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My animal heroes, like Solomon the Wise’s, are ants. So here is another piece about them.
Had they the size to match their practical intelligence, organizational skills and strength, ants would clearly have been masters of the universe. Look at their cities, what we call ant colonies. They contain complex ventilation systems that remove carbon dioxide and bring in fresh air. They have hundreds of miles of well laid out sewers that drain waste into special recycling chambers. They have an incredibly complex transportation system including highways. Each ant city is not just an engineering marvel that keeps its millions of inhabitants comfortable but each city has its unique features. Delhi is nothing like Mumbai or Bhubaneshwar. Nor are their cities.
Each of the 11,800 species has a different kind of home.
Some ants live in underground tunnels or build earthen mounds. Others live inside trees or in plants. Some construct nests of tree leaves. Lasius fuliginous ants build ‘carton nests’ of bricks formed by chewing up pieces of wood cemented together with honeydew which they get from milking aphids.
Each colony consists of a series of underground chambers, connected to each other and the surface of the earth by small tunnels. The biggest ant colony was found in Japan with 306 million ants and 1 million queens living in 45,000 interconnected nests over an area of 2.7 sq km!
The colony is built and maintained by legions of worker ants. They dig these nests under stones, dead trees or underground. They dig with their legs and carry the earth away with their mouths. Ant nests can be just below the surface or upto 35 feet deep, Western Harvester ants make a small mound on top, but then tunnel up to 15 feet straight down to hibernate during winter. Nest building displaces a huge amount of soil. Ants constructing an average-sized mound carry 80,000 kg of soil to the surface. When you see perfect round balls or hills on the earth’s surface, this is actually balls of earth shifted from underneath by ants. An underground city is of three thousand chambers and four million ants, the approximate population of South Delhi.
The newly mated queen digs a single-chambered nest, seals herself in, and rears broods of workers, upto a 1,000 eggs a day for years. The brood hatches in a week and feeding on secretions from the queen, grows to maturity in a month. These workers forage for food for the next brood of eggs. And so the colony expands.
Like us, ants build homes for shelter, child rearing, food storage and temperature control Ant-nest design has a basic theme: vertical tunnels for movement and transport, and horizontal chambers for work, storage, and sleep. The engineer-ants who build the nest are so precise that if one group starts digging from one end and the other from the other end, they will meet exactly in the middle.
Just as we prefer to save time and money by building their houses against existing walls, red ant engineers first try to find support structures before their workers excavate the nests. In cool climates, ants build their nests under stones which will be warmed by the sun. In warm climates, especially in the tropics, many ant species nest in tree cavities, constructing nests by pulling leaves together and binding them in place with thousands of strands of silk taken from their own larvae.
Just as our houses range from single rooms to elaborate mansions, so do theirs. The little yellow meadow ant makes complex houses that are more than a metre in depth – which in human terms means an apartment block larger than the erstwhile World Trade Center. They then camouflage this huge building by covering it with vegetation. The most impressive nests are those of wood ants who build huge mounds out of pine needles and other forest floor debris that reach a metre in height, several metres in circumference and go several metres into the ground beneath the mound.
We use heaters and coolers, ants too keep the temperature within their nests strictly controlled. The Messor aciculatus ant who makes the deepest nest in the world, tunnels 4 metres down so that ant larvae can survive and grow even in winter, because at that depth the temperature remains constant all year long, cool in summer and warm in winter.
The Leaf Cutter ants make turrets on top of their nests, which can be opened or closed in case of rain by covering them with gravel or mud.
Like us, ants have specific rooms for specific purposes. Each room, 2000 in an average colony, is about 8 to 12 inches in diameter and workers are continually adding more. The chambers are used for raising larvae, food storage, garbage disposal, nursery, and even a burial chamber where ants carry in their dead from outside. The nursery for the queen and her babies is usually in the core of the nest guarded by soldier ants. The nannies who take care of the young keep the eggs and larvae in different groups and chambers according to their ages. At night they move the eggs and larvae into the deeper chambers to protect them from the cold and during the day, to the top of the nest to get the sun. The older workers get the rooms on the edges of the nest. During winter the colony hibernates in the deepest rooms.
Ants are finicky housekeepers. Special “maintenance ants” keep the nest clean and in good repair by throwing the rubbish outside the nest or into a special garbage chamber within the nest which is separate from the food and other chambers.
Like our pantry, ants have a food store. Sweet food like biscuits and cake crumbs are softened by ant saliva and stored here. Just as we keep cows in sheds, they keep herds of aphids in sheds, take them to pasture on the leaves, defend them against predators and then milk them and store the honeydew. Insects like mealybugs are allotted special guest rooms because they secrete sweet droplets as well.
Leaf-cutter ants grow their own food in well-maintained ‘fungus gardens’. When the fungus is ready, it is harvested and sent by the gardeners to the nurseries and adult dining rooms. Each field is plowed and furrowed like ours.
