NOTHING GOES WASTE, CERTAINLY NOT TEA BAGS

If you were brought up in a middle class Indian family you will know that nothing in the household is discarded as soon as they have stopped serving their purpose. Their function simply changes and they are downgraded to a new post but not retired. The old sari becomes a salwar suit or a curtain, the old curtain becomes a table cover, the old table cover becomes a ‘jharan’ or dusting cloth, the old ‘jharan’ becomes a mop and the old mop is discarded with a lot of parting love and hesitation! So if you expected an Indian family to discard tea bags after one use, you have not understood our culture. By trial and error we have found out several uses of the used tea bags and today I intend to tell you how precious they are at our home.

Tea is a favourite beverage for many across the world. It comes in a variety of flavours and you can even make herbal teas if you're not a fan of caffeine. Whether it is Darjeeling or Siliguri, Gangtok or Assam, Nilgiri or Munnar, Darang or Kelagur, Kolukkumalai or Cooch Bihar we in India vouch by our favourite brand and enjoy its blissful experience at least twice a day. Using tea bags is surely the quickest and easiest way to enjoy your tea.

Believe it or not, teabags are actually multipurpose items. Not only are they a fast way to get an energy boost, but they also have a multitude of other uses in your garden and your home. You can get rid of foul odors, puffy skin, and even pain with used tea bags. That's how versatile tea bags are. So the next time you make yourself a cup of tea, recycle that tea bag in any of the following ways. 

Tenderize your meat

As strange as it sounds, tea bags are an excellent substitute for more expensive meat-softeners like red wine, commonly used in the west. Let the tea bags soak in boiling water, which will release naturally occurring tannins within the tea leaves, then mix half a cup of brown sugar with the water. Pour the mixed water into your seasoned meat when you're putting it in the oven and your meat will be deliciously soft. Keep in mind, this works best with beef, but can be used for other meat too.

Clean your mirrors and glass surfaces

It's time for cleaning but you're terrified of the muck that has collected on your windows, mirrors, and tables over the past months? A good tea-based solution is all you need to have them sparkling and also smelling amazing. Boil just 2-3 used tea bags in a 1 cup of water. Let the solution cool. Soak a clean cloth in the solution and wring it out thoroughly before wiping down the glass surfaces in question. After a good wet wipe down, give the surfaces a final cleaning with a dry cloth.

Revive and rejuvenate old clothes  

If you have any light-colored articles of clothing that are faded or looking patchy, your old tea bags can make them look new again. The clothes should ideally be somewhere between off-white and a light beige or coffee color. You can also use this trick with old and faded black articles of clothing to revive the color.  Boil water with old tea bags to get your solution, 3 tea bags for every 2 cups of water you use. When the mixture cools, stir in your clothes so that every inch is evenly soaked. Let it soak for about 15 minutes (longer for a darker shade) and then give it a quick rinse before hanging it to dry. Do this trick with care, as the results may vary based on the tea strength and material of the clothing. 

Eliminate foul smells around the house 

For foul-smelling carpets, just sprinkle dried used tea leaves over the affected areas, let them sit for 15 minutes and then vacuum it all up for a fresher carpet. You can even add old tea leaves and tea bags to kitty litter to reduce the rank smell.

Freshen up your smelly refrigerators

When your fridge gets overloaded with food, it can start to take on a very distinct smell that is a combination of all the meats, beverages, and aging vegetables sitting in your fridge. Just leave a bowl of used green tea bags in it for 3 days, and all those strong smells will dissipate. 

Soothe your eyes and removes dark circles

Any time you have a restless or disturbed night of sleep, it shows the next day. Your eyes become puffy and sore. If you struggle to sleep for many nights in a row, you can start to develop dark circles. Teabags can help with this. Use either green or black tea bags.  Refrigerate them so they're cool but ensure they are still damp. Place them just under your eyes where the puffiness is and let them sit for about 20 minutes. It feels lovely, and the caffiene content will works its magic to shrink the blood vessels around your eyes. You’ll look more refreshed and awake! After you remove it, wash your face with cool water. Not only will your eyes look better, but you'll feel more relaxed and rested as well!

