Kusum Choppra

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...

How far back in Time do India’s connections with outside the subcontinent go?     Very difficult to compute when one considers that the Precursor to the Roman civilization knew about the Ramayan!! A long held mystery sketch From Etruscia recently had Indologists very excited over a possible interpretation:   that it could conceivably be a representation of the two queens of Dasrath, Kaushalya and Kaikeyi sharing portions of the payasam with Sumitra.    Does that sound very far-fetched? What about the story of the founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, offspring of a divine father who were raised by a she-wolf?    Etymologists find a startling resemblance between the Sanskrit words for ‘Rishi’ and ‘Vriki’, sage and she-wolf, making it perhaps the story of Luv and Kush? Western Italy was home to a seafaring nation, the Etruscans whose superior cultural exploits by intentionally obliterated by the barbaric Romans who rose in 300 B.C.  ...

Poor India! at the mercy of recurring invasions over centuries, say   history textbooks. Our ancestral infighting unable to hold them back, waves of invaders married into already intermarried locals, creating the innumerable castes inflicting us today. Let’s look through another prism. Why did they come here? For riches! Since Time Immemorial, India’s artisans produced luxury items, utility plus beauty. Trade was lucrative for everyone. Hence the invasions. Everyone wanted The Golden Goose. Indian culture left its impact while earning riches. First Israel.   Canaan or Phoenicia was modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Israel. Also believed to be ancient homeland of Chitpavan Brahmans. Spell it with a ‘K’, it becomes a cognate of Kanana / Kanha.   One of Israel’s largest rivers, Kishon flows in the Jezreel / Yezreel Valley – sounds like our Kishan and Ma Yashoda?    Close by are towns called Kanah and Ramah.   In the Judea province next door are t...

The Ramayana depicts Dasrath as the father of the hero, Ram. He fell in love with his second wife Kaikeyi when she tended his wounds after a battle. Kaikeyi was a daughter of the Kaikay king or Caucasus, like the Mahabharat’s Gandhari was from Gandhar, modern day Kandahar. The word Dasrath would mean a small ruler with just ten chariots. As such, he could not afford a large bride price, but had offered to make their son his successor. Thus Dasrath’s agonising dilemma could have been his devotion to his eldest Ram vs. his promise, rather than the demands of a scheming wife. Many historians find timing contradictions. The Aryans came south around 800 BC. That places the Ramayan much later or locates it in outside peninsular India?    Perhaps the reason for no archeological evidence of the Ramayan locales, as happened in the Mahabharat’s case? Names of people and places were often common in different places, as people and their stories shift base.   Spellings and...