For some people the idea of ants having proper homes, gardens and families must be strange but it only shows the similarity of all life. The next time an ant crosses your path, remember he too is probably hurrying home from work!
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I attended a meeting of an organisation that brings successful businessmen and potential young entrepreneurs together. The talks ranged on management, how to make the existing fields better and how to find and keep customers etc. Standard stuff that you can find in a business help group. I can think of fifty new areas of self employment that one could make a lot of money and get happiness, that have to do with animals and environment. One of them is to start an institution training service dogs for the disabled.
Autism is a difficult disorder to diagnose in the beginning. The child seems distracted, bad tempered, withdrawn, moody. It is with a great deal of bewilderment that parents finally realize that their child is autistic. The disorder is not uncommon, in fact in America it is one in nine children now. In India every city has a special school for the autistic. When I was Minister for Social Justice, I paid for one in Chennai which quickly filled up.
Autism is a severe disorder that affects the way a child sees and interacts with the rest of the world. It effects sensory, memory, motor and postural control. The child has virtually no social and communication skills and is soon isolated both within the family and with other people. Many autistic children display a tendency to run away in open spaces making going to a public place almost impossible. Many autistic children also experience difficulty sleeping and suffer from insomnia.
Children with autism are often misunderstood because their brains process information differently. While they understand facts and numbers they cannot understand concepts or ideas at all. Their brains process information in a very detailed way- they take in major and minor stimuli all together: for instance, a car driving by, the smell of their clothing and the sound of a dog barking to make a decision. Too many details cause them to become confused , frightened and angry. They express little or no attachment to humans , the concept of mother or brother is not immediately apparent to them.
Dogs have been proven to be an asset for children diagnosed with autism and their families. They provide a social "bridge" for children who are often excluded by others because of their behavior or lack of social interaction. They provide comfort as well as calm autistic children . Autistic children who run away and hide can also be quickly and easily found by assistance dogs that are trained to locate them.
Dogs have been used for many years by the blind. Abroad most old age centres and some hospitals have dogs specially in the children’s wards because they have realized the benefits of the human-animal interaction. They have found the patients heal faster, the elderly suffer from fewer physical problems.
Now dogs are being trained to help those with autism. Families say they have seen marked improvement in their children. The support group Autism Speaks includes a list of dog-training groups. A person with autism is a person with a disability and a service animal is any dog or other animal individually trained to provide assistance to someone with a disability.
Guide dogs for the blind provide visual help, taking them through dangers invisible to the human. Guide dogs for the deaf are trained to alert their owner to important noises or other things requiring human intervention, such as a smoke alarm, a crying baby, a telephone ringing, a knock at the door. An autistic person is easily confused by minor sights and smells and his brain becomes confused on which is important to deal with : the smell of a cloth, the car passing by, the sound of a bird – all these get equal attention and cause the brain to overstimulate and create panic and withdrawal. Autism service dogs are trained to help the human prioritize information and to take them through potentially dangerous situations. A normal dog will calm the child, divert him from harming himself, correct his balance, alert him to important sounds, steer around obstacles for instance. Having a dog with an autistic child has many benefits : the child is safer and stops running away when frightened; the child’s social skills become better; the family can go out together safely and confidently; the children become calmer giving them an increased attention span and a greater aptitude for learning
These dogs are companions that assist increase the safety of the child and reduce the stress level of the family. These dogs are naturally interesting which often draws the attention of the autistic child as well as others. The child is drawn into social interaction . Dogs are taught to nudge a child that is performing repetitive behavior, this touch is often all that is required to redirect the child from this behavior. Dogs can provide independence by allowing the child to walk with the dog as opposed to constantly holding the hand of a parent or adult. Austistic children are noticed to have an increase in vocabulary after being paired with a dog. The children seem to be more comfortable in speaking with the dog . Dogs provide a certain level of comfort that can often improve a child’s ability to sleep more throughout the night. Autistic children with dogs have been documented to feel less anger and experience less acts of aggression compared to the time before receiving an assistance dog. Assistance dogs are taught to track the child in the event that they run or go missing. This ability to locate the child quickly, greatly reduces the risk of serious harm
A study by the University of Montreal shows that trained service dogs can actually reduce anxiety levels in autistic children. 42 children were measured for the amount of cortisol in their saliva – a hormone that is produced by the body in response to stress – after they were given dogs. The findings published in Psychoneuroendocrinology, showed that stress levels went down.
5% of India suffers from disability. They have very little help. Training dogs for the disabled is very big business abroad. Why not start it here? Normal Indian dogs, from the roads, as it were, will get a new chance at life and so will the child and the family they protect. In 1996, National Service Dogs for Children with Autism was created and they train organisations round the world. For more information on NSD, visit www.nsd.on.ca. If nothing else, think of it as a business opportunity.
