Sanjay Varanasi » Photos

Growing mango from seed

Sanjay V — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 05:02:04 +0000

It is astonishing how fast a mango can grow from seed (after germinating, that is). A few weeks ago, I was relishing a ripe mango when I had the idea of trying to get it to germinate. After I was done gorging on it, I kept the seed and let it dry out in the air outside my balcony for about 3-4 days (nothing calculated, pure randomness). Then I prepared a pot (a.k.a CD case) with a mixture of soil and compost, placed the seed upright, leaving equal amounts of soil at the bottom and the top. Note that I did not take the pit out of the seed. Then, I poured some water and forgot about it. The fact is I had at that time several pots with other seeds none of them labeled (I’m lazy and I like surprises). So, I kept watering this pot along with the others. A few weeks later, I sowed 3 seeds of the Morning Glory plant in the same pot not knowing what was cooking inside. At around the same time that one of the seeds of the Morning Glory germinated, I noticed another sapling emerging from the pot, with a bunch of purplish-red leaves already noticeable and a thick red stem ready to shoot out. A couple of days later, there it emerged in full glory, the mango sapling. I was tremendously happy to see it germinate, although I barely had any expectations when I sowed the seed. Remember how I got all excited with the Olive? It never germinated!

Fast forward 2 weeks and this is how the sapling stands today:

This sapling has been growing fast, and how! Mother jokingly remarked if we could harvest it within the next few weeks. The plant has already surpassed, in height, all other plants in my collection (even the 1year old curry leaves plants). The morning glory stands beside it in the same pot, in awe of the speed of the mango.

Notice how large the leaves have grown already. They’re already changing to the typical mango green from the red-brown that they were a few days back. I’m only worried that at this pace it would soon outgrow my CD case pot. Where do I take it next? Plant it in the ground somewhere or upgrade to a large pot? Does it make sense to continue growing a mango in a pot when it would (probably) be happier stretching its feet into the ground?

A few images of Houston

Sanjay V — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 06:13:50 +0000

Houston was immensely large. This was the first time I was visiting a US city, and I had high hopes. I wasn’t disappointed at all. Except for the fact that the roads were quite rough and bumpy, for a top class city.

There was so much traffic on the streets. But, I couldn’t care less. After having driven on heavily congested Indian roads, these roads were a cakewalk. I was just afraid I’d forget following rules, since I wasn’t used to following ‘em in India.

Sage road was definitely the most sophisticated looking street in Houston. Right from this piece of art, to the hip looking traffic lights, to the tarmac, and the skyscrapers around. Too bad I couldn’t take snapshots myself, since I was driving. Had I been driving, this post would have filled the entire page with tons of images.

Transparent Screens

Sanjay V — Wed, 02 May 2007 17:46:48 +0000

I just found these pics of wonderful li’l laptops with transparent screens.
Don’t they remid you of some English Movie now??

http://www.flickr.com/photos/w00kie/sets/180637/

Wonderful picture of the Night-Earth

Sanjay V — Wed, 02 May 2007 17:44:57 +0000

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0011/earthlights_dmsp_big.jpg

Here is an excellent picture of mother-earth at night .
Ain’t the city lights just wonderful ??