Understanding our evolution through the lens of diet and nutrition

The Community Nutrition Forum (CNF) in my home state of Kerala in India organized a “Webinarathon” in celebration of National Nutrition Month in September. 15 days of 1 hour sessions conducted by expert dieticians and nutritionists about a range of topics such as basics of good nutrition, diet for different diseases and diet for different age groups. I missed the first few sessions but since then have been listening to topics such as diet and nutrition for Alzheimer’s disease, women suffering from PCOS, lactating mothers and adolescent kids. One common factor has stood out in all the sessions. From children to elder people, every category of people has one basic requirement the lack of which is creating a host of health issues in them.

Vitamin D.

Where do we get Vitamin D from? Simply go stand in the sun. But there is a catch. Our body creates maximum Vitamin D when exposed to early morning sun, between 7-9 am. This is why most Indian temples are open till 9:30 am. What happens after 9:30? Sun’s radiation becomes stronger as it gets hotter and we get exposed to more UV rays which in the long run can cause cancer. But simply standing in the sun is not enough. With brisk walking we inhale more oxygen and the increased pumping of the heart sends oxygenated blood to all parts of the body triggering cell regeneration. More oxygenated blood flow rejuvenates the brain which in turn helps improve focus and concentration. Many schools are adopting 10-15 minutes of workouts or yoga before beginning of classes every morning. Circumambulation of banyan trees is common in Indian temples because banyan trees produce the best oxygen in the morning. Most traditions are rooted in science but people would ignore if they are asked to walk for the sake of health but would walk readily in the name of Gods, so Gods have been used to build healthy communities for thousands of years.

The dominant genes in all of us contain genetic information from our ancestors who were active and predominantly outdoor people. Our present lifestyles are in direct contradiction with the information contained in our genetic makeup. Moreover, fats, proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins, sodium, potassium, magnesium, iron, etc all exist in a certain balance in our body. Imbalance in one of them can have ripple effect on the others. Such imbalances result in the release of hormones that can do the exact opposite of the so called happy hormones, making people moody and pushing them into spirals of negative thoughts. This in turn reduces our body energy known as prana and when that battery dies we die.

Vitamin D manages a host of body functions and is even said to protect us from cancer. But we are too busy for morning walks. Many people take Vitamin D capsules, unknown to the fact that absorption of Vitamin D through the gut is very less compared to creation of Vitamin D from sunlight through our skin. Then there are people deriding others for walking in the sun because it will make their complexion dark. Pitting staying healthy against looking white and (supposedly) good is not smart and it is born out of ignorance of our own anatomy.

I have observed dietitians advising people to shun junk food completely and eat only healthy food. We resist just like animals when we are forced to change something we like or adopt something we don’t want to. People who like eating junk food, especially the ones in the adolescent age group are going to laugh off such advices. The question here is how did we reach the point of addiction to junk food?

Animals eat food for nutrition and not based on taste. When we see a pride of lions hunting and devouring a wild buffalo, there are two aspects to note. Herbivores extract proteins from the vegetation they eat but protein content is low in vegetation which is why they need to eat a lot to satisfy their protein needs and consequently developed large appetite and large physique. Carnivores eat herbivores to get the proteins from them. Also, lions hunting a large animal means every member of the pride can eat to their full and they don’t need to eat again for some days. Hunting is an exhaustive and risky affair, zebra’s hind leg kicks have broken jaw bones of lions and starved them to death.

Our taste buds are far more in numbers and far more evolved than that of animals. Our preference for taste grew with time and this is how we started using spices. There were times when food was made with the balance of nutrition and taste, like the biryani. What changed those dynamics was the industrial revolution, concept of money and office jobs. Working for long hours became the norm and there was no time for sumptuous meals. This heralded the emergence of a new food industry, the fast food industry. Food items that can be prepared quickly, are tasty and can be eaten fast or on the go became the need and the fast food industry catered perfectly to the new dietary requirements. A large proportion of fast food items are fried and deep fried, have milk products such as cheese and butter and adding a sedentary lifestyle with little to no exercise has become the recipe for health disasters.

Dietitians have to understand the short and long term adverse impact of eating junk food and prepare totally new diet charts with healthy food items that can reduce the adverse effects of junk food. Fast food has become an integral part of the global food industry and junk food an integral part of our diet. Restaurants in India heat oil for deep frying a variety of vegetarian and non vegetarian food items in the same oil, reuse the same oil the next day and add fresh oil to it. Every food item fried in such oil is junk food for me. Dietitians have to accept this reality and evolve with their diet plans accordingly.

I have had problems digesting meat from my childhood so I never liked eating meat. My great grandfather was a Brahmin so I used to think my dislike to meat was genetic till my mom told me that she ate very less meat during her pregnancy. This is when I realized being not used to meat from my mother’s womb could be the primary reason. My friends keep telling me the need to eat meat for meeting my protein requirements but I believe everybody’s nutrient requirements are different based on many factors and my body may not have similar protein requirements like others.

Precision nutrition is an evolving and exciting area of study where one’s DNA, microbiome, and metabolic response to specific foods or dietary patterns are analyzed and evaluated to determine the most effective eating plan to prevent or treat disease. According to many religions, each human being is made up of genes from 7 generations. Considering 7 generations of genes on both father’s and mother’s side of each one of us, we are all made up of genetic soup and our genetic structure must be as unique as our fingerprints.

