Brahmakamal

Can a devadasi fall in love? Yes. But is she allowed to do so? A devadasi is an ever-auspicious one, presiding over the temple rituals, entertaining the king and brought up to respect and follow traditions mindlessly. Nitya does all that unquestioningly until she meets Prabhas. Prabhas, the young rebel who grew up in a devadasi household, finally mellows to become an excellent musician. But just as he readies for a duty-bound life ahead, he encounters Nitya. As Kaveri, Nitya’s mother, and the town’s dashing chief Yugendra personify the social hierarchy, rigid customs and hypocrisy of the day to tear them apart, do Nitya and Prabhas stand a chance? What survives? Love that knows no bounds or traditions that were the very essence of their existence?

Contributed articles presented at a seminar held in October 2002 at Binsar.

Early in 1981, the visionary in Dr Vishwanath D Karad saw the need for unaided engineering colleges, to cater to the demand of India that was rapidly rising in aspirations. In the subsequent years, the state of Maharashtra, and indeed the entire nation, put brick and mortar to this vision to the point that today, India produces 1.5 million engineering graduates per year, the majority of them from unaided institutions. This has helped India to be the biggest exporter of white-collar jobs globally, since the turn of the century. The educationist, scientist, spiritualist, philanthropist, education builder, humanist and peace ambassador put all his experiences together in recent years to make the world's largest dome (the dome at Vatican City, Rome, Italy, is now second-placed) and the world's first peace dome which will likely end up being the eighth wonder of the world. This book is a collection of testimonials written by esteemed personalities of our society for this living jewel of India.

Being blessed to wander in some of the most fascinating hills and valleys of nature, I have been endeavoring for long to put these stories together. I offer here the elements that appeal most to me during my wanderings in the jungles, meadows, villages and towns, especially in the abode of gods and goddesses the Himalaya. I pick up one of the tales as a title of the book 'Nanda's Neelkanth'. Neelkanth is one of the several names of the Lord Shiva, the Hindu god. Many snow-clad peaks of the Himalaya are named after the gods and goddesses and Neelkanth is one of the most magnificent peaks. It attracts every human soul not only to its brilliant hues and majestic snowy peak but Neelkanth, as the Mahadev, also remains the source of spirituality for billions. Likewise, His consort, Nanda who is adorned with innumerable names including the Gaura, has been venerated in the form of beautiful mountains of the Himalaya. The quiet and unquiet woods, the elusive and elegant wildlife, the people and their culture and their struggle for living are the other elements in this bouquet of experiences.

Research in recent years has increasingly shifted away from purely academic research, and into applied aspects of the discipline, including climate change research, conservation, and sustainable development. It has by now widely been recognized that “traditional” knowledge is always in flux and adapting to a quickly changing environment. Trends of globalization, especially the globalization of plant markets, have greatly influenced how plant resources are managed nowadays. While ethnobotanical studies are now available from many regions of the world, no comprehensive encyclopedic series focusing on the worlds mountain regions is available in the market. Scholars in plant sciences worldwide will be interested in this website and its dynamic content. The field (and thus the market) of ethnobotany and ethnopharmacology has grown considerably in recent years. Student interest is on the rise, attendance at professional conferences has grown steadily, and the number of professionals calling themselves ethnobotanists has increased significantly (the various societies, like the Society for Economic Botany, the International Society of Ethnopharmacology, the Society of Ethnobiology, and the International Society for Ethnobiology currently have thousands of members). Growth has been most robust in BRIC countries. This new MRW on Ethnobotany of the Himalayas takes advantage of the increasing international interest and scholarship in the field of mountain research. It includes the best and latest research on a full range of descriptive, methodological, theoretical, and applied research on the most important plants in the Himalayas. Each contribution is scientifically rigorous and contributes to the overall field of study.

Ethnobotany of India: Volume 4: Western and Central Himalayas is the 4th volume of the 5-volume set, an informative book series on the ethnobotanical aspects of India. The books cover different regions, including Volume 1: Eastern Ghats and Deccan Volume 2: Western Ghats and West Coast of Peninsular India Volume 3: North-East India and Andaman and Nicobar Islands Volume 4: Western and Central Himalayas Volume 5: The Indo-Gangetic Region Each volume looks at the important ethnic plants of the specific region. Volume 4 covers the Western and Central Himalayas, the well-known mountain range on the Indian subcontinent. The unique flora and fauna of the Himalayas are varied, affected by climate, rainfall, altitude, and soils, and are vulnerable to impacts from climate change. The editors espouse that because indigenous non-Western societies form the vast majority of people now as well as in the past, a study of their plant interrelationships is necessary, and India is one of the most important regions of the old world for its ancient and culturally rich and diverse knowledge of ethnobotany. With this in mind, these volumes share a great deal of information that will be valuable to plant botanists and others working in and interested in ethnobotany. This important volume covers the ethnobotanical aspects of many plants of the region. It looks at ethnic diversity of people ethnic food plants and food preparation ethnomedical aspects of plants psychedelic plants and their possible link to soma, a vedic ritual drink whose plant origins are a mystery ethnoveterinary medicinal plants ethno-conservation practices biodiversity heritage sites The volume includes the details of the plants used, their scientific names, the parts used, and how the plants are used, providing the what, how, and why of plant usage. The book is well illustrated with 20 color and 67 b/w illustrations. Together, the five volumes in the Ethnobotany of India series presents the available ethnobotanical knowledge of India in one place. India’s ancient and culturally rich and diverse information and use of ethnobotany will be valuable to those in the fields of botany and plant sciences, pharmacognosy and pharmacology, nutraceuticals, and others. The books also consider the threat to plant biodiversity imposed by environmental degradation, which impacts cultural diversity.

It all happened in mid-June, 2013. The nature’s fury had broken loose in Kedarnath valley………….. Excerpts from the book:- …….It didn’t take long for nature to reveal its frightening designs. It was indeed a natural calamity, but, a manmade disaster too. The sudden blackening of the blue sky, which Inder had witnessed, was caused by a cloud burst over the Chorabali Tal, situated at the height of 14,000ft, four km. from the Kedarnath temple…… It remains blanketed throughout the year with snow white flakes. The clouds poured – god knows how many thousand cusecs of water- into the lake. Consequently the walls of the lake could no longer withstand the water pressure and were breached at several points, releasing a huge water jinn which tore apart whatever tried to block it. And then …when no shackle was left to constrain it, the jinn was free to wreak havoc upon the lives of the people…. …….Chetak again raised its two bleeding forelimbs to hit the attacker. But by that fraction of a second the war was lost and won. The poor dog tried to bark. But its neck was stifled between the leopard’s two sets of teeth. The hapless creature could not make even a final cry. Blood was oozing from its throat. The black brown hairs of the neck gradually became crimson. ……..The birds had returned to their nests. They were chirping all around. The leaves of the kafol tree were fluttering in the evening breeze and emanating the sound like ankle-bells. The temple bells were ringing. Standing on the ramparts of heaven, with silver peak railings on the sides, the not so bright moon was smiling and peeking through the fluttering leaves of the peepal tree in front of their house. The heaven and earth extended a warm welcome to the long lost son of the family. The sky above Himalaya was bathed in a crimson red hue.