Maneka Gandhi
To join the animal welfare movement contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Autism is a difficult disorder to diagnose in the beginning. The child seems distracted, bad tempered, withdrawn, moody. It is with a great deal of bewilderment that parents finally realize that their child is autistic. The disorder is not uncommon, in fact in America it is one in nine children now. In India every city has a special school for the autistic. When I was Minister for Social Justice, I paid for one in Chennai which quickly filled up.
Autism is a severe disorder that affects the way a child sees and interacts with the rest of the world. It effects sensory, memory, motor and postural control. The child has virtually no social and communication skills and is soon isolated both within the family and with other people. Many autistic children display a tendency to run away in open spaces making going to a public place almost impossible. Many autistic children also experience difficulty sleeping and suffer from insomnia.
Children with autism are often misunderstood because their brains process information differently. While they understand facts and numbers they cannot understand concepts or ideas at all. Their brains process information in a very detailed way- they take in major and minor stimuli all together: for instance, a car driving by, the smell of their clothing and the sound of a dog barking to make a decision. Too many details cause them to become confused , frightened and angry. They express little or no attachment to humans , the concept of mother or brother is not immediately apparent to them.
Dogs have been proven to be an asset for children diagnosed with autism and their families. They provide a social "bridge" for children who are often excluded by others because of their behavior or lack of social interaction. They provide comfort as well as calm autistic children . Autistic children who run away and hide can also be quickly and easily found by assistance dogs that are trained to locate them.
Dogs have been used for many years by the blind. Abroad most old age centres and some hospitals have dogs specially in the children’s wards because they have realized the benefits of the human-animal interaction. They have found the patients heal faster, the elderly suffer from fewer physical problems.
Now dogs are being trained to help those with autism. Families say they have seen marked improvement in their children. The support group Autism Speaks includes a list of dog-training groups. A person with autism is a person with a disability and a service animal is any dog or other animal individually trained to provide assistance to someone with a disability.
Guide dogs for the blind provide visual help, taking them through dangers invisible to the human. Guide dogs for the deaf are trained to alert their owner to important noises or other things requiring human intervention, such as a smoke alarm, a crying baby, a telephone ringing, a knock at the door. An autistic person is easily confused by minor sights and smells and his brain becomes confused on which is important to deal with : the smell of a cloth, the car passing by, the sound of a bird – all these get equal attention and cause the brain to overstimulate and create panic and withdrawal. Autism service dogs are trained to help the human prioritize information and to take them through potentially dangerous situations. A normal dog will calm the child, divert him from harming himself, correct his balance, alert him to important sounds, steer around obstacles for instance. Having a dog with an autistic child has many benefits : the child is safer and stops running away when frightened; the child’s social skills become better; the family can go out together safely and confidently; the children become calmer giving them an increased attention span and a greater aptitude for learning
These dogs are companions that assist increase the safety of the child and reduce the stress level of the family. These dogs are naturally interesting which often draws the attention of the autistic child as well as others. The child is drawn into social interaction . Dogs are taught to nudge a child that is performing repetitive behavior, this touch is often all that is required to redirect the child from this behavior. Dogs can provide independence by allowing the child to walk with the dog as opposed to constantly holding the hand of a parent or adult. Austistic children are noticed to have an increase in vocabulary after being paired with a dog. The children seem to be more comfortable in speaking with the dog . Dogs provide a certain level of comfort that can often improve a child’s ability to sleep more throughout the night. Autistic children with dogs have been documented to feel less anger and experience less acts of aggression compared to the time before receiving an assistance dog. Assistance dogs are taught to track the child in the event that they run or go missing. This ability to locate the child quickly, greatly reduces the risk of serious harm
A study by the University of Montreal shows that trained service dogs can actually reduce anxiety levels in autistic children. 42 children were measured for the amount of cortisol in their saliva – a hormone that is produced by the body in response to stress – after they were given dogs. The findings published in Psychoneuroendocrinology, showed that stress levels went down.
5% of India suffers from disability. They have very little help. Training dogs for the disabled is very big business abroad. Why not start it here? Normal Indian dogs, from the roads, as it were, will get a new chance at life and so will the child and the family they protect. In 1996, National Service Dogs for Children with Autism was created and they train organisations round the world. For more information on NSD, visit www.nsd.on.ca. If nothing else, think of it as a business opportunity.
Maneka Gandhi
To join the animal welfare movement contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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In my shelter, Sanjay Gandhi Animal Care Centre, I have 400 cows and buffaloes. They have been rescued from slaughter, accidents and acid attacks. I would have gone bankrupt feeding them. Amazingly, I have never had to spend a paisa. Next to our gate is a shop that sells green fodder and hay. Everyday dozens of people buy it for our cows.