They say the way to someone’s heart is through their stomach. Healthy hearts are the key to our overall health and dieticians are best positioned to ensure this. The need for healthy diets are on the rise in every aspect of our lives so dietetics is an emerging field with immense potential. Looks like dietitians have a major role to play we move towards our next stage of evolution.

Life lesson from my dad’s passing

Its been a month since my dad’s passing and as mom and I continue to reminisce about his life and reconcile with his loss, I am realizing that life has taught me an important lesson.

Both Dad and his younger brother were tall and heavy and both had acid reflux issues (thanks to their maternal genes). But how their health unraveled took two contrasting roads.

1. Extreme acid reflux can simulate cardiac issues and this happened for both. Cardiologists did angioplasty on uncle but treating arterial blocks do not stop acid reflux. Uncle lost faith in treatment. Bypass surgery was recommended for dad after 20 days so I figured if he can survive for 20 days, his health can be managed without surgery.

2. Both developed swelling on their hands and feet. Uncle’s condition was apparently not treated. Dad’s cardiologist kept asking about his bypass surgery and ignoring the swelling. So I googled to find out why the swelling was happening. Any issue that affects the working of the heart reduces blood flow to other parts of the body. When kidneys receive lesser amount of blood the body assumes there is not enough water so kidneys start accumulating water, first on the feet and then on the hands. The condition is called edema. Finally when water enters the lungs it becomes pulmonary edema. Then the only treatment left is bypass surgery. Dad’s cardiologist was trying to force bypass surgery on him by leaving the swelling untreated. I immediately changed the cardiologist and consulted a nephrologist who prescribed a diuretic which forces water in the swelled up areas to be released from the body through urination. Uncle refused bypass surgery, water had to be pulled out of his lungs, he developed paralytic stroke and eventually passed away.

3. Dad reduced salt intake drastically after misunderstanding cardiologist’s instruction. I was unfamiliar with the ensuing condition but realized something was wrong with him. Took him to hospital for checkup and found his sodium level freefalling. In another two days he would have had ended up in coma.

4. Dad’s new cardiologist advised me to treat acid reflux at home and not to take him to hospital as acid reflux bouts can seem like cardiac issue and he would end up in the hands of cardiologists.

For the past 10 years, I have been mostly at home and especially in the last 6 years, largely due to market conditions. This gave me the opportunity to try doing different things which led to starting a home based cloud kitchen and in a way fulfill dad’s lifelong ambition to start a restaurant. I forced dad to go to the gym which improved his health drastically. When he suffered stroke like symptoms I chose to take him to a physician nearby who checked him and told me his nerve functions were fine and he was suffering from weakness due to muscle loss caused by protein deficiency. Though he fell a couple of times nothing happened to him and mom and I ensured he never fell down again especially in the bathroom. Broken bones never heal completely in old age, restrict movements which reduces immunity and makes body vulnerable to other diseases. Dad had normal blood sugar and I ensured all his body organs were working well and his blood pressure, essential elements like sodium, potassium and magnesium and vitamin levels were normal. Circumstances prevented me from pursuing a career in medicine but my fundamentals in biology and human anatomy are strong and I read a lot on both.

I did not earn a lot of money in the past 10 years but I was able to save a lot of money on dad’s treatment. If I hadn’t been at home. he may have underwent bypass surgery which could have ruined his health. Most importantly, he was able to live a disease free life, eat and do everything he wanted to and go peacefully. I could not have bought him this with all the money in the world. Is it possible to become successful without having a lot of money and everything that comes with it? I guess it is.

Moonlighting – Necessity born out of poor governance and toxic corporate culture

Rishad Premji, son of Wipro founder chairman Azim Premji recently commented that moonlighting or working in multiple jobs simultaneously is unethical and amounts to cheating. Question to ask here is, why do employees in India moonlight? There are several reasons:-
1) The most important one – monetary needs driven by inflation, taxes, medical needs, supporting aged parents and children, paying loans and a ton of other reasons and salary increments companies give that do not even remotely match the ever increasing needs brought on by the above mentioned factors.
2) Dissatisfaction in their current full time jobs because of poor management and bad managers, poor salaries and salary hikes and work that is monotonous, nothing to learn from and devoid of challenges.
3) Taboo imposed by hiring managers and recruiters who look down upon employees who switch jobs frequently.
4) For younger professionals looking to grow, moonlighting gives them the opportunity to learn more quickly and compete better in the job market.

Rishad Premji can say what he wants from his position of inheritance and privilege. Company owners, CEOs and other top executives who take paychecks that are 100 to 1000 times of the peanuts doled out to regular employees will not have the need to moonlight. Only if he is in the shoes of someone who is moonlighting will he truly understand why employees do one full time job, come home exhausted and compromise on their health, well being and family time to work more.

Tax collectors in Delhi were colluding with businesses to help them cheat on their taxes. In 2015, the new Delhi state government started providing tax collectors with bikes to travel, paid their fuel bills and gave them laptops, mobiles and incentives on tax collection. Revenue generated from tax collection jumped exponentially in a year’s time because tax collectors felt guilty about cheating the government that was taking so much care of them. This is a great example for companies who are complaining about moonlighting employees to learn from and start taking care of their employees so that they don’t feel the need to moonlight.

