I am sorry if this sounds like a silly game, but I thought of exploring this question today:

If I eat 1 egg per day and drink 1 cup of milk per day, how many chicken and cow lives can I save by switching to veganism?

The answer i got from Google was interesting. I am seriously considering cutting down on eggs and switching to ahimsa milk.

Here is the answer I got from Google:

Based on your specific consumption of 1 cup of milk and 1 egg per day, it would take about 10 months (0.82 years) of veganism to save one chicken’s life, and roughly 100 to 200 years to save one cow's life.

Because modern agricultural animals have been bred for incredibly high yields, your individual impact breaks down differently for each animal:

🐔 Saving a Chicken: ~10 Months

Commercial laying hens produce about 300 eggs per year. By eating 365 eggs a year, you consume slightly more than one hen's entire annual output.

• The Lifecycle Cost: For every commercial laying hen hatched, one male chick is culled at birth because they cannot produce eggs. The laying hen itself is typically slaughtered after 2 years when her production drops.
• The Math: This means 2 chicken lives are ended for every ~600 eggs produced (or 1 life per 300 eggs). At 1 egg a day, you account for about 1.2 chicken lives per year, meaning you spare your first chicken in just under 10 months.

🐮 Saving a Cow: ~100 to 200 Years

Modern dairy cows produce an immense volume of milk—averaging about 2,500 to 2,800 gallons per year (around 6 to 7 gallons a day).

• The Lifecycle Cost: A dairy cow is typically slaughtered around age 5. Over her lifetime, she will give birth to about 4 calves to keep her milk flowing. The male calves are usually slaughtered for veal or beef, and the mother is slaughtered when her production slows. This averages out to roughly 3 to 4 cattle lives taken over a lifetime production of roughly 11,000 to 14,000 gallons.
• The Math: Your consumption of 1 cup a day equals 22.8 gallons a year (365 cups ÷ 16 cups per gallon). Because a single cow produces so much milk, your annual footprint represents a tiny fraction (less than 1%) of a cow's lifetime output, meaning it takes a century or more of abstaining from 1 daily cup to mathematically offset the life of one cow or calf.

I see Indian women unilaterally blaming Indian men or Indian culture, and I wonder if they realise that they r creating fodder for anti-India racism, and that they will be victimised by this racism too.

We should of course point out what is wrong with Indian culture, but keep in mind that bad men are the same across cultures. If women feel safe in the west, there are many factors for it, like prosperity, travelling in cars, the fact that Indian IT folks live mostly in prosperous suburbs etc.

Personally, I have been sexually harassed in the USA, and even touched inappropriately by middle schoolers while working as a teacher in an inner city school.

I remember seeing racist posts saying how white men don't gang rape, that gang rape was mostly an Indian men thing... uniquely disgusting etc. Well, I am glad that the facts about the Cornell gang rape are out. At that time, I would give the example of Gisele Pelicot, but many Indians did not even know that rapes and the under-reporting of rapes happens in the USA too.

Edit: For example, sub-reddits like splendida brown which promote Indian women marrying white or non-Indian men. This subreddit, I am pretty sure is moderated by a non-Indian racist. So it is imp to not be naive and to not assume that just bcos a man is white/ non-Indian or appears sympathetic, that all is innocent and above board. Men of all cultures are capable of the same kind of depravity which Indian men are guilty of.

I often get the feeling that South Asians in the USA don't really care much about what happens in their home countries, and even things which are very painful are used for laughs.

One such example is the joke about the last flight out of Afganistan in the Netflix comedy - Best of the best. https://www.facebook.com/share/v/17wMY8BZk4/

Today, I saw a post on a sub which talked about the rape and murder of a Hindu family in Bangladesh. The entire tone of that post was disrespectful, but I replied in a neutral way, saying that there were allegations that the Bangladesh police were framing the wrong ppl.

To that , OP replied and said that 'Do you mean a case just like Hatras?'.

When I got angry and hit back, the guys said, I was being defensive, I was on drugs, or I had a victim mindset.

I find this whole trend, to use one rape to justify another, or to use rape, sexual assault and murder as a political tool in an ideological fight utterly disgusting.

We really need to put an end to it, and immediately shame ppl who use these tactics.

