just like that.
Like taking chyawanprash and pepper tea when seasons change to protect yourself from seasonal flu and fever.




These are small things, and cost very little, but go a long way in building immunity.
After all immune children today ensures a Bharat immune to diseases tomorrow.