Vakas & Dr. Bronner’s
What I Learnt:
Many of us suffer from what I call ‘geographical blindspots’. We have a rough, often vague, idea of where a country or a place should be on a map. And quite often reality is very different from what we have imagined, as is often the case.
As far as I can tell, my biggest geographical blindspot was New Zealand. For some reason I always thought it was just off the coast of Australia, with a distance similar to that between India and Sri Lanka. Maybe it had something to do with the 1992 Cricket World Cup which was co-hosted by these antipodean sporting powerhouses.
I was shocked to learn that the CLOSEST points of land, not actual dwellings, between these countries is 1,368 kilometres. That is almost a third as long as the continental US is. And about a third longer than the northern tip of Scotland to the southern coast of England. And in case anyone thinks I have forgotten my roots, about the distance between Mumbai and Delhi.
I then wondered how people would have first discovered the islands the Maori called Aotearoa, and we call New Zealand. I imagined that perhaps they walked across during the last ice age, like people did from Asia to Alaska. Or some fortunate sailors were blown off course by powerful storms and washed up on a beach filled with kiwis. And I didn’t want to think of the plight of those who ‘missed’ New Zealand and ended up in the southern Pacific Ocean.
Now as far as New Zealand is from Australia, the distance pales in comparison to that between the many islands in the Pacific. The islands that are broadly grouped in three regions - Micronesia, Melanesia and Polynesia. But some time around 1500 BC, intrepid men and women began peopling (not colonizing) these islands.
Some historians call them the finest sailors in the world (sorry fans of the Phoenicians, Vikings, Royal Navy) because they charted, though that isn’t the right word, these waters without anything we would recognize as maritime technologies. No sextants, compasses or chronometers. Instead they relied on gaia methodologies. Cloud patterns, flights of birds, star positions and ocean swells. There are even narratives of how male navigators would judge these ocean swells by leaning their testicles on boats while they moved. One assumes that female navigators, which there undoubtedly would have been, devised more cerebral and perhaps more reliable methods.
The means of transport for these wonder people were double hulled sailing boats called vakas. And they were used to carry not just people and food, but animals too. Okay, I guess the latter also qualify as food. Imagine setting out in a small craft, filled with everyone you loved and everything you owned, with no means of calling for help. All you had was a map gifted to you by your ancestors, tremendous skill and unshakable faith that you would somehow make it.
I imagine that is exactly how our descendants will one day set out for the nearest stars. Such a pity that we are born way too late for the last great phase of human exploration. And just too early for the next great one.
What I Like:
Call it the arrogance of youth, but I once said that ’It is reasonably easy to make money, and fairly easy to be a good person. But next to impossible to do both at the same time.’ Turns out Emanuel Bronner did just that when he set up ‘Dr. Bronner’s’ in 1948.
Wonderful soaps that not only work well, as most soaps do, but are made from natural ingredients, have minimal impact on the environment after use and are fairly priced. The company is still family owned and run and their ethic is, ‘We are all - one or none.’
Of all their soaps that I have tried, the almond flavour is easily my favourite.