Bangalore and Non-Veg Food

Bangalore has undoubtedly, one of the best weathers in India which probably is the reason for so many IT companies settling here. In turn, Bangalore attracts people from across the country making it one of the most cosmopolitan cities. The food joints here leave no stone unturned to ensure that one gets non-veg food varying from Lang-sha (North-Eastern States) to Awadhi Biryani (Uttar Pradesh) and different food from other states. Bangalore has not been always like this. I got to know from a news article (link below) that in Malleswaram, the hub of the city it was difficult to get liquor, leave alone non veg food, twenty years back. Being a vegetarian was considered to have a ‘higher social status’ since that was more or less, at par with Brahmins. 

We have a plethora of options for having non veg food now in Bangalore. Ranging from street food stalls to military hotels to 5 star restaurants these food points ensure that one get nearly all kinds of non veg food that fits in her budget. Talking about military hotels, it was difficult to get the origin of the name by searching on internet however, we get a vague idea that these military hotels were set-up to serve military people. Mostly these military hotels are non veg and don’t burn a hole in your pocket. 

Some streets in bangalore become a paradise for nonveg connoisseurs in the festivals particularly Ramadan. People will be thronging around stalls having non veg delicacies in Shivajinagar on Ramadan evenings. If you’re lucky you get to taste camel’s meat otherwise the normal stuff like mutton samosa (half the size of a regular samosa), chicken burger, beef / mutton kebabs, caramel custard and last but not the least sulemani chai are served. These stalls are temporary ones and hygiene-minded people may hesitate a bit to have food here. Some stalls are open post midnight in Shivajinagar for latecomers. Other places where these stalls can be found are Tilak Nagar, Rahamat Nagar and Frazer Town.

While now-days there’s a lot of debate going on what to eat and what not to eat and some atrocious incidents have also taken place (particularly in North India) for people eating / storing beef, Bangalore is a relatively safe place to have non veg food with the variety, unlikely to get anywhere else.

My new phone - Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (4 GB RAM with 64 GB memory)

I recently bought the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (4 GB RAM with 64 GB memory) for $210 (13,500 INR). Considering other phones with the same specifications, this was a steal deal. This was my first experience with a Xiaomi device and I must say that there are reasons why the brand is called ‘Apple’ of China.

Let’s quickly have a look at the Pros and Cons of the phone:
Pros: • Once you’re logged in to your MI account, all the messages and call logs will appear on your phone just like you left it with your last Xiaomi device. • The in-built apps like Cleaner, Security Compass, Notes work like a charm. • The battery easily lasts for 1.5 days with mixed usage. • It has great customization options. You can even flip the placements of buttons (multi-tasking on the right and back on the left or vice versa) or turn their lights off • Octa-Core Snapdragon 625 SoC works flawlessly in most of the situations. I had a good experience playing Asphalt 8.
Cons: • It still uses micro USB when the whole world is adopting USB Type C. • It takes a while (around 2.5 hours) to charge the battery from scratch.

Homeschooling - Concept

Since time immemorial, children have been gathering chunks of knowledge by a mentor aka Guru. Format of this education may have changed from ‘Ashrams’ to ‘International Schools’ but the basics remains the same. A Guru disseminates the knowledge and in the end seeks ‘Gurudakshina’ which is paid by the disciple. However, it is not mandatory from the Guru’s side to ask ‘Gurudakshina’.

Let’s come to the modern way of education system. Children still go to a bunch of Gurus who don’t seek any ‘Gurudakshina’ but are on the payrolls of the educational institution. To ensure that these institutions don’t run out of money to pay to their hired Gurus, they keep charging money in different formats from children’s parents. The basic school fee is justified to some extent; what is not justified, are the different charges which they name very innovatively as Development Fee, Infrastructure Fee etc.

Adding on to that, the nexus which the schools have with different uniform-and-book-shops is highly condemnable. The nexus pressurizes school to ask parents to buy books, stationary, uniform and all other not-that-necessary stuff from a particular shop and everybody wins in this deal except the parents.

Some parents have started working on a concept called homeschooling to combat this situation. Here, the children instead of going to school learn at home with the help of parents and if required, a tutor comes into picture. Directly homeschooling helps the parents to get more involved with their children and as a bonus, children don’t get molested by the teachers in the school (we have enough examples of this; Don’t we!).

Theoretically, parents are supposed to prepare a time-table for children which includes her studies, extra-curricular activities and projects. The child stays at home and learn under her parents’ supervision. One of the negative aspect of homeschooling is the child missing out with the social interactions with kids of her age, which she would be getting engaged in her school. Parents have come out with web forums to make an attempt to resolve this situation.

Like-minded parents plan and meet (along with their children) at mutually agreed places so that the child get a hang of social interactions. Getting connected on web means that parents can discuss study related issues with each other and strive for a resolution. We have examples of individuals like Hilary Duff and Williams sisters who were homeschooled and have created a niche for themselves.