White Mughals -2002

The book is a work of social history about the warm relations that existed between the British and some Indians in the 18th and early 19th century, when one in three British men in India was married to an Indian woman. It documents the inter-ethnic liaisons between British officers, such as Major-General Charles Stuart, and Indian women, and the geopolitical context of late 18th century India. Like From the Holy Mountain, it also examines the interactions of Christianity and Islam, emphasizing the surprisingly porous relationship between the two in pre-modern times.

At the heart of White is the story of affair which saw a British dignitary, the East India Company Resident in Hyderabad, Captain James Achilles Kirkpatrick, convert to Islam and marry Khair-un-Nissa, a Hyderabadi noblewoman of royal Mughal descent. As the British Resident in Hyderabad, Kirkpatrick is shown to balance the requirements of his employers, the East India Company, with his sympathetic attitude to the Nizam of Hyderabad.

The very title of White Mughals indicates its subject: the late 18th- and early 19th-century period in India, where there had been ‘a succession of unexpected and unplanned minglings of peoples and cultures and ideas’. On one level, the book tells the tragic love story of James Kirkpatrick, ‘the thoroughly orientalised’ British Resident in Hyderabad and Khair, a beautiful young Muslim noblewoman. On another level, the story is about trade, military and political dealings, based on Dalrymple’s researches among letters, diaries, reports, and dispatches (much of it in cipher). Out of these sources he draws a fascinating picture of sexual attitudes and social etiquette, finding an “increasingly racist and dismissive attitude” among the British ruling class towards mixed race offspring, after the rise of Evangelical Christianity. He paces the gradual revelations with a novelist’s skills, leading us on, after the death of Kirkpatrick, to “the saddest and most tragic part of the whole story”. The doomed lovers actually engender an optimistic coda, when their two children move to Britain. The daughter Kitty becomes a friend and muse of Scottish writer and philosopher Thomas Carlyle, and re-establishes contact with her grandmother in India through Henry Russell.

For copy of White Mughals contact me….

Jack Ma- The Richest man in Chains

_If you put Bananas and Money in front of Monkeys, Monkeys will choose Bananas because monkeys do not know that *Money can buy a lot of Bananas*._

if you offer JOB and BUSINESS to people, they would choose JOB because most people do not know that BUSINESS can bring more MONEY than Wages.

*Robert Kiyosaki*, author of the best selling book “RICH DAD, POOR DAD” and also a business partner of Donald Trump said:
_”One of the reasons poor are poor, is because they are NOT TRAINED TO RECOGNIZE ENTREPRENEURSHIP OPPORTUNITIES._

They spend too much time in school and what they have learnt in school, is to WORK FOR WAGES instead of MONEY WORKING FOR THEM.

*”Profit is better than Wages, for Wages can make you a living but Profits can bring you a Fortune.”*

*THINK INVESTMENT* and stop fighting over increments of salaries, it still won’t be enough
*Hear this from a Professor to freshmen and women during their orientation:* (Actually he is an Acting DVC Academic at a small/new university in Kenya)

“Academic excellence is overrated!

School rewards people for their memory.

,#Life rewards people for their imagination.#

School rewards caution, life rewards daring.

#Don’t limit yourself to the classroom. Do something practical. Take a leadership position.#

Start a business and fail. That’s a better Entrepreneurship 101.
Attend a seminar.
Read books outside the scope of your course.
Go on missions and win a soul for eternal rewards…
Do something you believe in!

Why people go for trekking?

So why do people go for treks? Why do they risk their lives to conquer an unseen mountain? Just for the sake of victory? To prove that they can achieve anything or is it just a healthier time pass than watching a movie on a weekend?

Those are hardly the reasons. Treks transform you. You come to know yourself but not by looking within, it is by losing yourself.


The mountain does not care whether you are a CEO of a multinational or a local sherpa. After walking for sometime in nature you loose your identity and become one with d mountains. You are no longer the insecure feeble stubborn human being.

You are one with the wind. You are one with the mist. You are the birds. You are the greens. You are the freshness. You are alive. Somehow nothing else matters, your work, your relationships, nothing. All that matters is the next step. It could give you a firm footing and confidence to move ahead or it can lead you to a fifty foot fall. In that decisive moment you are alive. More alive than ever. That’s when you completely lose yourself and realize who you truly are.




Through being alone you realize your own freedom.


Source: <<Aranya Trekkers Group, Karnataka>>
















Take a look at these amazing sculpture:
Source of information: https://thegreenroute.blogspot.in by Pradeep P Damle.

National Digital Library


check this new initiative from HRD and IIT Kharagpur.6.5 million books are now available in one single portal, where you can read online, or download the books. There are text books, audio and video content. Just browsing them all may take years! Enjoy. National Digital Library is an initiative by HRD ministry. It is a huge collection of learning resources (68 lakh books) from primary to PG level. Students can use it free of charge.

To register, go to:  https://ndl.iitkgp.ac.in


where is Shri krishnadevaraya tomb ?


