toys-r-plastic

For the purpose of this post I am going to venture into an arena I am not very familiar with - but certainly an aspect of it, I am passionate about!  I am sure I maybe missing something here -feel free to enlighten me!

Last evening, the husband and I walked into a big box 'toy store' to buy something to gift a friend's one year old at his upcoming birthday party. Given I have often either bought gifts for children from trusted online sources or clothes coupled with the fact that I haven't really done much of it, I was certainly shocked on walking into the store.


Almost all of it was plastic! I may have been aware about this at the back of my head - but seeing the shear volume together was certainly shocking. Its probably the most amount of plastic I have seen together at one time. I am sure a percentage of it may be recycled and/or green in some other way but is this really the amount of plastic a child at a tender age should be exposed to? I am not even going to go into the aspect of bad plastic, BPA etc - just the amount in itself was shocking enough!

We walked in and walked out of the store in precisely 5 minutes as the husband sensed an andolan* about to be started by yours truly right then and there.

Emotions apart, there are life lessons hidden here too - do we really want to expose the future of our lives in such huge quantities to a material that is so 'plastic' (pun intended!) ; most of which will pretty much never disintegrate and probably sit there in a landfill even after mankind disappears! 

Does a child really need ALL that junk? Of course they need to play - but there are so many other choices that can be made. After all our life style is mostly a reflection of what we have been exposed to and taught at an early age!

For now I am going to happily stick to my trusted resource - Inhabitots for ideas and suggestions for buying gifts for children!

*andolan - protest in hindi 

Local jewels

Houston may or may not be good for many things but it is certainly a great place for 'eating out' (and I don't mean national or international chain restaurants). I remember once long ago, a friend telling me how you could eat at great restaurants every day and not repeat any for years and I completely agree with her. Of course, we never do that! Mostly out of choice, to be good to our pockets, health and mainly because we love to cook, eating out is restricted to 1-2 times a week.

While my familiarity with Houston goes back a couple of years as a weekend resident of the city, it is only in the last month that Houston has become home, day in and day out - 7 days a week and I am experiencing life as a daily resident.  Without further ado let me get to the point - while we have eaten at a number of great restaurants in the city, one that it quickly climbing up on the list of my favorites is 'Ruggles Green'. Having been to lunch there twice in the past week, I can say that  this restaurant hits all the 'must-haves' in my list. It is a Certified Green Restaurant, has a great menu, great ambience, super-fresh organic  and local ingredients,  a good organic/bio dynamic wine list,  all natural and most importantly ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS.

So here's to exploring little jewels in the city- one at a time!

Sharing is...

Shareable: Design for a Shareable world is one of the latest additions to my RSS feed list and I am just a little disappointed in myself for finding about it only recently. Better late than never!


'Share' is such the key word to a better life- on a personal as well as big picture level!
We share lives, resources, ideas.. just about anything and everything...


... this one to caring!

Even baby steps will do!

Last night as part of Architecture for Humanity's Houston Chapter's fund raising event for rebuilding effort in Haiti we watched the film 'One Peace at a Time'. In case you haven't watched it you can find more information about the movie here .

The film features the work and insights of various Noble Peace Laureates and many others with fundamental issues related to education, food, water, shelter, peace.

As individuals who have had the privilege of a great education and lifestyle, I am quite surprised by the minimal number of people I come across who are interested in being part of any cause or contributing towards it. Many a times there seems to be interest and empathy but a number of excuses. The most popular ones I have heard are:

1. I want to do something but not in this region- Why does passion for a cause or an issue be have to be bound by boundaries? And even if you feel strongly about a certain community in a certain region, with the ease of a global world, living thousands of miles away is no excuse any more.

2. Wish I had the time - Well, I am guessing you don't have the time because you are busy making money out of it - how about donating some of that then?

3. I cannot find anything I can be involved in or that matches with my area of expertise/ interest- Really? Have you tried? I can help you find something if you are really interested. 

I believe an education is fruitful even if a small part of it is applied to something that's bigger than yourself. Doctors, lawyers, engineers, architects... we all have something that we got in our training that we can contribute to a great cause- that of humanity.

The movie makes a beautiful case for just finding something you are passionate about and acting on it. Could be as small and simple as not using plastic or driving a hybrid or as big as working towards opening a school or bank in an underprivileged community ! It really is about the choices we make, isn't it? 
As was rightly stated in the movie - 'the thing that thrives most is the one that you feed well!