Dreams that are destroying humanity

It all started post World War II when businesses slowly got back on their feet, from the manufacturing sector & into the government sector. Work hard on 8-10 hour shifts through the entire professional life, save as much money as possible & the dream was to own a house by retirement. Owning a car was status symbol. When banks made enough & more money they started giving out loans for houses & cars & flipped the dream. Now everyone is vying to own a house & a car before they are 30. A few underlying factors subtly changed:-

1) Saving money in banks changed to repaying loans to banks. It didn’t matter if people couldn’t save for a few months but if repayments on home & car loans get stuck for a few months, banks could simply take away both. Living with that thought in itself creates stress.

2) Saving money for 30 years is commitment without stress but repaying loans for 30 years is lugging stress for the best part of our lives. Now it is simple enslavement to the corporate sector, house, car & everything else bought on loans.

3) More salary means more money goes on to taxes. Add inflation, repayment of loans, supporting aged parents, providing children with quality education & a host of other needs & salary hikes that are insignificant when compared to the ever growing financial needs means people are being forced to moonlight in a second job or run some gigs in parallel to their regular jobs. Add the stress of having to hide their other sources of revenue from their employer.

4) When this entire ecosystem of stress got built, people were sold another dream. Insurance. Keep paying insurance premium & it will take care of medical expenses when people get sick. So now there are hospitals & treatment & no one cares about not getting sick & having wellness centers. The best part of all this is, banks now sell insurance. The entity that is the major contributor to the stress in our lives is taking more money from us with the promise of taking care of us when we are sick. It is a different thing that insurance helps with cashless treatment only in cases of planned treatment. For urgent health issues, we have to pay first & then chase the insurance companies for months who in turn will keep finding ways to reduce insurance payment as much as they can.

Barter system between time & remuneration has existed from the beginning of human civilization. But now, we are having to trade both time & health for money. I see houses everywhere with only aged parents living in them. Their children have all gone to other places, bought houses and settled there. Then there is investment on real estate, taking loans & buying houses/apartments to save on taxes. On a planet with 10-12% of habitable land area we are building far more than we need. Human needs are already spiraling out of control, if we do not see what we are doing to ourselves all the talk of mental health is not going to make sense. Working in night shifts has completely disrupted our circadian clock and is making our body a haven for all kinds of diseases to thrive and spread. Our species is simply going to implode in the not too distant future.

Welcome to Googlopathy, the new millennium treatment method

More than a month back, as Dad was walking towards the gym for his cardiovascular workouts one morning, he suddenly became unsteady and ungainly. He had been complaining about general weakness and fatigue for some time. In a couple of days his left side became weak and was unable to move his left hand and walk properly. I took him to a physician nearby who is a M.D and is in his late 70s-early 80s. He did some basic checks on dad (he has all sensations intact on his arm and leg), checked his BP (perfectly fine at 110/80), Dad doesn’t have diabetes (his blood sugar is always less than normal though he can still eat voraciously and devour sweets), so the doctor told us to do some lab tests the report of which was all clear. Then the doctor, suspecting stroke because of possible blood clot in dad’s brain prescribed couple of tablets to make his blood thinner and dissolve the clots and another tablet to improve his nerve functions. Then he told me to improve dad’s diet and take him for physiotherapy sessions. A doctor I know who was the senior doctor at a government hospital and is pursuing P.G in general surgery now told me the weakness could be because of Vitamin D deficiency (Dad hates sun after he had a severe bout of migraine) and asked me to put dad immediately on high dose of Vitamin D tablets once a week and daily calcium tablet.

Dad slowly started feeling better but wasn’t confident about going for physiotherapy sessions so I looked up on YouTube and started basic exercises to strengthen his arm and leg. Then people who know us started getting to know about dad’s condition and were shocked that we did not consult a neurologist and did not do his brain scan. Couple of days back, he finally agreed to go for physiotherapy. The physiotherapist we went to was agitated and demanded us to meet a neurologist, do a scan and then meet him. So I went back to the first doctor and he laughed before prescribing for CT scan. Yesterday we did the scan and everything was fine in the report. The doctor told me dad may have had a Transient Ischemic Attack (TSA) which lasts for a very short period possibly because of minute old clots mentioned in the report. Dad is going to take a while to be back to normal but he has already started moving his hand and is walking better now. The weakness he was complaining about could have been because of Sarcopenia, a condition where people lose skeletal muscle mass and strength due to ageing.

Then the doctor told me something insane. People no longer believe in physicians and clinical diagnosis. They just run to specialists every time they assume something is wrong with them. On top of this they ask for scans and lab tests to be done. Headache for two days and people go on Google, start reading things with no understanding of human anatomy, diseases and their diagnosis and go to doctors suspecting brain tumor and asking for scans to be done. They no longer care or believe in physical examination and diagnostic abilities of doctors no matter how experienced they are. This is what is Googlopathy.

The other doctor whom I spoke to threw a different curve ball at me. A regular doctor or physician could go wrong with his/her diagnosis but it could quickly earn bad reputation for specialists that’s why they are left with no option but to recommend lab tests and scans for every medical issue. We are on herd mentality behavior now where we blindly believe we can be cured only by specialists who charge high fees, do frequent consultation and prescribe tons of tablets, scans and lab tests. Our mindset has changed into believing that when we spend more money on something we will be getting more in return. The specialists are essentially tricking us into exploiting this mindset we have.