Historians are still in a state of conflict over the grave of Vijayanagara emperor Sri Krishnadevaraya, who reigned from 1509 to 1530 as the third ruler of the Tuluva dynasty. There are no clear inscriptions about the emperor and his chief minister Thimmarasu’s graves, and only belief by the locals.


A tomb situated on Penukonda Hill in Anantapur district, summer capital of Vijayanagar empire, is believed to be that of Thimmarasu on Penukonda hill.



Amazing sculpture of Sri Krishnadevaraya in Hampi



Artificial Ripening of Fruits – The right way

Climacteric fruits like mango, banana, papaya, sapota and custard apple are often harvested in a mature but unripe condition and then subsequently allowed to ripen by natural release of ripening hormone (ethylene) from the fruit. However, natural ripening in some fruits is a slow process, which leads to high weight loss, desiccation of fruits and uneven ripening. With the rapid development of fruit trade, artificial ripening has become essential and the methods practiced earlier by small traders are smoking and calcium carbide treatment.


Bad effects of calcium carbide

Fruits are still being commercially ripened with banned chemical like calcium carbide which after reaction with water vapour present in the surrounding atmosphere releases acetylene gas. Some traders ripen fruits like banana in enclosed chambers where large quantities of calcium carbide  is put and water sprinkled before sealing the chambers. Though the released acetylene triggers ripening process in fruits, it is an inflammable gas involving risk of fire hazards. Calcium carbide is also put in small packets in the fruit boxes and in some cases sprinkled onto the fruit surface. However, calcium carbide contains chemical impurities such as arsenic hydride and phosphorus hydride that are highly carcinogenic compounds. Improper use of calcium carbide can therefore cause chemical contamination of fresh produce. Further fruits ripened with calcium carbide though develop attractive surface colour, are inferior in taste, flavour and spoil faster.

Government of India has banned the use of calcium carbide for ripening of fruits under PFA Act 8-44 AA, 1954.

Alternatives to calcium carbide

Ethrel or ethaphon (2-chloroethane phosphonic acid) is a commercially available plant growth regulator, which is a source of ethylene similar to that naturally released by fruits during ripening process.  Although dipping of fruits in diluted ethrel solution is recommended for enhancing ripening, it is a cumbersome process and may cause some problems if commercially available ethrel contains chemical impurities. Further, Food Safety and Standard Authority of India (FSSAI) in its advise issued during May 2010 permits only the use of ethylene in gaseous form for artificial ripening of fruits. To overcome these problems ethylene gas is commercially used in modern ripening chambers which requires huge investment and is not economical for farmers or small traders. Catalytic reactors based ethylene generators are also available which produces ethylene gas using ethanol or methanol or ethrel.

An alternative simple method is standardized for enhancing the ripening process by exposing the fruits to ethylene gas released from ethrel/ethephon solution. This is a simple method wherein small quantity of alkali is added to ethrel to release the ethylene gas and the fruits are exposed to this liberated gas in air-tight portable plastic tents. In this method the fruits are placed in ventilated plastic crates inside air-tight plastic tents of known volume. Required/calculated quantity of ethrel is taken into a container and placed inside the tents to which required quantity of alkali (Sodium hydroxide) is added for releasing the ethylene gas from ethrel solution and the tents are sealed air tight immediately. A small battery operated fan can be placed inside the tent for uniform circulation of released ethylene gas. After 18-24 hours of exposure the fruits are taken out for completing the ripening process at room temperature or 18-24°C especially for Robusta banana. Using dessert coolers during ripening at room temperature would help to reduce the temperature and increase the relative humidity thereby reducing the weight loss.

Mango fruits exposed to 100 ppm ethylene gas for 24 hrs can be ripened in   5 days as compared to 10 days in non-treated fruits without adversely affecting the quality. Similarly banana bunches/hands exposed to 100 ppm ethylene gas for 18 hours  can be ripened in  4 days at RT and 6 days at 20°C. Papaya fruits exposed to ethylene gas ripened with uniform surface colour and uniform firmness in 4 days at ambient temperature. Therefore, use of ethylene is suggested as a safe alternative to calcium carbide for ripening of climacteric fruits.

Castle Rock, Karnataka-India

Castle Rock is a village in the Uttara Kannada district of the Indian state of Karnataka. The village is located in the Western Ghats on the state’s border with Goa – at an elevation of 621 m (2,040 ft).


Located in a heavily forested area, Castle Rock’s vegetation is moist tropical deciduous. Manganese mines form the main economy of the region. The village lies within the Dandeli Tiger Reserve.


img_5591 For many years, the village marked the frontier between Portuguese-held Goa and British-held India. A metre gauge railway line used to connect the Goan towns of Vasco and Margao with the rest of India and was the only rail link in the state till the Konkan Railway started services in the early 1990s. In the early 1990s, the Indian Railways converted the metre gauge line to broad gauge, thus connecting the old rail network with the rest of India. Metre gauge tracks can still be seen at the Castle Rock railway station.




Indian Railway Reservation/booking status & it’s meaning

Indian Railway Reservation/booking

