Including some screenshots.

https://preview.redd.it/agpuzp5qf0mh1.png?width=1502&format=png&auto=webp&s=51893df5976b9947e6045fc6752eb53dc5013d6c

https://preview.redd.it/8k7gcr7zf0mh1.png?width=1424&format=png&auto=webp&s=1858bee66c4164ef9b5e37ebc8ef16d9cf35cab1

Given the enormous power Sri Sri Ravi Shankar had over many Indian ppl, he did not display the radical courage needed to change the set ways Indians think about menial work and cleaning which is so deeply tied to purity, class and caste. It was a huge opportunity, wasted.

I'll give an example.

When I did my first TTC1 in Canadian ashram, my TTC teacher, Michael Fischman had us cleaning the public restrooms in the ashram as our seva. When one person said 'I am from IIT, I don't need to do this', he was solely tasked with cleaning the men's restroom every single day. Now, Michael Fischman is a despicable person (my personal opinion) in many ways, but this was a truly admirable thing to do.

I came home overawed at the goodness in AOL, it has long been a problem with Indian society that 'educated' ppl refused to do menial work like cleaning restrooms. I was so happy AOL was busting those boundaries.

But then I went to India, and guess what I saw.

Indian course participants never had to clean Bangalore ashram restrooms as their seva. There was a separate cleaning staff.

What a huge opportunity Art of Living and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar wasted, to educate and reform Indian society.

The boundaries they spoke abt busting in DSN and TTC, should have been these boundaries. Instead they mindlessly indulged in more marketing of courses, more pyramid schemes and more fundraising.

A chance at greatness.... lost.

I want to make an app called Main Hoon Na. It will be a social media/ networking app for those who want to volunteer their time for clean up in India. Ppl can log their cleanups, or schedule cleanups, that other ppl can respond to and join in. They can post before and after pictures. This includes small solo cleanups as well, so that we don't always have to wait for other ppl to join in before we start taking action.

But it will help create a sense of community for those who volunteer their time to clean up so that they feel supported and encouraged.

I honestly believe that the only way to change things is by giving our own time and energy. I was really inspired by this Irish guy who came to Jaipur, fell in love with the ancient wells and dedicated his life to cleaning them. https://www.instagram.com/p/DaSmKs8tsC3/?hl=en

Pls give your feedback, is this something you would like to use?

When I was involved with Art of Living a few years back, enormous amounts of money would be raised in programs like TTC (Teacher training ) in the USA, with no accountability and no explanation as to where the money would be going. (Except for saying that 'Gurudev' himself would decide how this donation was to be used - that was supposed to settle all questions)

For example, the TTC fees were $5000, for a 2-3 week program. Additionally, during TTC, participants would spend all their time on registering ppl for AOL programs, and a fund-raising project.

The TTC that I attended, I would say that I saw many ppl give $3000, and this was matched in many cases by the companies they worked for. So now, in a course of 150 ppl, you can do the math as to how much money was raised in just 2 weeks, for a cause which participants were not even informed about.

Additionally, volunteers who worked for companies like Microsoft could enter their volunteer hours, and Microsoft would donate $20 to AOL for each volunteer hour. So if an Microsoft employee who was also an AOL teacher spent 15 hrs a week organising and teaching the course, AOL would get $300, apart from course fees. Given that several ppl would spent enormous amts of time volunteering for AOL, the dollars added up pretty fast.

Some provisions that I like in FCRA are:

-Funds should go into only those projects that they are collected for. eg, AOL cannot collect funds for Care for children, and then redirect those funds somewhere else. While "purpose diversion" was always banned on paper, the pre-2026 system suffered from weak regulatory tracking, making it easier for large NGOs to mingle general donor pools. The 2026 framework eliminates this flexibility entirely by introducing:

• Mandatory Project-Wise Reporting: AOL must now map out exact activity-wise utilization in their annual returns, explicitly proving that money meant for free schools went specifically to those schools.
• Ultimate Donor Disclosures: Every single international micro-donation or dollar-a-day child sponsorship must be explicitly traceable from the point of origin straight to the end project.

- Annual returns must now explicitly disclose project-wise spending, activity-wise utilization, the identities of ultimate foreign donors, and verified links to the organization's official websites and social media accounts.

- Blanket, nationwide approvals for foreign funding will no longer be valid. The organization will have to register and log the exact activities and the specific States/UTs where incoming foreign funds are intended to be deployed

- The management and trustees can be held personally liable for regulatory non-compliance or accounting errors.

Given the discrepencies I have observed in AOL and its fundraising, I think FCRA would be excellent for strengthening accountability and transperency.

