Writing this blog on account of the Lohri, festival. You might be thinking eco-friendly Diwali is without crackers, Holi is with herbal colors now what is wrong with Lohri? Nothing wrong with the night celebrations, gathering and putting bonfire, dancing, singing, having peanut and popcorn in chilly weather is a mellow vibe and I enjoy it a lot.
Now comes the but part, one necessary change that is illegal too is using a plastic thread/ nylon thread (Chinese dora or Chinese manjha) to fly kites. It is a plastic thread made from nylon and has some sort of chemical on it which makes it impossible to break. The thread is so sharp it can cut through like a knife.

Why not use it-

1. Causes severe injuries to animals, birds, and humans. Not just injuries it has even taken several lives. Why use something for fun that can cause fatalities?
2. A cotton thread of the same length costs around 800 rupees while the nylon counterpart is sold illegally for just 200 rupees. The poor quality is justified by this huge price gap.
3. After a day, useless tangled bundles of thread are found in the streets as harmful litter. The once shining colorful kites become the bow of the trash pile.
   Simple solution –
   The govt. has banned it already, it is up to us to celebrate a festival or weave death traps for innocent animals. DO NOT BUY CHINESE PLASTIC THREAD/ NYLON THREAD.

• If you already have it from past years –
  Then maybe go and fly kites in an open ground away from the population or simply let it rest in some corner of your house or use in any kind of DIY maybe.

Source- https://greentribunal.gov.in/sites/default/files/news_updates/Report%20by%20CPCB%20in%20E.A.%20No.%2006%20of%202020%20in%20OA%20No.%20384%20of%202016%20(Khalid%20Ashraf%20Vs.%20Union%20of%20India).pdf

Well, after spending much of the year at home, most of us have adapted to staying at home as the new normal, the new cool. For all the people, who are in unconditional love with their bed and blankie along with the wintery touch of procrastination. Here is a list of low-key new year’s eve ideas away from the hustle and bustle of clubbing and boozing. Yay! And no COVID-19 infection for you at least for the start of 2021-

1. Carpool karaoke– All you need is a car, some friends, a kick-ass sing-along playlist, and an app too. Make sure the driver doesn’t vibe too much all your lives are in their hands. Remember not any ordinary drive but a karaoke drive.
2. Movie marathon– Not in the mood to step out or the heavy traffic gets on your nerves, then just fill in a popcorn bucket and run your favorite movies or episodes. Some suggestions- Friends, The big bang theory, Modern family, Stranger things, into the dark. Some Indian shows to binge – little things, made in heaven, Kota factory, Permanent Roommates, Tripling, Yeh meri family.
3. Cook and drool– Another good time killer can be going grocery shopping and cooking 3-5 course meal, this is subject to your cooking skills. If not kitchen friendly plan and order your food in advance and try a simple dessert. Google easy recipes according to your preference and unleash the Gordon Ramsay inside you.
4. Laugh out loud– No, not like the people in the park early morning, here you can list down some stand up comedies on YouTube and friends can watch it together. Nothing better than sharing a good laugh with your loved ones.
5. Bonfire – For this one, you will need some motivation to collect wood, logs, something to initiate the fire, soft music, and some snacks are always filling. To create more holiday spirit put on the barbeque too. Hot smokey food with drinks and the bonfire nice and warm.
6. Dance around– Put on your dancing shoes or simply slippers and just move your body to the rhythm. An impromptu dance session with friends, family, or roommates is always fun. No matter how bad your moves are but they are your moves, own them, and just dance.
7. Journal– one good thing you can do while being in the comfort of your blanket is penning down the things you are grateful for, resolutions for the next year, the best tales of the year, new habits that you enjoyed. Try keeping it positive there are multiple ideas online and offline journals too so, sit with a cup of hot cocoa and pour out the feelings.

Happy new year. Stay safe, stay warm, and sustainable.

Yes, plants also hibernate like animals, they also need lesser energy during the cold weather. Here are some easy and practical tips to take care of your plants’ health during chilly winters-

1. Control the watering – The slumbering plants don’t need as much water as they needed during summers. So water only when the soil looks a bit dry. Not all plants behave likewise so keep a check.

2. Clean the dust from leaves – Have a decent dusting routine of your plants once or twice a month. The dust hinders the already less seen sun in winters.

3.Do not put plants by a heater or blowers – No matter how fancy, they don’t require this form of pampering. If you still wanna spoil them then head to point no. 4

4. Use a humidifier if you wanna go gaga for your plants. Plus it is good for your lungs too.

Now quickly sharing a list of flowering plants easily available in India for winter season –

1.Marigold season – These brightly colored flowers spread merry with it’s golden hues. (Wow that’s a good wordplay).

2.Petunia – These would be pink easy flowering plants. Low maintenance and so beautiful.