Take a tea bath

Are you a fan of green tea? Then you absolutely need to try this trick the next time you're planning to enjoy a nice long soak in your bathtub. Just add a handful of old green tea bags to the hot water filling up your tub. Let it soak for 10-15 minutes before removing the tea bags and immersing yourself in the water. Tea is chock full of healthy nutrients that are equally efficient when absorbed through the skin.

Pain relief

The very same nutrients and tannins that make tea great for your meat, skin, and eyes also make it a highly effective analgesic. In a similar manner to which you would use tea bags for puffy eyes, you can use your old tea bags to treat a variety of different injuries.  By simply placing the cooled tea bags on the affected area for 20 minutes, you can reduce pain caused by rashes, bee stings, bug bites, sunburns, and other types of minor cuts and burns.

Deodorant for smelly feet

Does the sweat in your shoes leave you constantly worried about wearing anything other than Hawaiian slippers? Are you mortally scared of taking off your shoes in public for the fear of poisoning the surroundings and subsequent social boycott? To fix your smelly shoes up, you need some used tea bags that are completely dried. Take the dried recycled tea bags, stuff a handful into a few different socks and tie the openings. Place your sock-tea bundles in your smelly shoes and within a few days, the smell will be gone. Soaking your feet in some strong tea and water (using old tea bags, of course), along with some mint leaves can also relieve your feet of any lingering foul smells. 

Anti aging and re-hydration of skin

Whether used as eye pads or face wash or a tea bath old tea bags release tannins and nutrients which have great anti aging effect. They will cool and tighten your skin, and flood your body with nourishing antioxidants. Re-brew used tea bags to refresh parched skin. Allow the tea to cool, then pour it into a spray or squeeze bottle. Then just spray it onto your skin or apply with a cotton pad. Any tea will do, but the antioxidants in green tea are particularly effective for rehydrating dry skin!

Soothe sunburns

We all try our best to avoid sunburns, but sometimes they just happen! Tea can help you soothe sunburned skin and help reduce inflammation. Fill a large cup with warm water and drop in three bags of black tea. Let the tea bags soak until the water has turned a rich, dark black color. Let the tea mixture cool to a lukewarm temperature. Just before bedtime dip a small cloth piece into the tea and dab it gently onto the sunburn. Let your burned skin absorb the mixture. Do not wipe it off. Once its dry, re-apply as necessary, but don’t wash off. Overnight it will work its magic while you sleep. In the morning wash it off in the shower. The sunburn should be significantly better, if not completely gone. The tannic acid and the obromine in black tea helps remove heat from sunburn. Other compounds in tea, called catechins, help prevent and repair skin damage.

Restore shine to your hairs

You can use tea to make your hair shiny and smooth! Use a couple of used tea bags to brew a strong tea, then allow the tea to cool completely. Before a shower, pour the tea into your hair until it’s completely saturated. Allow the tea to sit for about 10 minutes, then hop in the shower. Shampoo and condition your hair as normal. Your hair will thank you the tea treatment!

Steam your skin pores

You can use a couple of old tea bags to do an at-home facial steam treatment! Place the tea bags into a bowl of hot, steamy water. Lean over the bowl for 5-10 minutes and let the steam work its magic. The steam will open your pores, allowing the antioxidants from the tea to tone and hydrate your skin.

Feed your compost pile

Brewed tea and tea bags can both help with the decomposition of your compost pile. So if you compost at home, make sure any leftover tea and tea bags are going into your compost and not the garbage!

Now that you know the versatility of the humble used tea bag, don't throw it away. Make the maximum use of it and remember that after providing you with a refreshing cup of tea, it still has a lot to give you!!

 

WHAT DO YOU TELL YOUR CHILD WHEN HE/SHE LEAVES HOME TO MAKE A FUTURE?

 

 There comes a time in every person’s life when his/her children leave home and go out in the world to make a life. The parental protection suddenly disappears and the comfortable refuge of home is gone. Yes, your parenting and your guidance must have prepared them for this moment but the verbose father that I am, I cannot help passing on some invaluable tips which my father gave to me. I do not say that I understood the significance of all this when I was young but today I have no hesitation in admitting that these are the real family jewels that I cherish most, because they still enrich my life. Today I want to share these tips with you, knowing fully well that you already know most of them and have adopted them in your life.