All these people have come because of astrological compulsions. Astrology is the way we map our lives by the movements of stars and planets. Jyotish, the ancient Indian system of astrology, says that planets represent energies that emit magnetic and electric fields which influence the lives of human beings. The horoscope is a map at the time and place of birth which shows the positions of the planets in relation to the person.
Are these influences unchangeable? No, says astrology. You can change your luck and mitigate the malefic influence of a planet.
Dr Shankar Adawal has sent me his fascinating book called Charms, Talismans and Spells. He heads one of the biggest companies in India but is better known as an astrologer. He says by using of these astrological charms/talismans which come from the ancient Vedas, your desires will be heard by the universal energy source. He deals with the problems that we go to astrologers for: children, jobs, health, financial prosperity, marriages.
Feeding animals is a very easy way to change one’s luck. After all, eight of the 12 signs are represented by animals : Aries (Mesh) - Ram, Taurus (Vrishabh) – Bull ; Cancer (Kark) – Crab; Leo (Simha) – Lion; Scorpio (Vrishchik) – Scorpion; Sagittarius (Dhanu) – Half Body Human Half Body Horse; Capricorn (Makar) – Mouth of a Deer, Shoulders of a Bull and Eyes of an Elephant; Pisces (Meena) – Two Fishes
The law of karma means that a being lives within parameters created by actions performed in prior lifetimes. The energy that the planets cast are called grahas and these grahas can be tuned. There are nine (graha means ‘to seize or influence): Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Sun, Moon, Rahu and Ketu. When the planets are weak or in a bad place in the horoscope then they adversely affect the person.
All of us are affected by all the grahas all the time. What do these remedies (totkas) do? To give you a simile: the day will continue to be hot but you will get a fan to cool you; if cold you get a shawl; it might rain – but you get an umbrella. In short to bring relief and nullify your problems, the sages developed remedies using gems, mantras, prayers, colours, fasts, charity, metals and amulets.
Surya or lord of the Sun represents the soul, the king, highly placed persons or fathers.
Chandra or lord of the Moon represents the mind, the queen or mother.
Mangala or lord of Mars represents energetic action, confidence and ego.
Budha or lord of Mercury is the protector of merchants and represents communication.
Brihaspati or the Lord of Jupiter is the Guru of the gods. He represents knowledge, teaching, eloquence.
Shukra is the lord of Venus and represents wealth, pleasure and reproduction.
Shani is the lord of Saturn. He represents learning the hard way, career and longevity.
Rahu is the head of the snake that swallows the sun or the moon causing eclipses. His job is to make your life difficult. According to legend, during the churning of the ocean the demon Rahu drank some of the divine nectar. But before the nectar could pass down his throat, Vishnu cut off his head. The immortal head is Rahu. The body is Ketu.
Ketu is the tail of the snake. In special circumstances he helps achieve the peak of fame. He represents supernatural influences.
Remedies for different planets:
Sun: Feed wheat rotis to Cows and jaggery to monkeys on Sundays
Moon: Feed wheatflour balls to fishes on Mondays. Keep a white cow. Give water to all cows
Mars: Feed gram (chana) and jiggery (gud) to monkeys on Tuesdays
Mercury: Feed green grass or fodder to cows on Wednesday and millet (bajra) to pigeons. If Mercury is malefic give spinach to four legged animals for 27 Wednesdays. Do not keep birds in cages.
Jupiter: Feed soaked gram lentils (Chana Daal) and jaggery to yellow cows on Thursday and corn to pigeons. Give gram dal to a horse for 7 Thursdays
Venus: Feed milk to cats or feed fishes on Friday. Give part of your food to a cow every day
Saturn: Feed black dogs buttered or oiled rotis and to black cows on Saturday.
Rahu: Feed buffaloes and free snakes from snake charmers on Wednesdays. Feed leaves to an elephant
Ketu: Keep a pet dog and feed multicoloured dogs regularly. Keep a cow or a rabbit. Feed ants with sesame seeds
In order to stop children being unpredictable, the child should offer one oiled chappati every Saturday to a dog
If a person believes that an evil spell has been cast on him, he should offer burfis (milk sweets) on Sunday and Monday to a cow. On Tuesday and Wednesday, Friday and Saturday he should give motichoor ladoos (a ball like orange sweet) to a dog.
Students who want to improve should offer jaggery and roasted grams to monkeys, Hanuman temples and feed the birds.