Lantana and Verbena are small flowering plants comes in so many colours. They are easy and beautiful looking flowers perfect for winters.

Lastly, a list of vegetables one can easily grow at home in the backyard or even pots –

Popeye’s favorite Spinach!

Bugs bunny dear carrot!

My favourite Tomato!

Radish– No one says no to hot ‘mooli ke paranthe’ with butter.

Lettuce for your salads and sandwiches can be easily grown at home.

That’s it for this time on plants , winter and green Bucks!

Happy gardening and plant parenting

Trends in an industry keep on changing and updating. What is more important is to keep up with them. Especially, being a management student. But instead of keeping an eye you can keep an ear and ace your info game.

Sails in the podcast raft. A podcast is a series of digital audio files in short episodes format on various topics. Widely available and preferred platforms for listening are- Apple, Spotify, JioSaavn, IVM. Keeping the busy lifestyle even when working/studying from home, I have shortlisted four short and informative podcasts available on Spotify. Each episode is between 5-10 minutes. Now your evening jog can be more than just melodious.

1. Starting with the one on top of my feed is Let’s do shots! By mad over marketing with Siddhant More. Unraveling amusing marketing and advertising stories in crisp 5 mins episodes is a delight to listen to. The orator using his storytelling doesn’t let you zone out.
2. Next on the list is Finshots Daily. Keeping content India centered they post daily a 5 min summary of the paramount finance and business happenings in understandable language.
3. BloombergQuint’s All you need to know prepares you for the day’s business. All the prime business and financial news and much more. For avid stock market learners, it is a godsend.
4. Useless information with Varun Duggirala (host of “Advertising is dead”). Categorizing information based on useful or futile is a dicey business. It is an engrossing and may or may not be useless information podcast.
5. I highly recommend following MOM, Finshots, and Bloomberg on Instagram or Facebook. Your feed and frontal cortex will thank you for following these sharp-witted accounts.

Anime refers precisely to animation produced in Japan or to its common style. It combines graphic art, characterization, cinematography, and other forms of imaginative and individualistic techniques. It covers various genres from war to light-hearted fantasy catering to kids, adolescents, and adults. In addition to the gripping storyline and lifelike characters, one can learn a lot about Japanese culture from them.
Some of my favorite anime recommendations are-

1. In This Corner of the World–
   A beautiful movie revolving around the life of an 18-y/o girl and her struggles of living in Hiroshima during the Second World war. An insightful view of the life of sincere hardworking people. There are some emotion triggering points in the movie. The movie is full of relatable, real, and some dark events making it a must watch.
2. Grave of the Fireflies –
   An overwhelming journey of 2 siblings’ effort for necessities after the family gets torn because of war. Grief is the key emotion of the movie. Leaves one more grateful and valuing the little things in life.
3. The Wind Rises –
   The wind is rising!…we must try to live.
   How your passion speaks through your eyes and how one is constantly thinking consciously, sub-consciously about their dream and ambition gets very clear in the initial half an hour of the film. Hard work, kindness, and the strong will of the protagonist are heart winning. Finally giving a touch of selfless love and care makes one rethink their ideology of love and work.
4. Spirited Away–
   An imaginative wonderland, a fantasy world we all used to travel to as kids. It has touched many realms the realistic, the fantasy, the human, and spiritual. The importance of balance is the key takeaway. No character is evil despite poor motives. The antonym of balance is excess and nothing good comes of it.
5. Only yesterday–
   The feel-good film helps the viewers to introspect and relate their behavior with the protagonist’s life journey. Initially, the story is a bit slow but it unfolds beautifully giving the peaceful vibes everyone seeks from a light-hearted movie. Reliving nostalgia through amazing visuals is a gorgeous experience.

The simplicity of characters, their sincere approach towards life in reel life is truly inspirational. Makes me wanna visit Japan more and more.

The time of the year where trees are no more green, the skin is dry, winds are cold and ruthless but the sun is soothing, tea is healing the dry cough and runny noses. Wrapped in warm blankets and quilts feel like everything around us is hibernating giving a cozy haven to our laziness. the comfort of icy drinks is now replaced with steamy soups and hot fudgy brownies. After a very visual introduction of the winters following the Raw resistance theme of sustainability here are some tips to make this season merrier for the planet.

1. keep a blanket in the car– this season do not turn the heater to max and instead carry a warm friend (blanket). It will keep you warm, prepared for any emergencies, and help deal with sudden temperature fluctuations better.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has reported that a drop in temperature from 24°C to 7°C can increase fuel consumption by 12% to 28%, meaning that you’re paying more at the pump during the winter than the summer.
Cold air is denser, which increases drag on your car and reduces gas mileage. Driving slow and diligently means more time spent on the road, and more gas is used. And of course, heaters and defrosters use additional power, leading to more fuel consumption. Source – https://rates.ca/resources/how-to-save-at-the-pump-during-the-winter

• 2. Have dry fruits and nuts, ginger, garlic, seasonal fruits, and vegetables to stay healthy, warm, and build immunity with a good diet. – usually, the shelf life of food increases in winters so even meals can be prepared in bulk saving time and energy. Various seeds mix like pumpkin, chia, sunflower, etc. are easily available in the market along with trail mix. Healthy snacking is crucial, filling oneself with sugar, fried and spicy food will only harm health.