Even the regular doctors and specialists are practising Googlopathy now. I had taken dad to a nephrologist in a private hospital a few years back for suspected kidney weakness because his feet were swelling intermittently. The nephrologist, probably in his late 30s-early 40s took his mobile tablet, searched on a website (probably webmd.com) and asked us to do 10 lab tests. I was horrified. With my extremely limited knowledge of medicine and treatment I could have done the same. He did not even bother to ask what dad was experiencing, if he had other health issues, etc. I did the tests and took dad to a nephrologist who was working in a government hospital and was much older (in his 60s). He glanced at the lab report, cast it aside and said older people will develop slight swelling on their feet because of ageing which can be safely ignored.

I told dad the doctor we consulted was experienced enough to send him to a neurologist if he suspected dad had suffered a stroke. The confidence with which he told dad to go home was extraordinary and it came from his wealth of experience which no technology can match. The so called alternate treatment methods such as ayurveda and homeopathy have treated people for hundreds and thousands of years only through diagnosis by understanding the symptoms. Sadly, even those doctors are gravitating towards scans and lab tests now because it makes diagnosis quicker and easier. Our abilities to create and use technological devices is killing our natural ability to do clinical diagnosis.

This degradation is not limited to the field of medicine. Technological devices are destroying all our natural instincts and abilities. Birders use binoculars to identify birds at long distances. Birds are found in specific habitat, the way they perch is different and the shape and size of their wings is different which we can see when they fly. Birders should train themselves to identify birds using these aspects. Doing something the easy way does not mean it is always the best way. Our preference is to eat tasty food but no food in nature is tasty and animals choose food for nutrients not for taste. Our craving for taste has allowed unhealthy food industries to thrive and destroy our health. If we are topping this up with Googlopathy and consuming medicines at will we wont be needing an asteroid strike or nuclear war for our extinction. A bed ridden relative who passed away last year was being fed 17 tablets in the morning (17 you read it right). The line between amusement and horror blurred momentarily for me when I saw it.

My dad’s journey from cardiac arrest to cloud kitchen and the importance of healthy lifestyle

This is about my dad’s journey from an active to sedentary lifestyle which almost took his life, 8 years of wobbling health and how he is transforming himself now. He is 6 feet tall and had developed a hefty physique with heavy eating and an extremely active lifestyle from his younger years. He always believed that eating heavy is the key to staying healthy and did not reduce his food intake with advancing age. To add to this, we moved from our ancestral house where he was very active to a sedentary lifestyle in our new house. He developed Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) induced heartburns which culminated in a cardiac arrest in 2013. Though he recovered, his health didn’t go back to how it was before. To top it off, he developed additional ailments.

He was advised to follow a salt restricted diet but he misconstrued it as a ban on salt and I started observing radical changes in his behavior. Turned out his sodium level was fast decreasing and in another couple of days, he may have ended up in coma. He had also developed swelling on the back side of his palms and feet. Cardiac conditions could result in decreased flow of blood to the kidneys and the brain would signal the kidneys to start retaining water. Because of the false alarm, water starts getting accumulated first on the hands and feet resulting in the medical condition called edema. It was then that I checked dad’s medicines thoroughly and found out that the medicine for edema, called diuretics which forces the excess water out of the body through urine was never prescribed to him. If left untreated, water will start getting accumulated in the lungs leading to the condition known as pulmonary edema which would have forced dad to undergo bypass surgery. The cardiologist never even referred dad to a nephrologist to get his kidneys checked. To top this off, dad had to visit him once every fortnight and he kept asking me when we are doing dad’s bypass surgery. I understood that his sole objective was to make money by forcing the surgery on dad. I immediately consulted another cardiologist, he referred dad to a nephrologist, was immediately put on a course of diuretics and the swelling went off. Now this cardiologist, whose father is well known in the city as the poor man’s doctor removed some of the tablets prescribed by the previous cardiologist and told dad only to visit him if he develops any further issues. Patients are one source of income for every doctor so how many doctors would tell his patients not to visit him unless it is necessary? Though we didn’t know at that time, dad’s younger brother had similar gastric issues and he underwent angioplasty after he developed cardiac issues but it did not solve his gastric issues. He lost trust in the doctors, stopped taking medicines, eventually water entered his lungs, he refused to do bypass surgery, suffered a stroke and passed away at the relatively young age of 66 years.

Dad’s dream of setting up a restaurant never materialized but the emergence of online food delivery partners helped him set up a home based cloud kitchen in late 2019. Another cardiac arrest, though at a much smaller scale hit him again in 2020. Doctors kept advising him to walk on flat surfaces but where would he find flat surfaces other than at home? He couldn’t go out of the house anymore. I finally realized that medication and care alone was not going to help him. He had to become physically stronger again to handle the heartburns which in turn will make him mentally stronger. So I told him that if he wanted to be ambitious at this stage of life and run a business, he will have to put priority on his health first and persuaded him to join a gym for cardiovascular exercises. But making him invest himself in it was important so I made him buy walking shoes. He couldn’t even walk for a minute when he started on the treadmill but he slowly started picking up and started working out on the air glider.