A child who stammers should offer green grass to a cow
While going for a job interview take a chappati and throw it in the direction of the crows. Soak black grams on Friday night and then mix with mustard oil. Give half to a horse or buffalo and half to a leper. Do this for forty days to ensure professional success
If your business is sluggish, make some besan laddoos, wave them round your head seven times and feed them to a cow on Thursday
If you want a promotion, offer the birds seven types of cereals. For your income to rise give wet black grams to monkeys
In order to get married give two balls of wheat flour mixed with a little turmeric, jaggery and wet gram pulses to a cow every Thursday
If your husband is a drunkard, take flour of the same weight as his shoes and roll a chappati just using your hands (without a pin or board) and bake it directly on the fire without a tawa and then give it to the street dogs. Do this thrice and he will become averse to liquor. (This is supposed to be foolproof)
If your husband, under the influence of another woman, ignores or criticizes you , take 300 grams of ladoos made of gram flour (besan) two ladoos made of wheat flour, three bananas and wet gram pulse and feed these to a cow that is feeding its calf. Your husband will change.
Once a month cook more sweet chappatis than the number of people and guests you have in the house and give them to any animal. This will save the family from quarrels and expense.
When Ketu is malefic to a girl, her parents should give food to a hundred dogs from sunrise to sunset in one day.
For peace and prosperity astrology suggests:
Dogs as pets normally take all the evils visiting that particular household protecting their human families
Make it a principle to donate the first chappati to a cow and the last to a dog. This invites goddess Lakshmi to the home. Looking after cows removes the Pitra Dosha from your chart
Maneka Gandhi
To join the animal welfare movement contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
All these people have come because of astrological compulsions. Astrology is the way we map our lives by the movements of stars and planets. Jyotish, the ancient Indian system of astrology, says that planets represent energies that emit magnetic and electric fields which influence the lives of human beings. The horoscope is a map at the time and place of birth which shows the positions of the planets in relation to the person.
Are these influences unchangeable? No, says astrology. You can change your luck and mitigate the malefic influence of a planet.
Dr Shankar Adawal has sent me his fascinating book called Charms, Talismans and Spells. He heads one of the biggest companies in India but is better known as an astrologer. He says by using of these astrological charms/talismans which come from the ancient Vedas, your desires will be heard by the universal energy source. He deals with the problems that we go to astrologers for: children, jobs, health, financial prosperity, marriages.
Feeding animals is a very easy way to change one’s luck. After all, eight of the 12 signs are represented by animals : Aries (Mesh) - Ram, Taurus (Vrishabh) – Bull ; Cancer (Kark) – Crab; Leo (Simha) – Lion; Scorpio (Vrishchik) – Scorpion; Sagittarius (Dhanu) – Half Body Human Half Body Horse; Capricorn (Makar) – Mouth of a Deer, Shoulders of a Bull and Eyes of an Elephant; Pisces (Meena) – Two Fishes
The law of karma means that a being lives within parameters created by actions performed in prior lifetimes. The energy that the planets cast are called grahas and these grahas can be tuned. There are nine (graha means ‘to seize or influence): Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Sun, Moon, Rahu and Ketu. When the planets are weak or in a bad place in the horoscope then they adversely affect the person.
All of us are affected by all the grahas all the time. What do these remedies (totkas) do? To give you a simile: the day will continue to be hot but you will get a fan to cool you; if cold you get a shawl; it might rain – but you get an umbrella. In short to bring relief and nullify your problems, the sages developed remedies using gems, mantras, prayers, colours, fasts, charity, metals and amulets.
Surya or lord of the Sun represents the soul, the king, highly placed persons or fathers.
Chandra or lord of the Moon represents the mind, the queen or mother.
Mangala or lord of Mars represents energetic action, confidence and ego.
Budha or lord of Mercury is the protector of merchants and represents communication.
Brihaspati or the Lord of Jupiter is the Guru of the gods. He represents knowledge, teaching, eloquence.
Shukra is the lord of Venus and represents wealth, pleasure and reproduction.
Shani is the lord of Saturn. He represents learning the hard way, career and longevity.
Rahu is the head of the snake that swallows the sun or the moon causing eclipses. His job is to make your life difficult. According to legend, during the churning of the ocean the demon Rahu drank some of the divine nectar. But before the nectar could pass down his throat, Vishnu cut off his head. The immortal head is Rahu. The body is Ketu.
Ketu is the tail of the snake. In special circumstances he helps achieve the peak of fame. He represents supernatural influences.
Remedies for different planets:
Sun: Feed wheat rotis to Cows and jaggery to monkeys on Sundays
Moon: Feed wheatflour balls to fishes on Mondays. Keep a white cow. Give water to all cows
Mars: Feed gram (chana) and jiggery (gud) to monkeys on Tuesdays
Mercury: Feed green grass or fodder to cows on Wednesday and millet (bajra) to pigeons. If Mercury is malefic give spinach to four legged animals for 27 Wednesdays. Do not keep birds in cages.
Jupiter: Feed soaked gram lentils (Chana Daal) and jaggery to yellow cows on Thursday and corn to pigeons. Give gram dal to a horse for 7 Thursdays
Venus: Feed milk to cats or feed fishes on Friday. Give part of your food to a cow every day
Saturn: Feed black dogs buttered or oiled rotis and to black cows on Saturday.
