Food for
Teeth
If
you thought millions of people in Mera Bharat( that’s Mahan) grapple with the
issue of not knowing from where their next meal would come, you are all
wrong-or else you are not watching much of the idiot box as much as the people
calculating the TRP suppose you do!
Now what is TRP? It is Television Rating Points. That’s
someone somewhere is glad to know how much you weigh as a couch-potato. So when
you are watching TV someone is ‘watching’ you like the BB (Big Brother).
A cute device called ‘People’s Meter’ might have been attached to your TV. Or
to the one in one of your neighbors’ house. This device keeps track of what you
watch and how often, how long etc. And that info is accessed by the geniuses
who are after your hair, teeth, smell etc. Whatever, it is a statistical sample
they look for, and finally they include you in it, no matter whether you really
do watch TV so much or any less. Now back to the board room.
We, the people of India, have teeth as our obsession instead
of meals. That’s what I have concluded having been idiotised by the precious box! Health of our teeth, their luster,
the way we smile… not leaving behind the gums, the sensitive teeth etc etc !
Everything counts. Did you say food…tell me whose life is it anyway? If growth
rate means growing number of Swiss bank accounts and the amount deposited
therein, in tandem, we are a very rich country and only a rich country can
afford to be so callous and display monumental negligence when it comes to
storing food grains! Believe it or not, we, the people of India allow food
grains to rot! http://www.businessinsider.com/india-malnutrition-a-story-of-rotting-crops-and-rotten-bureaucracy-2012-7?IR=T
It is just a tip of the iceberg. Deep down what has been
rotting is our sensitivity. Rotting food grains is just a pointer to our moral
decay. This is in spite of the Supreme Court of India passing strictures on
such callousness. Parliamentary elections are underway in India and it is not
an election issue. It is not that we cannot. It is just that we don’t want it.
We allow jewelry worth up to Rs 11 lakh crores (1,10,000 billion) remain
idle just in one temple only, that is Sri Anantha Padmanabha temple in Kerala,
leave alone other temples across India. We build metro trains, temples, send
satellites, hold Kumbh melas, IPL ( read as betting), Commonwealth Games,
spend Rs 50,000 crores (Rs 500 billion) on AADHAAR ( a twelve digit unique
identity to every Indian) …can’t we build warehouses for food grains? It’s
apathy at its worst with a halo of brazenness around it.
Kalahandi in Orissa. Not a tourist spot .Not very well known.
But it made headlines once upon a time for all wrong reasons. Tribal people
therein died of starvation and provided enough fodder for the media and
ammunition to the opposition. The story paled into the oblivion, blinded as we
were by the some other burning issues (like our teeth, for example). I for one
can never forget the way I felt my food-pipe wrenching or the revulsion I felt
for the civilized world when I read about the people in Klahandi having rodents
as their staple diet.
http://www.mindfully.org/Food/Kalahandi-Syndrome-Sharma19apr02.htm
I apologize for digressing into such non-issues when the
subject matter of the discussion is dental care! Remember the news of some
astronomical sums agreed to be paid at entry level itself to some biz school
products? It is this type of whiz kids who lose sleep over things like strength
of your teeth, their radiance (so flashy that it acts as a deterrent like
lightning, at least in commercials sometimes) They rack their brains on matters
as vital as these. Hatching marketing strategies matching the income groups,
that is!
Paste over, comes the burning issue of brushing! What
type of toothbrush do you use? Have you ever bothered to check the
tips of those bristles? No you haven’t. No problem. Somebody is doing that for
you. Like you see in some TVCs, the difference between the ordinary
tooth brushes and the ones designed for the discerning buyer that
you are! Now, if you have a lens, time and a little patience coupled
with an incisive mind, just have a closer look at your
tooth brush-you will be horrified to find how ineffectual it has been in
discharging its duty. So switch over to the latest one! And never forget to put
as much amount of tooth paste as you often find in the ads! (Or else a part of
the work force in the dental industry may be out of business leading to some
serious economic consequences, forcing them to go to the basics such as
where-from-the-next-meal-would-come!) And never hurl uncomfortable questions
such as ‘if the best tooth paste and the best tooth brush is all that’s there
to dental care, who will take care of dentists and their dependents, who
eventually will find it hard to make both ends meet?’ Or ‘in the final
analysis, do we need to have such stronger teeth, stronger than the food we eat
’or ‘Are we supposed to bite one another in defense or offence, having teeth
stronger than that is necessary for the mankind?’ Better still ‘what about our
forefathers who brushed their teeth only with neem leaves or even charcoal and
yet survived’ or ‘name the brand of tooth paste and tooth brush that’s
the favourite of lions, tigers and for that matter sharks’ and so on.
Unsettling! Irksome!
Come on, the people behind these TV commercials, print ads
and all other intrusions into your lives you can think of, are no dimwits. It
is not for nothing that they get paid every month what you could dream of
saving in your lifetime. Go ahead. Let your thoughts starve with no food in
sight. But keep brushing your teeth applying the best paste using the best
toothbrush. Let’s build a nation strong enough to bite, chew and digest
whatever comes our way…who knows what is in store for us on a rainy day?
Some foodologists (Yes! Foodologists! Why not?) have already warned
that shortage of food world over would force mankind to replace the bread and
butter from our plates with insects some shoo away from the very plates.
Calories, proteins, carbohydrates and iron; you get them all in crickets,
caterpillars, termites, snails and what not! Now you know what Darwin meant by
survival of the fittest! That’s if you are fit enough to shut your eyes and
nose and swallow the so called carriers of proteins etc. well you would
survive! http://people.howstuffworks.com/entomophagy3.htm
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