When I dragged him and embarked on this journey 7 months back, little did I know it was going to become probably the most important project of my life. Dad didn’t have any hope of regaining his health so I gave him a milestone, kicking out the tablets he has been on for the past 8 years. He was taking 4 tablets, 2 for blood pressure, a blood thinner & one for cholesterol. I didn’t know how much time it could take, but I woke up at 4 in the morning 5 days a week, pushed him out of bed and into the gym. I also had to figure out the most effective workout schedule for him. Last week he started complaining of headache after taking tablets for blood pressure. I immediately got him checked without taking tablet and it was 110/80, the same as mine. Checked again the next day morning without tablet and it was 130/80. Then I took him to his cardiologist and it was 135/80. Blood pressure rises as the day goes on and falls as dusk approaches. One glance at his ECG report and a cursory check of his heart using the stethoscope was enough for the cardiologist to stop one tablet for blood pressure. The headache has vanished. One tablet down and it is a momentous achievement in such a short span of time. Another 6 months and all other tablets could be gone too. Doctor also said he need not worry about his kidneys as he is active now. He used to feel a bit shaky when walking and that has reduced after he stopped the tablet. He used to get heartburns while cooking when we open our cloud kitchen but not anymore. He was always fearful that reducing food will make him weak. I have put him on a diet of banana and papaya in the evening which has improved his digestion and decreased heartburns considerably. Now he knows that he has to eat healthy and keep working out to get rid of the tablets to become fit.

He is navigating through the treadmill and air glider easily now and I have put him on the machine fly to make his chest and back muscles stronger.

Now I am contemplating upgrading him to weight training exercises slowly. So how about a new milestone? Participating in a body building competition for 70+ guys? He is aghast at the thought. I asked him how many people can do what he is doing so why not be ambitious about it? Looks like my project may have just started after all.

I am writing this to let the world know about the importance of staying fit throughout our lives. My mom started going for morning walks after dad started going to the gym. She has lost weight, started feeling better and her thyroid condition has improved. It is also important to understand that the medical system we follow only treats us when we are sick. Hospitals are not wellness centers and very few doctors advise us to live healthy lives and prevent diseases. Ironically, cardiologists check the condition of the heart by making patients undergo treadmill test (TMT) but they do not advise patients to work out on treadmill every day. We have been living our lives as we used to, none of us have got infected with COVID or any other disease and we are yet to take our vaccine shots. Goes to show how important daily routine, exercises, healthy food and mental health are to maintaining a robust immune system which in turn will protect us from diseases.

We have all been conditioned to believe that our value is in the money we have, our jobs, size of our house, size and number of cars, quantity of gold we possess, etc. and our social status is measured by these parameters which forces us to chase them our entire lives. What we conveniently forget or ignore is, we are social animals and what is truly important for us are health and relationships. Only when we have these will all our accomplishments truly make sense in our lives. We don’t really have to take any extra effort to improve our lives, we just need to understand this one simple fact.

Reasons for India’s COVID part deux – Failed governance, irrational people & complete ignorance about nature

The second wave of COVID-19 pandemic is upon India with greater ferocity. The pandemic started in late 2019, had spread from China to Europe and had just touched the shores of the USA. The Government of India was warned and was well aware of the impending crisis but it dithered in closing down international borders. The result was an epidemic like situation which resulted in harsh lockdown of people and millions suffered in the aftermath with unemployment and hunger.

This time around, the reason for the lockdown is even more ridiculous. Restrictions were eased, life seemed to be getting back to normal and the government even boasted that India had beaten back the virus without any supporting evidence. Festivals were allowed to be organized and state assembly elections were announced by the Election Commission. There was massive congregation for Kumbh Mela festival and huge election rallies in 5 states. It is peak summer across most of India at this time and people are vulnerable to falling sick. People tend to eat less food and sleep less when weather becomes hot which results in reduced immunity. So it is no surprise that COVID-19 has reared up its ugly head again.

Lockdowns are essentially government’s way of saying it is incapable of handling an escalating situation, abdicating responsibility and passing the buck on to the people. In simple terms, diseases are conflicts between higher order and lower order organisms in nature and along with the food chain is how nature keeps the population of every living being under control. Microorganisms are constantly mutating and evolving in nature. A disease of any magnitude could break out any time in nature. We have always been living on this ticking time bomb. Even if the government does not understand this, it is its responsibility to constantly improve and ramp up the health infrastructure of the country. In India, in most of the states, education and health are on the lowest side of the government’s priority list. So will the government be ever prepared for a pandemic? This governance failure is passed on to people and people are made to suffer. Locking people up inside their homes has the detrimental effect of lowering their immunity level and making them vulnerable to more diseases but the government is shortsighted enough to focus on winning a battle now and not being able to see a war coming in the future.

