KY Tweets

KY's Tweets For The Day:

• 23:51 Family get2gether lunch @ bro-in-law's & dinner @ brother's house 4 Xmas. Wife on her way back 2Riyadh fm Bangalore. Office as usual tomrw. #

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KY Tweets

KY's Tweets For The Day:

• 11:28 My sons Alex and JJ were promoted to Purple Belt in Tae Kwon Do last night. Celebrated with Chinese dinner. Missed wife who was in India. #

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KY Tweets

KY's Tweets For The Day:

• 11:39 A tribute 2 my favorite textbook author: bit.ly/6xLGHv #

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KY Tweets

KY's Tweets For The Day:

• 01:10 Had a hit n run y'day: a silver-blue old car dented my Pajero's bumper n ran away. Insure Co advice: use mobile camera 2record car details #
• 15:03 @shashitharoor's comment about our calm and sweet voiced Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar precisely reflects my feelings about her. #

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KY Tweets

KY's Tweets For The Day:

• 10:37 @BDUTT Your 3rd Eye turns out to be exceptionally perceptive. Most of what you suspected then seems true now. Congratulations! #
• 10:41 @BDUTT FBI did warn us about specific attacks. The real question should be: Why were we not able to use that info to protect ourselves? #

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KY Tweets

KY's Tweets For The Day:

• 16:35 Daring & defiant Pepsi increased price in Saudi Arabia to SR1.50/can for reasons unknown. CocaCola still SR1 & enjoying unprecedented sales. #

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KY Tweets

KY's Tweets For The Day:

• 10:43 Dinner yesterday at Asma & Yuri Safadi's house. Authentic home-made Lebanese food. Lively school-related conversation among ladies. #

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KY Tweets

KY's Tweets For The Day:

• 11:47 Was expecting rains today in Riyadh, but instead we have a clear sky and plenty of sunshine! #

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KY Tweets

KY's Tweets For The Day:

• 18:49 @bdutt Saw Home Min PC interview just now. PC was cool as usual, absolutely unruffled. Some drinking water would have added to his comfort. #

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KY Tweets

KY's Tweets For The Day:

• 21:06 Eid mubarak to one & all. Rains in Jeddah area, but Riyadh overcast & dry. Offices & most shops closed for a few days. Family dinner @LaSani #

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KY Tweets

KY's Tweets For The Day:

• 10:53 Yesterday's Dubai Metro ride was exceptionally good. Hitech trains, stations, all new, bright, & shiny. Ladies in uniform 2guide passengers. #
• 11:05 Metro ride cost Dhs 6.50 from BurJuman to Mall of Emirates. Travelers mostly tourists. CommonMan rare. Bus access2 stations yet 2b devloped. #

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KY Tweets

KY's Tweets For The Day:

• 22:41 Couldn't help noticing @ Big5 exhibn 2day the huge quantity & quality diff 'tween exhbtrs fm China & India. More Indian Cos need2 take part. #

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KY Tweets

KY's Tweets For The Day:

• 07:22 At Hyde Park Dubai. Will go for Big-5 exhibition today at WTC. Spoke to cousin Chotu yesterday. He's in Sharjah. #
• 07:37 Direct flts 2Dubai all full. Had2go GulfAir via Bahrain. As I waited @ Riyadh airport, my office called me 2say they recd a call fm Gulf Air #
• 07:47 I thought GulfAir had called 2infm us of flt delays due2 y'days rain in Riyadh. Turns out, the call was from a filter mfr by the same name! #

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KY Tweets

KY's Tweets For The Day:

• 14:45 Early morning Riyadh temperature below 15C today. Time to dig out winter clothing from wardrobes. #

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KY Tweets

KY's Tweets For The Day:

• 01:01 Went w wife 2 Multi School princi's husb Grant Jefferson's b'day party tonite. Met old friends RahimKhan n Lalith there. Indian food served! #
• 21:53 Humble Papad much in demand @ y'days dinner. Ppl fm NZ SAfri Aus Pak UK Lebnon all wntd 2know what 'twas made of. Some loved it w Raita dip! #

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KY Tweets

KY's Tweets For The Day:

• 13:19 Saudi Supreme Court declared 26-Nov as Arafat Day (climax of Haj) this year. Eid-ul-Adha will be on 27-Nov. #

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KY Tweets

KY's Tweets For The Day:

• 10:31 @ShashiTharoor Question should be: Where are the Indians for India? Where are the Nehrus and the Gandhis, who will unify us once again? #

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KY Tweets

KY's Tweets For The Day:

• 00:33 2day, 14Nov09 marks a major milestone: 25yrs since I came2 SaudiArabia. All money I made, was from working here. Both my kids were born here #
• 13:09 Glad to see I'm not the only one with a new-found passion: RT @ShashiTharoor Venu's film was on organic farming, a new passion of mine. #

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KY Tweets

KY's Tweets For The Day:

• 01:11 Dinner @Marhaba, Olaya w/close family mmbrs. Mgr Salim very courteous. Meetg him after 1year. His warm recptn more impressive than d food! #

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KY Tweets

KY's Tweets For The Day:

• 19:13 Min of Overseas Ind Affairs sets up Ind Community Welfare Fund. Indians in Saudi 2pay SAR 8 (USD2.15) extra per doc 2IndEmbassy from Monday. #

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KY Tweets

KY's Tweets For The Day:

• 20:08 Grateful 2 Jijaji 4taking trbl 2visit my Jed ofice dis morn. Were meetg aftr abt 5yrs. Had nice long chat, updating each other with d latest #
• 21:30 Arivd @ gate just as Jed-Ryd boardg began. Had Al-Baik prawn sandwich in aircraft. Too oily 4my taste due to mayonaise, but good 2 try once. #

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KY Tweets

KY's Tweets For The Day:

• 00:13 Nice b'day party at bro Thomas' house with family. GreenTea, Pizza, CheeseCake, Pepsi n SweetCurd (Srikhand) not necessarily in that order! #

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KY Tweets

KY's Tweets For The Day:

• 09:59 Happy Birthday to my one n only n younger brother Thomas. Wishing him health, happiness n all success. #

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KY Tweets

KY's Tweets For The Day:

• 10:56 Min of Agri & German tech expert GTZ sets up SOFA: Saudi Organic Farming Assn 2introduce org farmg in Saudi Arabia is.gd/4MELK #
• 11:00 The Copenhagen Declaration: Organic farming could +vely impact Food Production, Environment, Animal Welfare n Rural Development, all at once #

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KY Tweets

KY's Tweets For The Day:

• 13:36 After nearly 25 yrs of working with one Saudi sponsor, now changing sponrship 2his son named Mabkhoot. "Utterly" difficult name 2 enunciate. #
• 13:45 14Nov84: I first came 2the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. On a Thursday afternoon. Thinking of d changes these 25 yrs have brought in me & in KSA. #

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KY Tweets

KY's Tweets For The Day:

• 12:10 Visitd a pokerfaced ophthalmo who tested n prscrbd eyeglasses 4JJ who finally had 2relinquish his post as d only 1 in r family w/out glasses #

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KY Tweets

KY's Tweets For The Day:

• 01:20 Briefly met Biju Friday evening at his project site. He had grown a beard. Agreed to meet again at our residence during Haj holidays. #

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KY Tweets

KY's Tweets For The Day:

• 09:52 Happy Birthday to Cousin Mary of Baroda. Hope you have a great day, and enjoy whatever you have planned for today (a huge party, perhaps?). #

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KY Tweets

KY's Tweets For The Day:

• 22:43 On Google Earth, my Riyadh house is located at (24 40 50 N, 46 44 52 E). #

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KY Tweets

KY's Tweets For The Day:

• 13:22 twitpic.com/n07ni - View from Riyadh home when a truck with steel bars fell over sideways. #
• 23:28 Friend n colleague Royston's MIL, Mrs Moares passed away in M'lore 4:30pm 2day. I'd met her a couple of yrs ago. May her soul rest in peace. #

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KY Tweets

KY's Tweets For The Day:

• 00:57 "Trees weaken, & are attacked by insects, to the extend that they deviate from their natural form". - Masanobu Fukuoka #
• 11:09 @ShashiTharoor R ldrs who framed award rule were prudent and farsighted. Others r still tryin 2 figure it out! Hum Logo Ko Samajh Sako To... #
• 23:21 twitpic.com/mxeqc - Kittens enjoying their siesta this afternoon outside my Riyadh office. #

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KY Tweets

KY's Tweets For The Day:

• 00:34 Cousin Shirley made contact on Yahoo chat after nearly 2 decades! She was in Denmark on official duty. Same time chatted with her son Reuben #
• 00:49 Reuben was at cousin Mary's in Baroda, so got to exchange a few words with her too. They wanted me to join them n share their Diwali sweets! #
• 00:58 Wife's cousin's husb, Biju, called 2 say he's been transferred 2 Riyadh, but busy at the project site. Promised to meet during Haj holidays. #
• 01:08 Many thanks 2 Zeefan's parents for having JJ at their house 8:30am-5:30pm. JJ wanted to start at 5:00am! Z is JJ's classmate n best friend. #

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KY Tweets

KY's Tweets For The Day:

• 12:49 @queenrania twitpic.com/me4v5 - You seem taller! #

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Turning to Farming

Uttam Kheti, Madhyam Ban,
Adham Chakri, Bheek Nidhan.
(Agriculture best, Business medium,
Employment worst, Begging avoidable.)
- Ancient Indian Wisdom on human livelihood

This year's summer vacation in India was spent in hunting for plots of land, suitable for agriculture. Now, why would a Mechanical Engineer married to a Mathematics Teacher cum High School Coordinator be suddenly interested in farming? Let me tell you why...