Rahu: Feed buffaloes and free snakes from snake charmers on Wednesdays. Feed leaves to an elephant
Ketu: Keep a pet dog and feed multicoloured dogs regularly. Keep a cow or a rabbit. Feed ants with sesame seeds
In order to stop children being unpredictable, the child should offer one oiled chappati every Saturday to a dog
If a person believes that an evil spell has been cast on him, he should offer burfis (milk sweets) on Sunday and Monday to a cow. On Tuesday and Wednesday, Friday and Saturday he should give motichoor ladoos (a ball like orange sweet) to a dog.
Students who want to improve should offer jaggery and roasted grams to monkeys, Hanuman temples and feed the birds.
A child who stammers should offer green grass to a cow
While going for a job interview take a chappati and throw it in the direction of the crows. Soak black grams on Friday night and then mix with mustard oil. Give half to a horse or buffalo and half to a leper. Do this for forty days to ensure professional success
If your business is sluggish, make some besan laddoos, wave them round your head seven times and feed them to a cow on Thursday
If you want a promotion, offer the birds seven types of cereals. For your income to rise give wet black grams to monkeys
In order to get married give two balls of wheat flour mixed with a little turmeric, jaggery and wet gram pulses to a cow every Thursday
If your husband is a drunkard, take flour of the same weight as his shoes and roll a chappati just using your hands (without a pin or board) and bake it directly on the fire without a tawa and then give it to the street dogs. Do this thrice and he will become averse to liquor. (This is supposed to be foolproof)
If your husband, under the influence of another woman, ignores or criticizes you , take 300 grams of ladoos made of gram flour (besan) two ladoos made of wheat flour, three bananas and wet gram pulse and feed these to a cow that is feeding its calf. Your husband will change.
Once a month cook more sweet chappatis than the number of people and guests you have in the house and give them to any animal. This will save the family from quarrels and expense.
When Ketu is malefic to a girl, her parents should give food to a hundred dogs from sunrise to sunset in one day.
For peace and prosperity astrology suggests:
Dogs as pets normally take all the evils visiting that particular household protecting their human families
Make it a principle to donate the first chappati to a cow and the last to a dog. This invites goddess Lakshmi to the home. Looking after cows removes the Pitra Dosha from your chart
Maneka Gandhi
To join the animal welfare movement contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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- Maneka Gandhi
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Professor Anil K. Gupta of IIM, Ahmedabad is one of my heroes. Instead of just being a college teacher, twenty years ago he made his students into an NGO called Sristi to start looking into the practices of villagers with a special eye towards organic farming practices and animal medicine. He went on to patenting rural inventions and holding organic food festivals which lakhs of sellers and buyers attend. He has a magazine called Honeybee and if anyone ever deserved the highest government honour for recording cultural practices, it is Anil Gupta. His teams walk for hundreds of miles every year to scout and celebrate grassroots innovations and outstanding traditional knowledge and local conservation ethics. According to him “The Indian dream to become a knowledge society depends upon India’s ability to make knowledge assets more valuable and precious than physical assets. The lack of possession of physical or financial assets would then determine to much lesser extent the destiny of an individual or group than the possession of ideas, innovations and other knowledge assets. We must sow the seeds of imagination and innovation early in life.”
In the course of investigations, their team has found many practices that would be called “magic” today: the farmer of old could predict which day it would rain six months from now, just by looking at the weather of today. E.g. If the moon is full on the 18th of January, it will rain on the 20th of October. They look at questions like “Why do sugar grains attract small red ants whereas jaggery attracts bigger black ants?”
Read this: It used to be an age old practice in India to collect herbs by following animals, e.g. the mongoose is an enemy of the snake. After fighting with it the mongoose, the mongoose runs into the forest and rolls over an herb to get rid of the snake bite. The healers follow the mongoose and collect this herb for healing snake bites.
He and many other cultural scientists say that most omens are rooted in the wisdom of ancients, that they have a basis in science. Study of Omens by Bhojraj Dwivedi is a well researched book into Sakuna Shastra, the ancient science of omens. It talks about the study of the seers of the sounds and actions of animals and birds with a modern science based interpretation. The signs that foretell the future are not based on superstition but on a very sharp observation of animals whose perception is much keener than ours and who can interpret the coming effects of our actions much quicker than humans. Who has forgotten the panicky movements of animals away from the shores and lowlands, days before the tsunami came?
I am still reading Shankar Adawal’s Charms Talismans and Spells and the last chapter is about omens. Let me repeat some:
· If a cow is met at the start of journey that is auspicious
· If a cow is surrounded by many flies or dogs, rain will set in.
