Serendipity : Musings of an Islander

M Nageshwar Rao : The Man who walked the talk By Debkumar Bhadra | Musings of an Islander | South Andaman It was just another day for M Nageshwar Rao, a cobbler until he picked up the suitcase that has come to his shop with a broken handle earlier in the day. As he turned the suitcase on the working platform, a bundle of currency notes popped out of it. The bundle had 11 notes of Rs 1000 each, totalling to Rs 11000.00 (repeat Eleven Thousand). Keeping the money aside, he went ahead to accomplish the assigned task. Next day, Surajit Chowdhury visited the shop to take delivery of the suitcase. He was happy to see his suitcase ready. But the real surprise was yet to be delivered. He was taken aback when Nageshwar Rao told him about the discovery of Rs 11000.00 from his suitcase. It was nothing less than a bounty, since he lost track of his money probably kept in the inner compartment of the suitcase during one of his repeated visit to mainland hos...

A LESSER KNOWN UNDER-UTILIZED FRUIT B ilimbi , I rumban P uli , C hemmeen P uli , B imbul ,   O rkkaapuli Following the encouraging readership and feedback on my earlier article on Passion Fruit , I am tempted to post about another locally available, lesser known, under-exploited fruit namely Bilimbi. According to W ikipedia, bilimbi ( A verrhoa bilimbi) or cucumber tree or tree sorrel is a fruit-bearing tree of the genus A verrhoa , family O xalidaceae . It is a close relative of carambola tree widely cultivated in the tropical regions of P hilippines , I ndonesia ,  S ri L anka , B angladesh , M yanmar  ( B urma ) and  M alaysia . In India it is known as Bilimbi , Irumban Puli , Chemmeen Puli , Bimbul ,   Orkkaapuli etc. The fruit is produced in clusters and look fairly cylindrical with five broad rounded longitudinal lobes. They taste very sour and used in production of vinegar, wine, jams, jellies, pickle and in Indian culinary ....