Is that even a sub for brown women?

I know another brown woman who got banned for the same reason and her comments deleted.

Is that sub actually being run by brown women, or by someone else?

Whether we like it or not, Indian kids in school do face casual racism eg

-Indians eat with their hands

-Indians poop outside

-Making fun of the accent etc

What do folks do to educate children abt these stereotypes?

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cq634oFg7Jd/?hl=en

Translation :

We left the "Art of Living" cult and are freer and more awakened than ever. This live video tells how we, four women who were victims of systematic abuse within Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's worldwide organization, managed to free ourselves from that prison without bars.

On April 9, 2022, after being manipulated by Ravi Shankar (self-proclaimed Guru of Peace) to prevent us from revealing the sexual abuse perpetrated by his right-hand man, Swami Paramtej, we outraged and LEFT THE CULT. We're here to tell you how it happened, the secrets of this INTERNATIONAL NGO, and that it is possible to be very happy without following any Guru on the spiritual path ❤️
Thanks to   u/lunacordobav
We recommend watching "The Luckiest Girl on Earth" starring Mila Kunis on Netflix, and also the documentary "Wild Wild Country," especially if you are in an institution that claims to be spiritual and is led by a Master or Mistress.


(To find out how the sexual abuse occurred and to see the video of the Zoom meeting with Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar where he incriminates himself, please see my highlights "ART OF LIVING")

Anyone remembers this?

Sri Sri's 'mediation' effort in Kashmir which led to him 'hugging' Yasin Malik?

Now Yasin Malik has been charged as the prime accused in the murder and rape of Sarla Bhat.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/raped-killed-branded-an-informant-yasin-malik-is-key-accused-as-sarla-bhats-case-reaches-court-after-36-years-101782732359854.html

I wonder how Sri Sri's much-lauded intuition and enlightenment did not tell him that he was actually hugging a rapist and murderer?

I flew in to the USA from London last month in a flight which had several elderly Indian parents in it. . There were fumes in the aircraft's back cabin bcos of an equipment malfunction while we were over the Atlantic and the flight turned back and landed in Scotland where we were stuck for a day until the plane was repaired.

Many people probably did not understand what was happening when the announcement was made. We were given strict instructions to stay in our seat, and follow emergency protocols, but many Indian older ppl were repeatedly walking down the aisle.

The air hostesses were extremely frightened and stressed and were screaming at them to be seated, but they did not seem to get it. Some ppl had language issue, they were not able to understand English, that may have been the reason why.

But this just added to the overall panic.

The flight did land safely, but I felt it is extremely important for us to make sure that our parents have a travelling companion when they fly esp when they r very elderly or have issues with understanding English. A lot of elderly ppl had a very hard time, and that was difficult to see.

In some cases though, the refusal to follow directions even in an emergency seemed like it came from a lack of caring instead of a misunderstanding.

After landing in Scotland, while we were standing in line for our hotel, a non-indian person who was using 2 crutches to walk, stood with us in line. I and a couple other Indian women entreated him to go to the front of the line, bcos we could see he would be in pain after standing for so long. But he refused, saying ppl ahead of him would get angry.

Now contrast this with the Indian aunty-uncle, who did not hesitate to jump the line while boarding the aircraft from Scotland to the USA, even thought they were in perfectly fine physical condition.

This post was deleted from a couple of FB grps, after I started getting angry comments asking me to be grateful that I was alive instead of complaining. Someone also suggested that Indian ppl jump the line bcos they grew up in a scarcity situation.

Sorry, the ppl who jump lines are not always struggling, in India u can see plenty of middle-class ppl following rules, while those who are more privileged do not.

Thanks for reading.

I lived in India for 4 yrs, my children went to a very expensive international school in Bengaluru. My children did not share much while they were in India, but share more now, after we returned to the USA. My elder one completed high school in this IGCSE/IB school, and my younger one studied there from 4-7 grade.

The one thing which was easily obvious was the immense stress. The curriculum, even for a school which claimed to implement IB/ be based on IGCSE, relied a lot on information to be memorised than on projects or true understanding, esp in science. Being constantly on top of every little thing which was being taught was a must for parents, esp for those whose children were not naturally well-organised.

This school had an impressive list of USA and UK univs where their students got admitted, so that was what drew us to it. And frankly, it did work for my daughter, as she got admission in a very good univ along with a substantial scholarship.