 

Be yourself. Trying to be someone you’re not is hard work, and ultimately, you’ll always be afraid others will find out. The most gratifying relationships are with people who appreciate you for who you are, not who you want others to think you are.

Don’t lie to yourself. Honesty is the best policy, and being honest with yourself is the most important part of this policy. When you lie to yourself, you know that you’re lying, so it’s pointless and will make you feel like a disingenuous person.

Life is not a competition. Stop comparing yourself to other people. You are unique. There will always be someone who seems better looking, smarter, richer, or more talented but he/she cannot have your qualities. Nobody is perfect, including you, but you are the best version of you, and there can only be a better you if you try.

The easiest choice is not always the best one. Nothing worthwhile is ever easy, and the easy way out often leaves you feeling empty. Dare. Take risks. A ship is safest when it is anchored in a harbour but is of use only when it sails out of its safety into the unchartered seas.

Don’t wait until you’re “ready”. Life will always find ways to surprise you. Opportunities arise when you least expect them. You may never be ready, but don’t let it stop you. When an opportunity comes knocking – take it. When you need to do something – do it. Don’t get stuck in your comfort zone.

Take responsibility for your actions. The only person you can control in this world is you. Other people can’t make your dreams come true for you, nor can they take the blame for your mistakes. Don’t give other people power over you.

Keep your promises. Whether made to your clients or friends or relatives, promises are to be kept at all cost. This will give you a stamp of reliability and dependability.

Be well spoken. There is no excuse of losing cool or being angry or arrogant even when most provoked. By staying cool, collected and polite you win half the argument hands down.

Stand up for people who need. If the weak is right he/she deserves your support even if it means standing up against a stiff opposition or a bully. Not only will it endear you to others but even to your own self. You will never regret this.

Don’t let others make you stoop to their level. Refuse to lower your standards to accommodate those who refuse to raise theirs.

Choose your friends carefully and don’t associate with the wrong people. People who make you feel like you’re not worth their time, who treat you like you’re beneath them or who never back you up when you need them to are not people you should spend time with. True friends will make time for you and stick with you through thick and thin.

Stop wasting time on justifying yourself. Your friends don’t require explanations, and enemies won’t care. As long as you know in your heart that you are right, stop apologizing.

Be a team player. While small successes can be achieved by individual efforts big changes can be brought about by being a part of a winning team. Know your role in it and play it to perfection.

Stop avoiding your problems. It may be the easy thing to do in the short term, but in the long run, you’ll just face them again and again. It’s better to tackle hardship head-on. You probably won’t solve your problems instantly, but the process is what counts – learn from your mistakes, adapt and grow. Eventually, it’ll make you a better, stronger person.

If something doesn’t work, try a different approach. My teacher Mr. Bernard O’Brien was one of the first surgeon practicing and later teaching Microsurgery. Tenacity was his middle name.   His friends would say that the best way to get Bernard to do something was to tell him it could not be done. Miracles were to be done daily; the impossible achieved on a regular basis because he kept on trying differently till success was tired of eluding him.

Perfection is impossible and ‘best’ is the biggest enemy of ‘good’. No one and nothing is perfect, and perfectionists are often the most frustrated people in the world. But it is worth trying to achieve it because it can make you achieve ‘good’ on a regular basis.

Don’t separate optimism from realism. Sometimes things fall apart, and that’s okay. Sometimes you feel weak, and that’s also okay. You can’t pretend that everything is fine when it clearly isn’t, so don’t avoid the truth – embrace it. Then try a different approach, go for Plan B.

You can make mistakes “To err is human, to forgive is divine” – we all make mistakes, and no one is perfect. The only way to make no mistakes is to do nothing, and people who are afraid of mistakes are often paralyzed by that fear. The more things you avoid out of fear, the more regrets you’ll end up having. So try, make mistakes, learn from them and conquer.

Let go of the past. It cannot be changed, so learn from it and get on with it. Let bygones be bygones. Past mistakes are done and gone - you can learn from them, make amends, and move on. The knowledge learned from the mistakes you made in the past are helping to shape your future. They will end up making you a better person. Staying up late at night, thinking of all of the things you did wrong is a waste of time and energy.