Kerala government is coming up with weird rules as it began a state wide lockdown yesterday. Unlike during the last year’s lockdown, when supermarkets were allowed to function, this time supermarkets have been closed down. Supermarkets are the best places to manage crowds and enforce social distancing. Now, people are rushing to the local stores where crowd control and social distancing is impossible. Opening supermarket stores will distribute the people among the supermarkets and local shops and reduce the possibility of transmission. In a nearby local store, two customers were apparently squabbling over one remaining packet of bread. I wrote to the district collector to consider opening supermarkets and received no response. Now, the government has come up with a website portal for generating e-pass for emergency travel within respective cities and towns. The instructions state that even for medical emergencies, people have to apply for the e-pass, wait for approval, then print it and carry with them. The irony here is, the government seems to be expecting everyone who has internet access at home to also own printers. Printing is usually done at local internet browsing centers which are all shut down now. Upon enquiry, I was told two things. 1) To call the local councilor and he/she will make all arrangements 2) A self written affidavit is enough for medical emergencies. They are expecting someone to sit and write an affidavit or call the councilor and wait when their father/mother/sibling needs emergency medical care. This is the level of incompetence and complete lack of rationale that plagues India’s civil administration.

The virulence of COVID-19 virus is of very small magnitude when compared to the virus that caused small pox. Millions have died because of small pox and my granny used to say that wailing could be heard from every other house because death was everywhere. When a foreign substance of any form enters our body, our immune system immediately mobilizes itself to fight and destroy it. Our body is a sophisticated system and our immune system is designed in such a way as to aggressively restore the balance of the body when something causes an imbalance. The first step is to isolate the foreign substance and prevent it from multiplying and spreading through the blood. Once this is done, the immune system will eliminate the foreign substance. In the case of COVID-19, the first step is failing so the immune system tries more aggressively to attack the virus. This is resulting in the immune system losing focus from other diseases people are suffering from and the subsequent complications led to most number of deaths in the first wave.

After the second wave has started, I am hearing about younger people and people without comorbidities getting
affected. There seems to be only one reason for this. Rapid urbanization has revamped people’s food habits and lifestyle completely which has alienated people even further from nature. Our immune system stays efficient only when it comes into contact with different types of microorganisms constantly, fights them and adapts itself to new diseases. This is all about information, so the greater information our immune system has about microorganisms the better it will be able to protect us. When a boxer quits fighting he invariably gains weight and becomes sluggish. The same happens with the immune system when we spend our entire time holed up in A/c rooms and travel in A/c vehicles. Then, when our junk food and “eating-at-whatever-time” lifestyle leads to diseases like cholesterol, diabetes, high BP and cardiac issues, the immune system is in no state to fight them. On top of all this, when a new virus attacks us for which the immune system needs time to fight, we can only expect the worse to happen to us.

The entire Indian system is at fault for this second wave. The Election Commission should not have gone ahead with the state assembly elections without a clear green signal from the medical fraternity. Even when the elections were declared, no political party showed any inclination to oppose the decision knowing fully well that election rallies are inevitable in the electoral process in India which always leads to massive uncontrolled crowds. Every political party is hungry to win elections and grab people’s power no matter what the situation is. Even the Supreme Court did not choose to step in, cancel the elections and order incumbent state governments to continue as caretaker governments. We, the people did not bother either. We knew what happened last year yet we chose to go for election rallies and on election day to vote in large numbers. Add to this, Indians are addicted to festivals and festivities. Even pandemics don’t matter because Gods will protect us.

The disaster the world is witnessing now has been in the making from the time of India’s independence from colonial rule. India is a democracy only by it’s Constitution. “Rule” is still the word used instead of “govern”, especially by the media. India is “ruled” by central & respective state governments. People’s representatives become people’s rulers & become inaccessible & unaccountable after they win elections. Corruption has become an incurable disease. Religions driven by blind belief take precedence over law & order. Orders passed by courts are imposed by civil administration which is controlled by the government so courts do not have the power to punish lapses in governance. So warnings of a second wave of the pandemic were conveniently ignored for conducting elections & festivals and the entire country is suffering again. Calls for Modi to resign are insensible because replacing leaders without reforming the system is not going to change anything.

Finally, what is incomprehensible is the fear of death among people which the media is amplifying and driving into everybody’s minds. Death is a natural conclusion to life in the entire universe. Our Sun will burn out and die in a few billion years. The Universe itself is supposed to come to an end. Millions of animals and human beings are dying every day because of a variety of reasons. Diseases are one way of population control in nature. This may not be to everybody’s taste but this is how nature works. I say this knowing fully well that my parents and I could also get infected with COVID-19. Nature follows the golden rule of “Survival of the fittest”. Only the strongest will survive in nature. We moved away from nature and forgot the golden rule and to keep ourselves healthy at all times. I hope this pandemic will be a reminder for everyone to return to nature, understand nature better and improve our lifestyle drastically. Our lives hinge on abiding and living by nature’s rules and flouting them will only lead to our own destruction.

Rihanna’s tweet about farmer protests in India and it’s colossal after effects

On the intervening night of 2nd February, when most of India was fast asleep, international pop icon Rihanna detonated the equivalent of a nuclear bomb on Twitter. Nearly half of 1.25 billion Indians woke up to her tweet on the 3rd and what followed was mayhem the equivalent of the Great Flood in conjunction with an asteroid strike.

The Indian farmers have been protesting against three farm laws that were implemented by the government of India in September 2020. As part of the initiative to reform India’s agriculture sector, the government has passed 3 laws – the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020; Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020, and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020. While the government has maintained that the laws are aimed at shifting the terms of selling farm produce in favor of farmers by getting rid of unscrupulous middlemen and vested interests that distort the markets, farmers are apprehensive about them landing at the mercy of private sector players and their apprehension is not unfounded.

