Kusum Choppra

   Zanzibar, a minute archipelago off Tanzania, East Africa faces India across the Indian Ocean.    It passed from the hands of local Swahilis, into Arabs, Oman and British hands over centuries; but, the earliest reference to the Indian Ocean trade hub was written in a commercial guide to oceanic trade by an anonymous sailor from Alexandria in 1 st century CE. By the 8 th - 10 centuries the Zanzibar Swahili combine with Mombasa, Kilwa, Lamu and Bagamayo, was trading goods from the interior with visiting merchants from not only India, but also Indonesia and China; effectively making the Swahili civilization the meeting point of the diverse East African and West Asian cultures. No political invasions happened but a cultural footprint did evolve in food, dress, religious, costumes and most, architecture – telling a story of constant change and cosmopolitan integration, not invasion.    Foodgrains, cloves, ivory, mangrove poles and slave magnets drew...

Almost half a century before Micheal Cremo’s trilogy, Forbidden Archaelogy, The Hidden History of the Human Race and Human Devolution challenged Darwin's theory of human evolution, Senegal’s Dr. Leopold Senghor held that man evolved from animal almost 2.5 million years ago; pinpointing South India as the first host of a civilization, where Man evolved into himself, and then Africa. Civilization in Africa reached its zenith in Egypt. Building upon historical research identifying ancient Egypt with black Africa, he argued that sub-Saharan Africa and Europe are in fact part of the same cultural continuum; in the fifth century BC, the torch was passed from Egypt to Classical Greece; then through Rome to the European colonial powers of the modern age.   Meanwhile India conserved her civilization through to the present times. Senghor held that the Dravidian and Sumerian (precursor of Mesopotamia) languages are clearly related to each other, indicating early contact and influe...

Was such a thing even possible, when nuclear technology is so new that it has yet to penetrate around the globe in our times? When the smallest malfunction in equipment or process wrecks total havoc, last seen at Fukushima in 2011. Researchers examining Vyas’   Mahabharat, Vedic and Jain scriptures   often agree with the findings of   Micheal Cremo   that there is archeological evidence of the use of   WMD, weapons of Mass Destruction perhaps 15,000 years ago.   Cremo is an American freelance researcher known as a Vedic creationist and an "alternative archeologist".   His book Forbidden Archeology holds that humans have been on the earth for millions of years. Cremo’s team worked in tandem with India’s leading archeologist, Dr. S R Rao, working on Mahabharatan sites. Time tracking with thermoluminenscence dating methods with Radio carbon isotopes, that offer accuracy dating back billions of years, was done on various archeological finds. The ...

Were the people of the Harappan Civilization (HC) Dravidians or Indo-Aryans? Archeologists and scholars are divided over conclusions from the study of the bones and skulls found at various Harappan civilization (HC) sites that extend over western and northwestern India and adjoining areas in Pakistan. Questions surround the political status of the HC. The concept of a ‘state’ is generally accepted to have a centralized economy and leadership, with a hierarchically ranked social system.   But the HC covered a large degree of regional diversity. Evidences of a single state concept are usually palaces, temples and differentiated burial sites – All absent in the HC sites, pointing to city-states surrounded by rural hinterlands. Exchange was the key to social organization, given booming, surprisingly well-organized trade with other countries. One 2008 study mapped the movement of raw materials to Harappa; that would be converted into items of popular use, such as jewelry etc., amo...

Can you believe this:   in the days of the Harappan ports, India was exporting not only fresh fruits, but also pickled fruits and vegetables to Oman!!              Imagine the heights reached by those culinary masters in food preservation techniques that ghee, and pickles from vegetables and fruits grown in such abundant quantity to make pickles could withstand the long journey from kitchen to ports; across the Indian Ocean, to be traded further on too and still last in the household for enough length of time. Who would buy pickle that went rancid within weeks of reaching your home? Since Time Immemorial, India exported surpluses and fabled crafted products, first overland with camel / donkey caravans to the Middle East and beyond.    Later as ship making perfected, consignments of goods floated west from the Malabar Coast, Kerala and new markets in the Far East and China from the Comorin coast, Tamil Nad...