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Dying Local Food: Globalisation Side-effect

6 comments March 14th, 2008 08:55am anil

Globalisation changed the way we live our lives. Especially for urban people. We welcome many of those changes and some of them were forcefully induced. Some crept into our culture without even we noticing it. Of which the most prominent one is our changing food culture.

America never had good breakfast. So they invented items like cereals. In India, there are plenty of options right from idly and dosa to puri and nan. Many of them are centuries old and simple. Besides these known items, each locality has its own dishes. You will notice it if you travel across India especially by road. You will notice differences even within a state–each locality has its own distinctive food culture. Compare this to the globalised food culture.

One attribute of globalisation is to make everything uniform across the globe. If you go to any McDonald’s in the world you will see the ordering counter in the same red and yellow which offers more or less the same menu. There is nothing wrong in that per se. But the inrush of such eateries are killing the traditional ones.

In Kerala, the chaya (tea) is made in a very special way and it requires skill to make it taste like that. Nowadays it is increasingly difficult to get Kerala tea in urban shops. You will either get tea from a vending machine or a “global tea” item from chains. Fresh lemon juice is another traditional drink in India and especially in South India. Now it is difficult to find a shop which will make you a fresh lime. Instead he will offer a ready-made lemon-tasting drink.

Not many people in this generation are bothered to learn cooking. And I’m afraid that it would be difficult to get some puttu, payaru, pappadam after a decade or so unless you or your spouse learn to prepare it.

I tell my friends to visit local eateries if they enjoy local food and help them sustain.

Local food vendors too need to do certain things from their side. They should make eateries look clean and tidy. A friendly dealing would be cool. These are some of the feel-good things everybody enjoys in a global eatery and the same can be provided at a traditional eatery as well (without incurring any additional expense!).

Here is a small list of eateries in and around Trivandrum and on the highway where you can enjoy local food:

1. Ramu’s, Gandhari Amman Coil road (near Pulimood), Trivandrum.
2. Buhari, East Fort, Trivandrum.
3. The no-name place opposite to Kazhakootam Police Station, Trivandrum.
4. The mutton joint near Vettu Road, NH47 (where you turn in to Sainik School), Trivandrum.
5. Brothers’, Alappuzha
6. Lekshmi, Cherthala (NH47).

There are numerous tea shops around the corner. Though not all of them offer full meals, still it is enjoyable to have a quick tea and snack there.

I would request my readers to write about the places they know in the comment column.

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References:

1. Harmful to local/conventional culture, threat of one-culture world.

2. Our children don’t learn anything from their mothers. The aroma of food is missing from our kitchen and above all, our kids don’t converge on the dining table.

3. Coca Cola find its biggest “competition”: indigenous drinks (such as tea and nimbu paani).

Target Fixation

1 comment December 24th, 2007 03:59pm anil

A few weeks ago, I was driving [my brand new car] to the University of Kerala Kariavatom campus for a meeting. It was a nice evening. I enjoyed that drive through the highway and I reached the campus pretty quickly. I entered the main gate and I drove slowly towards the Department of Computer Science. I had to go around an island at an intersection. I well kept my side and was moving dead slow.

Suddenly a motorcycle entered the intersection from my left side. Though it was real quick, I wasn’t surprised as there was ample room for him to pass me. But what surprised me that, he rode straight to me and hit my car head on and fell down!

Heck! Was he mad? Did he try to commit suicide or something? What has just happened here?

***

There is a phenomenon called “Target Fixation.” It helps you most of the time when you drive/ride any kind of vehicle. But it if you don’t know how it works, it can hurt you; just like what happened above. Read on.

Wikipedea defines Target Fixation as:

Target fixation is a process by which the brain is focused so intently on an observed object that awareness of other obstacles or hazards can diminish. Also, in an avoidance scenario, the observer can become so fixated on the target that the observer will end up colliding with the object.

In practice, while riding a motorcycle if you find something on the way and if you panic, you forget about the rest and fix your mind on that object. Once you does this, your body steers the motorcycle (or any vehicle for that matter) straight to the object. There is no law of Physics governing this; it’s a plain and simple psychological phenomenon.

I am sure that you have noticed Target Fixation in action while trying you avoid a pothole or an oil patch in the road. If you fixate it, you will run over that object for sure.

This explains what has happened the other day at the University campus. I hope that that rider will read this post some day
and drop me an email.

Now you know what Target Fixation is. You can use it positively, indeed. Simply take your eyes away from the object which you want to avoid and look at the direction you want to take (in order to avoid that object). This helps you especially when you handle a skidding or when a dog or pedestrian runs across your way, unexpectedly.

This is easier said that done; especially when you are scared (yet another psychological phenomenon which makes you take wrong decisions most of the time). It needs conscious effort in most cases. Then it will become natural to you (through practice).

Once you know the existence of such a danger, you can learn more about it. Learn how to reduce its influence and to utilise it positively.

Safe riding.

PS: Today happened to be the first anniversary of my first real motorcycle accident. It is an interesting coincidence that I wrote something on motorcycle safety on the same day.