Money can’t buy you happiness. That new TV, shiny car, those diamond earrings – they may make you happy for a few minutes, a few days or even a couple of years, but true happiness comes from within. Follow your passions, travel, read, see, taste, smell and enjoy life – that will make you truly happy.

Happiness is in you, not in other people. Other people are looking for happiness just like you, they may like to join you for the ride, but the only person responsible for your happiness - is you. Create your own happy moments and add them like beads on a string to create a happy life.

Don’t get into a relationship just because you’re lonely. A relationship requires two people who are both ready and willing to give and take. Loneliness may be a terrible feeling, but being with the wrong person ends up feeling even worse. You’ll find the right person as long as you’re true to yourself.

Old relationships shouldn’t affect new relationships. Even if your last relationship (or relationships) ended in a sour note or heartbreak, don’t let it prevent you from entering a new one. A new person may help to bring out the best in you.

Self-pity and complaints will get you nowhere. Wallowing in your own misery and constantly complaining doesn’t solve your problems, and also tends to push people away. Hardship is just a matter of perspective.

Grudges and anger are self destructive. Holding on to anger and hate will push people away, and end up hurting you and your loved ones. To forgive doesn’t mean ignoring what was done to you, but rather to acknowledge it and refuse to let it dampen your happiness. Also, remember to forgive yourself as well.

Don’t make yourself sick with worry. Worrying doesn’t solve problems, but it definitely can create new ones. If you find yourself worrying about something, ask yourself if it will really impact you in the future – if it doesn’t, it’s not worth worrying about.

Don’t ignore your own needs. You may want to be there for all of your friends, all the time or you may think that your children’s needs come before your happiness. Well, after some time they don’t. Take some “me time” - indulge in a hobby or passion. It’s worth it.

Remember to be grateful. When you wake up each morning, be thankful that you’re alive, appreciate each day and be grateful for what you’ve got. In other parts of the world, people may not be so lucky.

Enjoy life. It is not infinite and there are treasures at every stage. Feel the breeze in your hairs, smell the flowers and marvel at the night sky with a full moon and most importantly, enjoy the company of your friends and family!

WINNING GAMES VS. WINNING HEARTS

 

 

Football is the most popular sport in the world and played in almost all countries because it needs least infrastructure and gives most joy, excitement and satisfaction. Though England is the commercial capital of this game with the richest football league, the EPL being played there, Brazil remains the aesthetic capital of the beautiful game. Every time there is a FIFA World Cup though your head may tell you that Germany is the strongest contender, your heart will always want Brazil to win! Have you ever wondered why this is so?

 

Football is played in two styles - the passing game and the dribbling game. The passing game was about possession. Circulate the ball with easy passes, control the game and make the last pass into the back of the net. Many coaches focused on the passing game. Maybe because it was easy to coach or it was proven to work. Barcelona plays possession, after all. Then there was the dribbling game, for players with fancy footwork. Teams with stellar dribblers scored when a player would make a great run with the ball passed the keeper and into the goal. The Brazilians are masters of both the styles. Not only do they pass well and dribble every defender, they also made it look easy and fun.

 

Brazil is a team which plays with spontaneity, irreverence and pure joy and it is this joy that connects them to the football fans across the globe! They have that air of unpredictable brilliance, an artistry bordering the realm of wizardry that makes football fans impatient to see them once again. Such is their reputation for aesthetic elegance and mystique that if Spain or Chile plays to their fullest potential or Pep Guardiola's Barcelona are mesmerizing the fans, the people gush that they are playing Brazilian football!

 

Cricket fans are fiercely patriotic and look down upon rival players almost instinctively. Yet there have been players whose batting elegance transcends all national and league biases. Zaheer Abbas scored heavily against India and Sachin Tendulkar had a special affinity for Pakistani bowlers right from his first test innings but these two players have no dearth of supporters who love them in their rival countries. Batsmen like Don Bradman, Vivian Richards and Virat Kohli are phenomenal and will be respected through ages for their consistency, efficiency and prowess but batsmen like David Gower, Gundappa Vishwanath and Saurabh Ganguli are loved because they are easy to the eye and their batting is poetry in motion! 

