SAND FROM SAHARA AND MANGOES FROM INDIA

In the last week of March, I was in London to attend the 1^st birthday of my granddaughter Evani. I stayed overnight. Following day, I came to my car, parked outside for the drive back to Manchester. To my surprise, the car looked as if someone has painted it reddish brown overnight, and not just the body but the glasswork too. I just had my car cleaned two days before!

At a closer look, dried mud drops that were almost confluent covered the whole exterior. I cleaned all the glass. The patches rubbed off quite easily and fell down like fine reddish yellow paprika powder.

Soon it was on all the news channels, the red dust was actually sand from Sahara desert in  Africa more than 2,000 miles away. It was a combination of strong winds and very high sand storms in Sahara that carried the fine sand particles to upper atmosphere. The global winds carried it towards Britain. It was my luck that it rained on that particular night when this loaded wind reached London. The car wash businesses made a killing that week. The sand particles were in such a high concentration that it caused respiratory distress to many people.

This was nature’s way of reminding us that we all share the same planet. You cannot ignore an event just because it is happening in a remote place 2000 miles away.

I was reminded of this again just after two weeks when we celebrated “Satuaan” on 14th of April. Most of the festivals in India are closely integrated with the particular foods that are consumed on that day. Satuaan is no exception. We eat Sattoo that day which is produced by grinding roasted desi chickpeas. It is a festival to celebrate the harvesting of Chickpeas crop in our part of India. You do not need to cook sattoo, just add water. For a savoury dish put some salt and for a dessert add sugar and ghee (clarified butter). 

Traditionally the salty Sattoo is eaten with crushed raw mango mixed with salt, chilli and coriander. The mangoes have just appeared on the trees at this time of the year.

Bibha made Sattoo by grinding the roasted chickpeas and I brought raw mango from the local Indian grocer.  The mangoes were much cheaper than previous years. Mr Patel the grocer told me that this was due to a bumper crop in North India due to a prolonged winter.

So, a drawn out winter in India, 5000 miles from here has helped me to offset the feel bad factor of the economic depression. Sharing the same planet has its advantages too!

Well, whether it makes us happy or sad, we cannot ignore the fact that our destiny is tied to the whole planet not just a bit of it. We better learn to take care of it as a whole rather than just our tiny corner. “Vasudhaiva kutumbakam” is not just a philosophical concept, we need to practice it too. Our leaders have to rise above the political and tribal boundaries that we have created over the millennia to achieve that global perspective.