Author: manuscrypts

  • A different kind of prosperity

    A couple of months back, there was a very heated debate (mild term) based on an article that was titled “Why Generation Y Yuppies Are Unhappy” and (also) dealt with something that has occupied my thoughts for a while now – the sense of entitlement. It had a very simplistic formula on happiness : Happiness = Reality – Expectations, and the author’s take was that a sense of entitlement/being special heightened expectations and when that collided with reality, Gen Y’s happiness suffered. Another key factor in this was they are also regularly ‘taunted’ by people who are doing better – simply because the latter share their successes much more.

    I must say that my observations on the sense of entitlement have led me to believe that it’s not totally an age thing. I do agree that societal and lifestyle changes have led to parents becoming more indulgent, but I think the larger culprit is mass publishing platforms –  the ability to broadcast one’s thoughts to large number of people. It is enhanced when the publisher realises he/she has an audience. It does seem higher in younger groups but that’s only because they have been exposed to these platforms much earlier in their life than an earlier generation and therefore do not have the alternate perspectives and experiences of the latter. But the entitlement discussion is for another day.

    An interesting point made in the article was that Gen Y wanted fulfilling careers. What does not come out though is what defines ‘fulfilling’. Is it the emotional satisfaction of working towards a shared purpose, or is it the perks that come with a high-flying career? I suspect that fulfilling at this point swings more towards the material success that the latter provides. Umair Haque has an interesting take called ‘Growthism‘, a devolved form of capitalism, whose dogma is to achieve growth at all costs and according to the author prevents us from developing a sophisticated conception of what prosperity is. It does seem fluffy but that’s probably because we have been conditioned by various institutions for a long while now.

    But I sense a change is on its way. For instance, thanks to this post, I came to know of The Prosperity Index, which goes beyond the GDP and economic success based models of measuring prosperity of nations. While this is indeed a positive step, I think true change will happen when constituents like the Gen Y mentioned earlier begin to look at currencies beyond money for a sense of fulfillment, and happiness. In this must-read article titled “Who Will Prosper in the New World“, the author mentions “People who don’t need money” – people who have the incomes of the lower middle class and the cultural habits of the wealthy or upper middle class.

    I think we’re at the beginning of a new cycle – a generation will start ignoring the paradigms of success and fulfillment set by its predecessors and their institutions, and use the fabulous technologies that are evolving to craft its new narrative of happiness. I also think that my generation might be the casualty of two large concepts at war with each other, but maybe that’s what it takes for a civilisation to be entitled to its prosperity….

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    until next time, changelings

    P.S. On a related note, do read ‘On Lifestyle Rigidity‘

  • Red Fork

    For some strange reason, these days we’re more inclined to Sunday breakfast-outs than Saturday dine-outs. Though a beer brunch has been the standard, we decided to give that a break one weekend and try out Red Fork, for more healthy options – bacon and such. 😉

    Red Fork is in the same premises as (the new) Daddy’s Deli – here’s a map to help you. Park in one of the many side lanes that spread out of 12th Main, and walk up. Helps build appetite! At noon, we just about managed to find a table from the indoor and outdoor options. The menu is on blackboard(s) and is usually a marginally different version of this. The ambiance is pleasant and peppy, and the owner (I’m guessing) is extremely helpful. The decor is functional, includes a lot of quotable quotes, and reminded me of an elegant home – especially the shelf units.

    From the beverages menu, I asked for a Kahlua Coffee and D ordered an ‘Indian’ tea. The coffee came in a wine glass and drew suspicious glances from the tables nearby, especially when I added the sugar! 🙂 D’s Indian tea had a cardamom flavour and was in a kullad. Pretty much two ends of the spectrum.

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    We oscillated between the ‘Big Breakfast’ and the Breakfast Pizza and finally, the latter won. The other dish we decided to check out was the  Eggs on Kheema. We had chosen the soft bread option for the ‘Pizza’,  which had bacon, a tomato based sauce and a poached egg! Quite tasty, though the soft bread obviously began getting soggy pretty fast. I loved the flavourful eggs on kheema – in terms of looks, this was closer to a pizza than the other dish. Since we had some additional space, even after considering desserts, we decided to try out the Mini Lamb burgers. Good choice, I thought, with excellent patties, cheese and a tinge of mustard. A good time to note that the Big Breakfast, which were being consumed all around was quite a looker – especially that mini frying pan, that seemed straight out of a kid’s kitchen set! For dessert, we asked for a chocolate mousse, and it was quite good, the quantity just right for two people who have hogged reasonably well!

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    The bill came to around Rs.1350, and that seems reasonable enough for the location and quality of food.

    Red Fork, #59, 12th Main, HAL 2nd Stage, Indiranagar, Ph: 41154372/5/6

  • The Non Fiction Collection: Twenty Years Of Penguin India

    Celebrating Penguin’s twenty years in India, this book has a collection of 46 non-fiction works, (chapters from published works) and since there’s no specific theme that links every one of them, I’ll just list my favourites. Devdutt Pattanaik’s Myth = Mithya is probably the best way to begin the book with its premise of creation (as per Hindu mythology) and its take on the complementary forces at play in the universe. Gita Piramal’s “the old fox” gives us the ringside view of the Ambani – Goenka war that played out in the eighties. Humra Quraishi’s “from Kashmir” offers us a glimpse of today’s Kashmir, and the life of the people there, a far cry from the times when Kashmir was described as heaven on earth. Vikram Seth’s “From Heaven Lake”, in addition to its vivid description of travel in China, shows in its last page a snapshot of the human condition that remains unchanged across the globe. Amrita Shah’s “Launching Into Space” is one of those reads that take across time, and space, with its chronicling of the early days of India’s space research programme. Khushwant Singh’s “Village in the Desert” is a very personal recollection of the author’s own childhood in a village that now stands in Pakistan, and shows how people across the line really can go beyond the lines drawn on a map. Sanjay Suri’s “Near Mrs.” (that title is a good example of the humour involved) is a brilliantly funny respite from the serious content in the rest of the book, involving a bride-search in London.