The amendment to the Essential Commodities Act the government undertook in 2020 now allows it to regulate the supply of essential food items such as food grains, pulses, edible oils and onion only under extraordinary circumstances (such as war and famine). The three laws intend to increase the number of buyers for farmers’ produce by allowing them to trade freely without any license or stock limit which the government claims can result in farmers getting better prices for their produce. The laws also create a framework for contract farming through an agreement between a farmer and a buyer prior to the production or rearing of any farm produce. It provides for a three-level dispute settlement mechanism as well: the conciliation board, Sub-Divisional Magistrate and Appellate Authority.

Free trade for farmers’ produce will automatically eliminate any barriers for private companies from stepping into the agriculture sector. Allowing private companies to buy essential food items without any limitations can lead to potential food inflation and unprecedented price rise as private companies will have maximum control over the availability of those food items in the market. The Adani Group has been accused of setting up silos in Punjab as soon as the farm laws were implemented. Though they have categorically denied the accusation, it is hard to ignore the facts that the group is a major funder of BJP, the political party that has formed government in India and Gautam Adani’s (Founder of Adani Group) proximity to PM Modi who was ferried around for election rallies all over India in Adani’s private helicopter even before he became PM in 2014. Private players entering into contract farming is another contentious issue. Most important here is the dispute settlement mechanism. Dispute settlements can take a long time and the process is susceptible to being influenced by the powerful private companies.

To fan the suspicions even further about the laws, the government drafted the laws without consulting with the farming community. No democratic government would create laws for an industry without involving the stakeholders from the industry and try to impose the laws on the industry. Add to this, the laws were passed as ordinances through voice vote in the Parliament without any discussion and reaching consensus with the opposition parties.

The farmers from the state of Punjab were the ones who started the protest against the farm laws. The media, largely subservient to the government and the government’s propaganda IT cell went to work, branding the farmers as Khalistan terrorists. But the protest soon spread to the nearby states of Haryana and UP and soon enough the protestors reached the border of Delhi. After the disastrous tractor rally in Delhi during the Republic Day celebrations on 26th January, the government has tried to break the resistance of the farmers by erecting concrete barricades at Delhi border and by cutting off water, toilet access and internet services.

It is at this point that Rihanna exploded her Twitter bomb. As her tweet quickly grabbed global attention, support for farmers started pouring in. Even child activists Greta Thunberg and Licypriya Kangujam weighed in with their support. Then the government propaganda machine went into overdrive. On one side, the government issued statements denying any wrongdoing on it’s part. On another it mobilized prominent sports and film personalities who tweeted in identical fashion to “protect” India from “external influences”.

The irony of this is, during his last visit to US, Modi had openly endorsed President Trump for a second term and no American citizen had outraged over it. In democracy, everyone has a voice. The oldest democracy can have an opinion about the largest democracy and vice versa. This is what makes democracies mature and vibrant. Having democracy written into a country’s Constitution without people understanding the true meaning of it is simply useless.

But it is the venom of hatred and abuse on social media that the IT cell run by BJP has unleashed on Rihanna, Greta, Licypriya and even on Meena Harris, niece of US VP Kamala Harris that has left the world stunned.

The simple fact is, when someone is abused and threatened for no fault or for taking a stand on an issue, the fault is mostly on the side of the abusers.

The state police of Delhi has even lodged an FIR on Greta prompting users on Twitter to mock the government to ask the help of Interpol to arrest her.

 

Rihanna has even been accused of taking payment for making her tweet.

This is when ironically, the farmers are protesting against the government’s alleged attempt to put agriculture sector under the control of select corporate companies. I do not have a view on whether Rihanna was paid or not but when the government is playing an unfair game it should not expect the farmers to play it fair and square.

What has been exposed though is that for the hatemongers who are sending vitriol laden messages and abusive threats to supporters of the protest, this is far more than the protest itself. By openly abusing women and even girl children, they have exposed their patriarchal upbringing and mindset before the world.

This is how a friend of mine who supports the government and BJP responded to me when I told him that Rihanna may not have taken any money for her tweet.

The article Rihanna had shared in her tweet is about government restricting internet access to farmers and not about the farm laws. What most people in India do not know is about the concept of Maslow’s hierarchy and the fact that internet is considered as part of our physiological needs in developed countries.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, a scalable vector illustration on white background

She may or may not know about the farm laws, why the farmers are protesting and she definitely doesn’t need to know where Punjab is. The protest has become pan India now. The right wing ecosystem that thrives on the patriarchal upbringing and mindset of the people in it cannot accept any free thinking woman especially when she takes a stand on an issue. They will readily stoop to even physical assault to gain control over women.

As the government continues to rebuff repeated calls to repeal the farm laws and end the protest, it is finding itself being increasingly cornered by the tenacity and will of the protesting farmers. Modi has the mindset of an authoritarian ruler and he seems to know the below fact clearly.

What Rihanna’s tweet and the global outrage that followed it has done is to make it untenable for the Indian government to impose authoritarianism on the people under the garb of democracy. Modi’s inflated ego will suffer a massive dent if he is forced to repeal the farm laws. It would be wise for him to repeal the laws, end the impasse and do not let the protest descend into a civil unrest against the government. After all, BJP and it’s allies got only 39% vote share in the 2019 elections which means 61% Indians rejected BJP and do not consider Modi as their leader.