3. keep skin moisturized using coconut/olive oil– go for organic cold-pressed oils instead of commercially available options and the heavily perfumed lotions. The easiest way to melt coconut oil is to keep under hot running water or take a vessel and fill with hot water and keep the jar/bottle in it for 2 minutes.

4.Days are shorter in winters so manage work accordingly. Try to keep reading and working hours during daylight so that one saves on power consumption. This may sound silly but the work from home has led to more power consumption as more heating is needed in individual places instead of an office building in cold countries.

5.Instead of blow-drying hair one can buy a microfiber towel/headwrap and let the hair air dry– heat is bad for hair. In winters wet hair are a nightmare to add to the horror of the chilly wind. Try DIY dry shampoo using 1 tsp corn starch and 1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder.

Share your sustainable winter tips.

• Don’t waste food– beside people, there is a huge amount of food that gets wasted in Indian weddings. It is sort of free but wasting is no excuse at any point.
• Prefer eating in a single plate– many places have per plate system so be thoughtful and don’t create ethe excessive burden on the people paying for the wedding. Similarly, all Punjabi livers can reuse the glasses and refill it till the time DJ plays Brazil in North Indian weddings.
• Gifting – Either go for shagan (I.e. money in a beautiful envelope that people generally reuse) or a thoughtful and useful gift. Check out my blog on the gift guide for ideas.
• Clothing – it’s the day of the groom and bride all eyes will be on them so nobody cares about your brand new suit or saree. Kindly mix and match pieces and enjoy the celebration.
• Reach the venue timely– The swag of going exactly at dinner time is weird and people have normalized it. Have some regard of the hosts they have been preparing for it since so long.

Some pocket friendly tips-
Learn to do your own makeup and hair. YouTube university at your rescue. But practice before the wedding date.
If the hosts are close friends or simply open to suggestions give them some helpful sustainable wedding tips.

A personal view on veganism.
Going vegan simply means having a plant-based diet. i.e. no animal-based food be it dairy products or meat.
I personally don’t have any issues with people who consume non-vegetarian food even I tried having it to gain weight because was told it is good source of proteins. However my metabolism wasn’t strong enough to digest it properly and I fell quite sick. So my experience was in short was very bad as I tried thrice but eventually fell sick every single time.
So going back to the topic – veganism. Why people are going for it?

1. Beef, lamb and other meat raising industries have huge carbon emissions. Starting from the raising of animals to the processing. The carbon footprint of beef industry Livestock and their by-products are accountable for 51% of all greenhouse gas emissions, worldwide.
   2,500 gallons of water are needed to produce 1 pound of beef.
   Animal agriculture is responsible for up to 91% of the Amazon rainforest destruction.
   To know more you can watch ‘Cowspiracy’ available on Netflix on how big the issue is.
   Though in India beef is already banned due to religious and political reasons yet there are many illegal trades being done to put into numbers it ranks it top 3 beef exporters. Around 1.5 million cattle are smuggled across Indian borders every year.
2. Cruelty towards animals– the scenario shown in TV ads the farmers raising cows and buffaloes for milk has transformed in many parts of the country. The cattle is kept in very bad conditions and even injected with chemicals to produce more and more milk. And once they stop giving milk they are abandoned and mostly slaughtered. To find out how inhumanly they are treated with exact facts checkout the link below- https://www.petaindia.com/issues/animals-used-for-food/amazing-animals/cows/
3. what physical changes one goes through after going vegan– in my view no two human bodies are same we perceive what we eat differently due to many reasons. After talking to someone who is following the concept since a long time now I learnt that by incorporating plants in our diet we are ensuring the fibre that is crucial for us reaches in true form that helps in feeling more energised, better digestion and clearer skin.
4. how to ensure a brand or a product is vegan? – simplest and certified way is to check on peta.org website the link is given below-
   https://crueltyfree.peta.org/
5. Availability of vegan products– they might not be easily accessible in tier 2/3 cities but they are easily available online. Some common food items that are vegan -rice, chappati, tofu, potatoes all fruits and veggies you don’t need fancy avocados, quinoa etc to be a vegan.
   Concluding with a helpful tip- don’t turn vegan overnight. It would be very overwhelming to process everything. Quit things gradually as you don’t want to disturb the natural functioning of your systems. So quit dairy products in a manner like start from curd or milk in tea then switch to vegan options like soy milk which is easily available at most places.