 

Unscripted brilliance and flair in a player or a team leads to an everlasting romance with their fans. In a highly competitive sporting world with so much of money at stake, winning has become the most important thing and winning ugly is far more respected than losing beautifully. Pep Guardiola's Barcelona cannot survive by just playing beautifully, they have to win consistently too. And it is this amalgamation of beauty and efficiency which is most challenging. Brazil is not winning and that is a concern, because if for the sake of winning they have to adapt a mechanically efficient German style, football will be the biggest loser. 

 

In sports today success is first, consistency is second and aesthetics is third. This is a very rare sequence which comes once in a while in the history of sports. The Brazilian football team of Pele and later Socrates, Zico, Falcao and Cerezo, and still later Ronaldo and Ronaldinho fitted in this sequence. So do Nadia Comaneci, Roger Federer, Usain Bolt and Barcelona Football Club. Contrast this to Novak Djokovic, Real Madrid and Lewis Hamilton; they are real embodiment of consistency and efficiency and have a fan following too but that romance with the fans is missing. The head has accepted them as the king but the heart simply refuses to do so. They are respected and admired but the adulation and affection which is showered upon Federer and Tendulkar is simply missing.

DO WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO OUR MOTHER'S LOVE?

 

Is it not a strange coincidence, we seem to insult and abuse every thing we refer to as our 'mother'! Mother nature is at the receiving end of our rampant exploitation and it seems she has lost her cool and taking us to task by tormenting us with earthquake, floods, tsunamis, forest fires, landslides and droughts. Ma Ganga just got tired of self cleansing herself but we kept on polluting her disregarding all rules and regulations. Mother India today stands ashamed with high maternal and infant mortality rates, unequal opportunities and remuneration for her daughters, unrecognised and unappreciated work her daughters do while home making, domestic violence they face at home and communal, caste and sectarian violence in the society and to top it all her one daughter is raped in this land every 16 minutes!

Why am I reminded of all this today? I do so because we are once again celebrating Navaratri, an invocation to Ma Durga, our durgati harini. Not only does she slay the evil Mahishasura but she is the embodiment of Shakti, the energy at the root of creation. Shakti inspired Shiva and it was their union that brought about 'creation', 'preservation' and 'renewal' thus justifying the ultimate image of the creator Ardhnarishwar. If the all powerful Shiva is powerless without Shakti, how can we mortals think of progress and prosperity without respecting their daughters?

For far too long Shakti has been confined inside our temples and limited to our prayers. We have failed to get past feudal patriarchy, skewed sex ratio, caste power play and religious and cultural misogyny. We are unjustifiably putting up behavioural and social barriers around our daughters but not disciplining our sons and not teaching them to behave. If 50% of our population is scared of the remaining lot then how can we prosper?

When Draupadi narrated the horrors of her humiliation in Kuru sabha to Lord Krishna, the avatar of Vishnu vowed to her "The heavens may tumble, the mountains may be razed; the oceans may dry like a corpse's bones; earth herself may rupture, but I shall keep my oath to you. To avenge the crime against you there will be war to end all wars." Lord Krishna not only kept his promise but for Bhishma, the greatest warrior who had the boon of 'iccha mrityu' (he could die when only when he chose to) he arranged a painful bed of arrows for his last days because he kept quiet and did not use his bravery to protect the honour of a woman in the Kuru sabha. Contrast this to the death of Jatayu in Ramayana - old Pakshi raj knew he was no match to Ravana but he fought valiantly to save Sita and died smiling in the lap of Ram, with tears of this Vishnu avatar bidding him farewell.

The society needs to do some serious introspection about how we are treating our Shakti, our daughters and sisters and wives. Rapists are not coming from any other planet. They too have parents and if they see their own mothers and sisters being treated unfairly they think that this is the norm. This has to change. No government, no court and no laws can bring this change. Families have to change and our sisters and daughters have to be educated, confident and self reliant. They have to imbibe the Shakti and bring out the Durga in them to challenge the Mahishashurs both inside and outside their homes and the law of the land should stand firmly by their side. This will be the true Durga Puja and every day will then be as auspicious as Navaratri.

