Mead- another food accident

Mead- the fermented honey, was probabaly the frirst fermented drink, perhaps also one among the very famous food accidents that helped in developing the pallette of a human being. maybe honey was left out, rain fell, yeast settled on the mixture. In both Greece & Rome, before wine making mead was offered to the Gods. Honey was a misterious substanceto ancient people. Greeks knew they were made by the bees, but coud not actually connect it how it was being made. Romans thought honey fell from heaven and landed on leaves, hence honey also was called as "the saliva of the stars". This could be probabaly the reeason why Mead was usually used as an offering drink to the Gods as well as the demi gods. Even in Shakespeare's play "The twelfth Night" there is the mention of this magical drink.

Are Indian blessings truly a curse in disguise

The other day when I had wished one of my friends on his birthday, he happened to ask for a blessing. Thats when it struck me whether our Indian context of blessing a human being that may he live for a one hundred year or something we bless a married women that may she have hundred children, are all nothing but ridiculous ones. Imagine oneself living for 100 years, the family bearing the brunt of the blessing, covering up his/ her medical bills, infact even the person finding it difficult to survive because he would have inherited several old age diseases by then. It is better then to die young; aatleast one doesnot have to listen to the regular abuses from the family memebers.

Similarly when