But the general atmosphere in school was harsh and toxic and not respectful to students, to say the least.

My younger one experienced bullying which was glossed over by the teachers bcos the students who were the bullies belonged to influential families with contacts.

There was a general attitude of we-know-best or disrespect. for example, the school's trustees are non-christian, but the principals were christian. There would be regular bible readings in this school, which was extremely disrespectful, as parents sent their children to this school, thinking it was secular. In fact my children said that christianity was pushed much more on them in India than they have experienced in the USA.

There were very good and caring teachers too, my elder one made good Indian friends, who she is still in touch with. But I could not complain to the principal if my children faced issues as my elder one said that their college admission depended on teacher recommendations.

Another thing I noticed was how the admission counseller insisted that we apply to T20s and private colleges, and was perplexed when I said that we prefer a good in-state univ, bcos of the tuition. These counsellers force kids to apply to expensive, top private univs , as that acts like a marketing tool for the school to attract new parents.

So my suggestion if u r planning to move to India would be, to speak with parents in the school u r planning to send ur child to. Don't just prioritise good college admissions, but also prioritise a healthy environment.

Edit: It was not bible readings during assembly time, it was Christian-style prayers.

https://preview.redd.it/pg5d280n6z9h1.png?width=1114&format=png&auto=webp&s=4d1e4f3402955a1b59827af03e44446c4764d4cb

Right before I left Art of Living, I had a couple of experiences which led me to realise how I had become locked into an echo chamber and had lost touch with reality.

My first experience was when a certain rishi passed away. After his passing away, when I opened facebook, my entire feed was filled with tributes to him, calling him the greatest devotee, the greatest teacher, the greatest sevak. Heaping, effusive, non-stop praise by all my AOL friends (and I had about 600 of them)

That was very jarring to me, bcos I had heard from one of those very friends how this rishi had cheated on his wife and had even got a girl pregnant. Something felt very off, and I called up a senior female teacher, and asked her why were AOL volunteers praising this man to the heavens when he had been so problematic.

What if a newcomer actually believed false praise and trusted ppl they ought to never trust?

One thing led to another, and I quit AOL. This small incident made me realise how my life in AOL had become one big lie.

I had to praise AOL, Sri Sri, Bhanu, AOL courses, techniques, volunteers and teachers whether they deserved praise or not. I had to do it in public and on social media, bcos that is what was being expected of me, from my AOL social network. The line between truth and lies had become so blurry that I no longer believed in myself and my own perceptions of people and reality.

Because my perceptions were being shaped by my echo chamber, if I criticised anyone, I felt guilty bcos I was not being 'positive' enough.

I had another experience with a youth programs TTC teacher at this time. This person was looked upon as a very senior teacher, close to 'gurudev', blessed beyond belief. He seemed calm, collected, serene and centered. All of us volunteers believed the very best of him, believed he was far more spiritually advanced than us, bcos that is the way AOL presented him. His social media posts had hundreds of likes, were filled with glowing comments, priasing him and his wonderful work for humanity. I felt small in comparison.

It so happened that I started working at a we-work where this TTC teacher would work at . I spoke with him about coding, and he described some great s/w projects that he and another teacher were working on. He introduced me to another developer in that we-work, suggesitng we work together on his project. But when I spoke with this developer, who was not involved in Art of Living, that developer had a very poor view of this AOL TTC teacher. It seemed that this AOL ttc teacher would talk grandiosely as if he had amazing, solid projects to work on, but nothing would ever materialise. He would simply leave ppl hanging w/o having any concrete projects in hand.

This suddenly made me realise, that senior teacher who are praised to heavens in AOLwas looked upon as unethical by his collegue according to the standards of the external world.

This again shook me, I realised to what extent I had become influenced by my echo chamber, that what was unethical in the external world, seemed to be something I had to accept bcos the person doing it was a 'highly evolved' AOL teacher.

There are times in one's life when the social conditioning, the peer pressure and the lies fall off, and one can actually give oneself the permission to think and feel our actual thoughts, unbounded by social expectations.

I got a clear glimpse into how the AOL cult had controlled my life, and with that one glimpse, I left AOL, knowing I would never look back again.

The worst thing is to be cheated and then be told that one must be grateful for having a positive experience. My one wish is that AOL volunteers understand this one truth, that their time, money and life is being used for someone's else's profit, and they are so blinded by their echo chamber that they are actually grateful for this.