Our Amazing Planet
Earth — our shared home
Say what the Earth looks like from space, and trace the birds, foods and ideas that have travelled into this country and out of it.
Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, the first Indian to reach the International Space Station, said that from out there the Earth looks completely one: no border is visible, no state, no country. From that height a city or a village is too small to pick out — what shows is the broad shape of the land masses and the sea. Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma, the first Indian to see the Earth from space, was asked how India looked from above and answered: Saare Jahaan Se Achcha.
Nature has no boundaries
Air, water and clouds cross the world without asking anyone. So do seeds and animals. Each winter, pink and black birds called rosy starlings make an enormous journey from southern Russia, Mongolia and nearby countries into India, feed on locusts and grasshoppers, and leave the farmers' crops the better for it.
Things that came here
Chilli plants grew in South America; travellers from Portugal carried them to India 400 to 500 years ago, and before they arrived people spiced their food with black pepper. Marigolds came from Mexico. Paper came from China through trade, and before that people wrote on palm leaves and bark. Arab traders brought dates and lemons.
Things that went from here
The method of making jaggery from sugarcane juice was first discovered in India, and from jaggery came sugar; the knowledge travelled outwards through trade. Rice, mangoes and bananas went too. Yoga, practised here for more than 3,000 years, is now practised in almost any country you can name, and the United Nations made 21 June the International Day of Yoga. Portuguese traders even took Indian cows to Brazil.
Worked example
More than three-fourths of Brazil's milk today comes from three Indian cow breeds — Gir, Kankrej and Ongole. How did that happen?
Start with who moved them. Portuguese traders took some Indian cows to Brazil, long ago.
Nothing about this was an accident of nature. A trade route is a road for animals as much as for goods.
Try it together
Work out what an Indian kitchen tasted like before the chilli arrived.
It is hard to imagine Indian food without chillies, and yet for most of this country's history there were none.
1.Chilli plants were not growing here to begin with. Which continent were they found in?
Have a go
Have a go on your own. An ancient Indian saying, quoted at the end of the chapter, means 'the world is one family'. What is that saying?
Ready to practise?
Eight questions on what you have just read. Nothing is timed, and you can play as many times as you like.