· If a cow bellows at night it is not a good sign. If a bull bellows at night, it is.
· If a dog brings a wet bone before the person, that is considered auspicious and a good omen for some good work
· If a dog standing in a southeasterly direction, howls while facing the sun, he is warning you of theft or fire
· If a dog picks up a shoe and approaches a person with his mouth upward, it is a fortunate indication. A dog that smells a shoe indicates a fruitful journey ahead
· If a group of dogs howl at night it indicates an earthquake
· If a cow is surrounded by many flies or dogs, rain will set in.
· If a cow bellows at night it is not a good sign. If a bull bellows at night, it is.
· If a dog brings a wet bone before the person, that is considered auspicious and a good omen for some good work
· If a dog standing in a southeasterly direction, howls while facing the sun, he is warning you of theft or fire
· If a dog picks up a shoe and approaches a person with his mouth upward, it is a fortunate indication. A dog that smells a shoe indicates a fruitful journey ahead
· If a group of dogs howl at night it indicates an earthquake
If in the last part of the day, you see a crow coming from the southeast direction ,you will earn some money by the morning .
· While starting a journey, if a crow appears from the east, it indicates a fruitful result.
· If a crow crows in the house, you should be ready to receive a guest.
· In case two crows feed each other, the person proceeding on journey will remain comfortable.
· If you see a crow in the early part of the day flying from the northeast direction, an important and auspicious message is coming.
· While leaving the house , if you see a crow sitting on a pig, there is going to be legal trouble. A crow sitting on a donkey or camel is auspicious
· Crows sitting in a circle means a loss through an enemy
· If leaving the house, if you hear the squawk of a wild parrot, your work will be completed successfully
· An appearance of a horse from the North is always auspicious while starting a journey. The same result if you find a donkey on your left. If you talk about a rabbit or a snake while starting off, it is auspicious.
· If at the last part of the day, parrot speaks while facing the southeast, your enemies will be destroyed.
· If a man sees a Neelkanth (Indian roller bird) on his way it is an auspicious omen.
· If you come across an elephant, horse, peacock, bull, swan, a pot full of water, ornaments, lotus flower and a virgin carrying washed clothes you will have success in your mission.
· If a crow crows in the house, you should be ready to receive a guest.
· In case two crows feed each other, the person proceeding on journey will remain comfortable.
· If you see a crow in the early part of the day flying from the northeast direction, an important and auspicious message is coming.
· While leaving the house , if you see a crow sitting on a pig, there is going to be legal trouble. A crow sitting on a donkey or camel is auspicious
· Crows sitting in a circle means a loss through an enemy
· If leaving the house, if you hear the squawk of a wild parrot, your work will be completed successfully
· An appearance of a horse from the North is always auspicious while starting a journey. The same result if you find a donkey on your left. If you talk about a rabbit or a snake while starting off, it is auspicious.
· If at the last part of the day, parrot speaks while facing the southeast, your enemies will be destroyed.
· If a man sees a Neelkanth (Indian roller bird) on his way it is an auspicious omen.
· If you come across an elephant, horse, peacock, bull, swan, a pot full of water, ornaments, lotus flower and a virgin carrying washed clothes you will have success in your mission.
If you get into the habit of observing and recording animals you will see how much they tell you about themselves and you.
To join the animal welfare movement contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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- Maneka Gandhi
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Hindus have their Gods. Christians have Saints. There are thousands of them and, like our Gods, each one “ looks after” a particular part of the world. There are Saints for Lost Causes, and Saint for acne. There are saints for death row inmates and saints for love. There are hundreds of saints for animals , who have demonstrated acts of compassion and charity on creatures great and small. Let’s remember these wise and wonderful souls.
The list must naturally begin with St Francis of Assisi ,patron saint of animals, whose birthday 4th October (my mother’ birthday) is celebrated as World Animal Day. Born the son of a wealthy cloth merchant in Assisi, he lived the life typical of a wealthy young man until 1209, when he heard a sermon that Christ had instructed his followers to go forth without money or possessions, to spread the words of love. Francis immediately converted to a life of poverty. With 11 followers he wandered through the mountainous districts of Umbria , cheerful and full of songs. It is said that no one in history has so dedicatedly carried out the work of Christ in Christ’s own way as Francis. Holding that nature itself was the mirror of God, he called all creatures his “brothers” and “sisters” and many of the stories that surround his life deal with his love for animals. Once when Francis and his followers came to a place where birds filled the trees . Francis said, “Wait for me while I preach to my sisters the birds”. The birds surrounded him and not one of them flew away while he talked. The city of Gubbio was terrorised by a maneating wolf. Francis went up into the hills, found the wolf ,made the sign of the cross and bade the wolf come to him. Miraculously the wolf lay down at the feet of St. Francis. “Brother Wolf, you do much harm in these parts”, said Francis. “All the townspeople curse you. Brother Wolf, I should like to make peace between you and these people”. Francis led the wolf as easily as a lamb to the people and made a pact between the two. Since the wolf killed only out of hunger, the townsfolk agreed to feed him regularly. In return, the wolf would no longer prey upon them or their flocks. Francis even made a pact on behalf of the town dogs who consented never to torment the wolf again. Gubbio was freed from fear.