The interest in farming was always there in me. I was attracted towards agriculture, and the thought of this activity always comforted me. My maternal grandfather (Mr. Thomas Lukose of Quilon (now Kollam, Kerala) owned farmland, and I used to watch him work in his farm.

My paternal grandfather (Mr. Philipose of Puthoor, Kottarakara) was also a farmer, but as he died when I was a toddler, I could not see him in action or interact with him in any way.
As I was brought up in Bombay (now Mumbai), far from my grandfather's farm, I did not get enough opportunities to spend as much time as I would have liked to in the farm. But the germ of that desire was there in me.

When I was born (in my grandfather's house in Kollam), my grandpa had immediately visited an astrologer-cum-fortune-teller, who recorded in a tiny note-book (which book is unfortunately misplaced now) that I would make my fortune in Agriculture. Since the time I heard of it (from my mother, much later in life when I was in my early twenties) I have occasionally tried to imagine myself indulging in Agriculture.
So farming activity is not so much a bolt-from-the-blue for me as it may appear. However, what re-activated this dormant interest was a chance meeting with one Mr. Rathnappa, who was then the Senior Branch Manager for Vijaya Bank, at its Bannerghatta branch. He also happened to be holding a master's degree (M. Sc.) in Agriculture!

One day Mr. Rathnappa visited my house in Spring Valley, Bangalore, and was impressed by the Avacado tree laden with fruits standing right in front of my house. (Yes, that's the tree pictured above.) During the course of our discussion, he mentioned to me (as a piece of advice) that I should try and procure two or three acres of land nearby and do some "innovative" agriculture.This chance remark unleashed a long-hidden desire, and set me thinking seriously of this possibility.

I did have misgivings about this proposed activity, and I remember my first question to Mr. Rathnappa was whether farming would be a profitable activity, and if so, how come so many of India's farmers have been committing suicides recently. He assured me that any farmer who works hard, and does not mismanage his resources (like deviating funds to other activities instead of the agricultural purpose for which the loan was availed), will always be successful.

He also encouraged me by saying that agriculture is the "activity of the future". He pointed out that there were a lot of people migrating from rural India to the new urban India, and that this trend needed to be reversed, and it would be people like me who would have to lead the way.
He took me to see how his classmate and friend had developed a 125 acres farm near Harohalli with scientific methods, and there I saw the "fruits" of his labor in the form of abundant crops of bananas, etc. It was quite inspiring to see what could be achieved by a determined farmer who employs scientific farming methods. This picture of a bunch of bananas is of that farm in Harohalli.

I came back from that visit, determined to find for myself some farm land that I could cultivate when I returned to India, but alas, finding land was not as easy as it seemed. Even in these economically depressed times, the land prices were not any lower than at other times.

The results of my hunt for farmland will be pictured in my next post.

KY Tweets

KY's Tweets For The Day:

• 12:22 Fruitful meeting y'day with old friend n GM of AZMEC, Wajdi after many years. Extended biz co-op both ways. #
• 12:40 Yohann's ex-classmate n Scot, Iain, who's visiting SaudiArabia, came home w/Yo fm school y'day, slept-over n went bk 2school w/him this morn #

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KY Tweets

KY's Tweets For The Day 16-Oct-2009:

• 23:42 Happy Diwali to all. Enjoy your holidays in India. It will be work as usual with all schools re-opening tomorrow throughout Saudi Arabia.

KY Tweets

Tweets For The Day 11-Oct-2009:

• 17:18 Back in Riyadh. 40th Day prayer for Papa today 6:00pm at Spring Valley, Bangalore. Hoping all goes well. #
  
  
• 23:37 "Ultimately, it isn't the growing-technique which is the most imp factor, but rather the state of mind of the farmer." - Masanobu Fukuoka #

Auto Feed of Tweets to Blogspot

Trying to hook up my tweets with blogspot so that my tweets get auto-fed daily into my blog. Wonder whether it will work. The widget site I used was www.Loudtwitter.com