IF WINTER COMES, CAN SPRING BE FAR BEHIND?

 

The pandemic exposed the fault lines of our society like never before. All the story of the forthcoming ‘Acche Din’ (good days) appeared as remote as the farthest planet Pluto as we grappled the mass distress inflicted upon us by the pandemic and the resultant lockdown. We had to make the Hobson’s choice between life and livelihood, and choosing life got too uncomfortable for a vast majority of our suffering countrymen. Seeing some of them walk hundreds of kilometers along our national highways in order to reach their homes was both heart wrenching and shameful. As if this was not enough, dark and ominous clouds of war are still hovering over Northern border, with the cunning red dragon hissing from across the border trying to singe the tranquility in the Himalayan mountains. And to top it all, a total lack of consensus among the political class, constant bickering, nitpicking, scoring brownie points, daily round of invective being hurled at political rivals is sapping any efforts at ameliorating the lot of a suffering populace. Pathetic efforts are underway at cheap competitive populism and credit hunting for cosmetic favours done to a hapless populace with an eye on future electoral gains.

Our country can perhaps face external threats, but the internal dissent and strife across cast and religious fault lines remain a far more potent and sinister threat. The fact that these festering sores are kept raw and bleeding for petty political gains is not unknown to us but we still invariably keep falling prey to these nefarious designs and further weaken our resolve of overcoming them one day. The condition of women and children in our feudal and patriarchal society remains vulnerable and even in these testing times incidence of rapes, domestic violence and child abuse continue to plague our society. But are we talking about these issues with intent to ascertain their aetiology, so that we can address them meaningfully? Surprisingly not; we instead choose to discuss threadbare non issues like some actor’s suicide and some actress’s drug habits!

Our media may choose to ignore the real issues but the society is not.  The situation is surely not normal but that is not always bad. Normal times and status quo situations are good to live in but only lead to stagnation and subsequent decline of morals and standards. This is one rare occasion in our lifetime when the whole world has been stirred out of complacency in the garb of normalcy. 

There is an enormous social churning going on, a samudra manthan which is bound to bring out both amrit/nectar and vish/poison. There are sections of our society who have always deserved a better deal but are clueless because of lack of leadership and options. Political masters have promised them 'seva' or service, but if they were lucky then on rare occasions they were offered 'daya' or pity. Quite justifiably their patience is running out. On the other end of the spectrum are industrialists and entrepreneurs who were promised reforms and encouraging business friendly environment but were burdened with whimsical laws and entangled in administrative confusion. Profit was considered a sin and yet they were expected to generate employment and improve exports. And right in the middle was the ambitious middle class, religiously paying taxes, educating their children and optimistically hoping that their life will get better. Honestly this was our normal, all the sections of our society were surviving at the brink of an illusion of success and the social and economic jolt which this virus has provided has pushed us off that brink and thankfully shattered the illusion. Now why is that so bad?

It is time for a reality check for all of us and the change has started to take shape. By walking back home the unorganised working class has announced their true value and both the government and their previous employers are responding favourably. The industry is forcing the government to make unprecedented land and labour reforms and states after states are responding. It is now up to the middle class to force the government to make the much needed educational reforms in the New Education Policy so that primary, middle and higher education and teacher's training are all modernized and made job oriented.

I am not one of those who lament that the government is doing nothing. The making of toilets to eradicate open defecation, rural roads, rural electrification, rural cooking gas coinnection, housing for the urban and rural poor, insurance for labourers of the unorganized sector and for farmers and the recent agricultural reforms to liberate the farmers from the vice grip of the middlemen are all positive steps and are results of this social churning. The society is forcing the government to deliver, and those who fail to do so are being voted out. Here again there are cunning political turncoats who have patented the art of running with the hare and hunting with the hound, but the electorate today is very wise and unforgiving. When this manthan is eventually over let us expect that the amrit comes to the rescue of the sincere and hard working and the vish goes to their greedy exploiters. After all 'Blessed are the Meek, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven'.

Tomorrow has to be a better day because we have hit the rock bottom. Hope they say dwells Eternal in the Human Heart and as the English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley said 'If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind'!