Throughout his life, Francis preached about the duty of men to protect and enjoy nature as both the stewards of God’s creation and as creatures ourselves. On his deathbed, Francis turned to his donkey and thanked him for carrying and serving him throughout his life, and the donkey wept. Not surprisingly, Saint Francis is revered the greatest of all Christian saints.
Saint Anselm canonised in 1494,was also a wealthy youth who turned monk at an early age. Known for his fine moral and intellectual character, the true tenderness of Anselm’s nature appeared in his treatment of animals whom he regarded with respect as the product of God’s hand. In the love of animals for their offspring he saw an emblem of the love of God for man, and in any cruelty to animals on the part of man, he saw a figure of the devil’s malice and his hatred of all God’s creatures. One day upon seeing a bird teased by a boy who had fastened a string to her leg and let her fly a little way in order to pull her back again, he made him release the bird, calling what the boy was doing exactly how the devil tormented his victims. So also when a hare ran for shelter under the legs of his horse and the hunters crowded round for his capture, Francis sprang down and forbade them to touch the cornered animal.
There is a female patron saint of sick animals ( I should put up her statue in my animal hospitals) St. Dwynwen of Tolentino, a 5th century Welsh daughter of King Brychan Brycheiniog of Brechon. Dwyn visited by an Angel, committed her life to God and founded a convent on what is now Llanddwyn island, just off the Isle of Angeles. Within that Abbey, there is a miraculous spring (Ffynnon Dwynwen) which works wonders with sick animals. Over time Dwyn’s name was invoked to heal sick and distressed animals, a tradition that survives till today.
Dogs have three patron saints. They are Saint Hubert of Liege, Saint Vitus and Saint Walburga. Dog lovers too have a patron saint : St Roch. Born in 1293 to the wealthy Governor of Montpellier, France, he donated his property to the poor and disguised as a pilgrim, set off to Rome . Along the way, he nursed victims of the plague with miraculous results. Contracting the dreaded disease himself at Piacenza , he went into the forest to die alone. There he was befriended by a dog who would bring him food . Thanks to the dog and later, his master, Roch recovered and returned to Montpellier . He died young but recognised for his piety.In 1414, when the plague returned to Europe , public prayers in honor of St. Roch were held and the plague vanished. The letters VSR (Viva Saint Roch)are still inscribed over doorways in Europe as protection against pestilence.
The Patron Saint of Domestic Animals, St Anthony was born in Egypt in 251 A.D to wealthy parents. At the age of 20, he gave away his money and retired to an abandoned fort in the desert for 20 years. When he emerged from the fort healthy, serene and enlightened, his fame as a healer of men and animals began to spread. At first when his preaching was scorned by men, it was the fish of the sea that came swimming in shoals, before the eyes of the whole city, to listen to his words. A hungry mule venerated the Blessed Sacrament rather than eat food, in proof of St. Anthony’s teaching. A pig is said to have followed him everywhere after the saint cured the pig of a serious disease.Statues of St Anthony depict the desert hermit standing blessing the people and animals gathered around him.
Regarded as the architect of Christian monasticism whose rules are used by monasteries and convents around the world, Saint Benedict, the original patron saint of Europe is always depicted with a raven. Perched on a thorn bush, the raven holds a piece of bread in its beak. Apparently Saint Benedict was fed poisoned bread by a jealous priest and saved by a raven. It was a raven that fed the Old Testament prophet Elijah, in his cave for many years.
St. Blaise, the patron saint of wild animals, was a bishop of Sebastea in Armenia in the early fourth century. When persecution of Christians began he received a message from God to go into the hills. Men hunting in the mountains discovered a cave surrounded by wild animals who were sick. Among them Blaise walked unafraid, curing them of their illnesses.
St. Brigid gave sanctuary to a wild boar, turned a fox into a loving pet was kind to dogs and cows. St Colette was always accompanied by lambs and it was said that she understood the language of birds. St Gall was a special friend of bears who supplied him his needs in the forest. St. Isidore always shared his food with hungry birds. St. Jerome helped an injured lion who never left his side. St. Martin de Porres founded a shelter a place for cats and dogs, was kind even to rats and resurrected a pet dog after reproving its owner for having ‘put to sleep’ the loyal companion. St. Nicholas of Tolentino was a vegetarian who brought birds back to life.
Celebrate Christ’s birthday by being kind to an animal, not eating it.
To join the animal welfare movement contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.