 

How Zomato’s & Swiggy’s business model is creating & choking food outlets

 

Online food delivery companies Zomato and Swiggy have completely changed how urban India eats it’s food. Sensing how Indian families like to eat home cooked food, Swiggy came up with a smartly enticing ad with the slogan “eat some home made food eat some from Swiggy”. Though several small local players have come up, these two companies have largely monopolized the market, Zomato going so far as to buy UberEats, the food delivery arm of Uber.

Both companies have very similar mobile apps with small variations in their features. The process they follow to add food outlets on to their platforms is also very similar. Create a new food outlet on the platform and list the items on the outlet’s menu in the app with the photos. Then a general template is followed to add options to turn on/off the outlet on the app and turn on/off individual items on the menu. Then the outlet is all set to start doing business on the platforms. All of this sounds well and good but then comes the tricky part.

When they created the option for customers to rate the food of food outlets, they chose an easy and clumsy way to do it. They simply added the option to rate the food outlets instead of the food their customers ate. This is the archaic method of rating restaurants based on the entire dining experience at their premises. With food delivery apps, there is no dining experience. There are only a few parameters to check such as if the food has been prepared with good and fresh ingredients and the behavior of the delivery executives.

Lets see how the rating dynamics plays out. So for example, a restaurant has 50 items on it’s regular menu and they are listed on the apps of Zomato and Swiggy and a customer orders 2 items from the list. Depending on how much the customer has liked the food, ratings can be given from 1-5, 1 being the least and 5 being the best. Let’s say the customer liked the two items immensely and decided to give 5 rating. But note that the rating is going for the restaurant and not for the food items he/she had ordered. On the flip side, if the customer did not like the food at all, the restaurant might get a 1 rating.

The fundamental problem with this rating system is, a customer who gives a lower rating in their first experience is less likely to buy again from the restaurant and this is irrespective of the fact that he/she has just tried 2 of the 50 items in the menu. Now let’s say the customer who gave 5 rating the first time ordered another two items from the same restaurant and didn’t like them. Where does this leave the customer? Should he/she rate the restaurant again? Giving a lower rating has the psychological effect on us of being less likely to buy from the same restaurant again.

Both Zomato and Swiggy mandate that outlets receive a certain number of ratings in a specific number of days to show as rated outlets on their platforms. Customers who give good ratings on their first order from an outlet is more unlikely to give ratings for further orders, even though they might be ordering different items on the outlet’s menu since they have already rated the outlet. This has adverse effect on food outlets with less items as they need more new customers to buy their items and rate them to stay rated on the platforms and they have no control over it.

Now what if the ratings are given for food items rather than the food outlets? One food item may have slightly different tastes in different food outlets. A customer may like it the most from one food outlet and not so much from the others but it will not have the effect of the customer avoiding food outlets because of one unsavory experience with them.

The inherent problem lies in the design of the apps. Food outlets are listed in the apps and under them their respective food items. Then there are some categories of food items listed, like for example Pizza. Inside Pizza, the food outlets selling pizzas are listed along with their ratings. Customers have to select an outlet to go to its menu. Now, how would the design look like if food items were rated instead of the food outlets? Under Pizza, types of pizzas will be listed. So when the customer clicks on, say, Margherita Pizza, the list of food outlets selling the pizza from the best to the lowest rating will be listed.

Even more bizarre is how customers are able to give lower ratings to food outlets by simply stating that the taste of the food was bad. They should also be given the options to specify what about the food was bad. Maybe the ingredients were not good or fresh, food was burnt or not cooked properly, etc. Simply allowing customers to give lower ratings because taste of the food is bad is ridiculous. Imagine going to a restaurant, ordering food off their menu and then telling them that the taste is bad. What they are giving is the taste of their food. They are not forcing anyone to go and have their food.

So what would be the benefit of rating food items? Competition among food outlets will increase on individual food items. Food outlets will start specializing on certain food items because it will become impossible to focus equally on all items on their menu. Outlets that cannot survive in the competition will close down. This is the reason why Zomato and Swiggy are rating food outlets rather than food items.

Both earn revenues by charging food outlets for using their platforms. Both are looking to onboard as many food outlets as they can on to their platforms to increase their revenues. They also provide option for food outlets to offer discounts for their customers which in turn will increase overall sales on the platforms. Moreover, when it becomes hard for food outlets to differentiate from one another, offering discounts become the last option. If Zomato and Swiggy decide to rate food items instead of outlets, quality of food items will improve and outlets will not have to offer discounts but number of outlets will decline considerably. With their business model and app designs and the concept of cloud kitchen, they have created the illusion that anyone can make food and sell on their platforms. Amazon and Flipkart have similar business models and apps, but selling food items is vastly different from selling other goods.

Many smaller food outlets that were catering to the student community and earning a large portion of their revenues through Zomato and Swiggy were forced to shut down due to COVID-19 lockdowns in my hometown. The fee that Zomato and Swiggy charge outlets for using their platforms is increasingly becoming unbearable for many outlets. There was a recent report that the hotels and restaurants association in my home state is planning to develop their own online delivery platform to escape from the steep platform fee of Zomato and Swiggy. No matter how many platforms come up, online delivery of food will not improve as long as the current business model of Zomato and Swiggy is followed.