    Roopa Swaminathan’s “Extras” is a poignant piece of writing on the life of extras who come to Mumbai/Chennai with the hopes of becoming the next star, but who find that their life has passed them by even as they clung on to hope. Giles Tillotson’s Jaipur Nama has an account of the East India Company’s activities in the context of Rajasthan. Even as Mark Tully’s “No Full Stops in India” gives an excellent perspective on ‘development’ in India, Pavan K Varma’s “Being Indian” has a fantastic take on how India’s own way of getting things done still survives. Abraham Verghese’ “My Own Country”, while set in the US, touches upon, among other things, the idea of a home.

    Pinki Virani’s “Home as hell” informs us about sickening cases of child abuse in India. John Wright’s “Indian Summers” gives us a behind-the-scenes look as well as a non-Indian’s perspective on the game that unites India, even as S. Hussain Zaidi’s “Black Friday” shows how communal forces and the merchants of terrorism try to break this unity.

    There are also very interesting pieces like the Veerappan based “Face to Face” by Sunaad Raghuram, former PM Narasimha’s Rao’s version of what happened at Ayodhya in 1992.

    The book also had quite a few excerpts from works that are already my favouries – Mishi Saran’s “Chasing the Monk’s Shadow”, Shashi Tharoor’s “India: from Midnight to the Millennium” and Arundhati Roy’s “The Algebra of Infinite Justice”.

    The book is a few years old, and some of the works, even more so, but they are in some ways, timeless pieces too. I read them because they not only give me clues on interesting books to read, but also offer me a glimpse of worlds that I probably might not travel to in the course of my normal reading journey.

  • Guided by fear

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    I have this habit of adding a bookmark fold at the bottom of the page when I want to refer to it again. It is quite a task when I have to figure out much later what line in the page I’d originally bookmarked for! These days, Instagram solves it. At some point, I’m sure I can search my feed with a #quote hashtag and retrieve all the ‘bookmarks’ easily. Yay!

    “And the Mountains Echoed” had many such bookmarks. (still an unconscious habit despite the Instagram method) But this one has to be my favourite – “..but most people have it backward. They think they live by what they want. But really what guides them is what they are afraid of. What they don’t want.” I can easily confess that a large share of my actions is to preclude some dystopian version of my old age. (one) Many a time, this leads me to choose cautious paths over (what I think might be) more emotionally fulfilling ones, and even ones that I think might be leading me to my purpose.

    But when I thought about it a bit more, I realised that it can be read positively too – after all I am afraid of being switched off without knowing why I was here, and that’s what makes it an obsession! Also, the ‘afraid-don’t want’ factor often drives me to do things that are out of my comfort zone, so it’s possibly even pushing me towards my purpose, albeit from a different direction. Just a form of reduction? 🙂 It’s probably not a coincidence that my second favourite quote from the book is “When you have lived as long as I have, you find that cruelty and benevolence are but shades of the same colour“

    until next time, fear off

  • Evening Is the Whole Day

    Preeta Samarasan

    Preeta Samarasan’s debut novel begins with the kind of prose that actually seems like poetry in disguise – with a description of a part of Malaysian geography. The narrative begins in 1980, on Kingfisher Lane in Ipoh, in the Big House, owned by the Rajasekharans – Raju (Appa) a leading lawyer and a pillar of the community, erstwhile socialist; Vasanthi, his wife, from circumstances far below his; their children Uma, Suresh and Aasha in that order; Paati, the matriarch whose disapproval of her daughter-in-law endures time, and the servant girl Chellam brought in to take care of her. A wealthy, dysfunctional family, with each member fighting their own demons.

    We see a lot of the story through Aasha’s eyes in the beginning. Aasha, who talks to ghosts and will do anything to get back the affections of Uma. Uma, whose sole desire is to escape to the US. And in between, Suresh, who tries to make sense of the world with humour. The narrative then sets out to unravel layer by layer, not just digging deeper into what happened earlier, but also wider, giving the reader, through characters and events, a view of Malayan society, with its own undercurrents, ethnicity issues and rules that attempt harmony between the Chinese, Indians and the natives. A brief glimpse of a country coming to terms with its freedom, and the responsibilities therein.

    As the layers unfold, the perceptions of characters and their behaviour that the reader has built up slowly begin to undergo changes, as the past – from a few days earlier to half a lifetime away – shows its influence on the present and future. We also see how the relationships between people change with time, sometimes over years and sometimes in a few minutes. There are some very interesting secondary characters too, like Uncle Ballroom who evokes a sense of poignancy, Vasanthi’s mother whose sudden turn to asceticism makes you wonder about the nature of the human psyche, or Kooky Rooky, whose variations of her own past points us to stories that we build for ourselves. And then there’s Chellam, whose past, and lack of future brings a lump to the throat.

    Somewhere in the book and its use of words and the wit employed (brotheROARsister, Stopping At Nothing…) I could see Arundhati Roy. Somewhere in the way the human condition is expressed I could see Kiran Desai. But neither takes away from a distinctive style – vivid prose, edgy humour, and an ability to draw the reader right in. This one goes into my favourites.