Author: manuscrypts

  • Living over legacy

    Sometimes, when the topic of purpose comes up on this blog (and it has many many times),  I try to connect it with legacy. When I saw Michael Schumacher come back for another round, and in general, when I see people whom I have admired for their craft, continue plying it even though they have fallen below the insanely high benchmarks they themselves have set, I wonder what makes them go on.

    In the post that I’ve linked to earlier, I even wondered whether it’s the lack of a purpose in one’s life that drives one to look for a legacy – things that will last long after they’re gone. I also found it difficult to “consider that life, in whatever way it is lived, is its own purpose.”

    But recently, I read a statement (via this excellent post, if you follow cricket, even passively) from Dravid, (quoting Ian Thorpe) “I can sacrifice my legacy for the love of the sport.” He continues, “Sometimes we get too caught up in legacy; what are we going to leave? Sometimes it’s not about that, it’s about the player actually playing at that point in time. He’s not concerned about his legacy, he’s concerned about what actually made him play the game in the first place, which is that love of the game, the desire to compete and play.”

    At that point in time. Living in the moment. Where have I heard that before? In probably every book that talks of a higher state of consciousness. 🙂

    Focusing on leaving a legacy is probably looking at purpose from the wrong end. If I can find that something that gives me joy just by doing it – the act of doing it being a reward in itself – the result and even the implications would probably not matter. The legacy would be something that also managed to happen.

    until next time, legacy issues

  • Pizzeria Romano

    Despite us practically visiting every other restaurant on the road – Oye Amritsar, China Pearl, Cafe Malabari, Yana Sizzlers, Vicky’s la terrazza etc this is the one that got away, thus far. But as with all things food, we knew we would get to it someday. And we did. 🙂 If you still haven’t figured out the road, here’s a map. The building is right next to Oye Amritsar. I’m reasonably sure they have valet parking, but in any case, there are enough side roads nearby.

    The ambiance is quite awesome, and music and movies are the theme. The stairway that takes you to the dining area have some cool posters. They have a live music act on weekend nights, and when we arrived, things were being set up. It’s probably a good idea to reserve a table. We saw quite a few guests being turned away while we were having our meal.

      

    The menu – both liquor and food – is quite extensive. You can take a look here. D tried the Cobra Venom (tequila and cranberry based) , being used to me by now :D, and I was so lost in the choices that I ended up with a breezer.

    From the starters section, we chose the Stuffed BBQ Chicken, bell peppers in slices of chicken breast with a faint flavor of wine from the marinade, and a BBQ sauce that was mildly sweet and quite spicy. This one is highly recommended. From the really huge number of choices  in pizzas, pasta, sizzlers and steaks, we sniffed out the Pattaya option from the special street pizzas, mostly thanks to the promise of coconut flavours. 🙂 We also asked for a Chicken Parmesan. The former turned out to be excellent though there was only a whiff of coconut, but there was enough chicken on a stone oven made crust  to keep us happy. The Parmesan came with a red sauce and pasta, and was another good dish. The only snag was that we ran out of space for desserts.

    All of the above cost us close to Rs. 2100. Costly? Yes, but thanks to some groovy music, decent service and awesome food, we had a great time, and will definitely make a few more visits to check out more things from that huge menu.

    Pizzeria Romano, 55, 5th Cross, Above Fulki, 6th Block, Koramangala Ph: 40953751/2

    PS: Review #150 🙂

  • Restaurant Guide 2012 – Zomato gets real!

    Since Zomato has made a smart strategic decision in Bangalore – moved to the food bowl of the city – Koramangala, I only had to walk a bit to get this one. 🙂

    A bit of an intro before we talk about the guide. My affection for Zomato – from the time I tried their app – has been documented in early 2011 on my other blog. They’ve come a long way since then – on design, scale across domains, and funding. The first 2 have been shared with the crowd, the last, unfortunately not. 😉 At a very rough level, there are two things that I feel are the pillars for a venture like this – content and ‘technology’ (user experience, database, back-end infrastructure etc) – for it to truly become a great community, and I know at least one person in each of these areas at Zomato who are extremely good at their job. Karthik on food, and Pankaj on the rest. (Disclosure: I have to be nice to them because I’d really like to get my hands on the 2013 food guide early too! ;)) Ok, enough about them, let’s talk about the guide.

    Regular users of Zomato would automatically notice the consistency of symbols used. But the really interesting part is the navigation. The guide not only has quick reckoners based on cuisine type, but also provides a mood/occasion based quick reference where it covers  (for example) girls night out, romantic dinner etc. The other part where it scores is the utility angle – so it has notables, (how many times has a visiting friend asked you which is the must-visit place in Bangalore) Sunday brunch, (I consider this a personal favour based on the queries I have received on this one!) late nighters (thankfully I don’t get these, but I have no doubts on its usefulness) and so on. (more…)

  • Book values

    Sometime back, a colleague excitedly pointed me to Bookshelf P0rn, and I remembered bookmarking it a year back. The room with massive bookshelves has been one of the key attractions of the ‘when we buy our final home’ thoughts. (‘buying homes for life stages’ is another post 🙂 )

    Yes, I’m still one of those who religiously visit Blossoms on Church Street, and get a high when I walk around shelves that house a musty smell of old books, when I run my hand through ridges and pages and discover stories within stories, when I read words that reach out to me from across time and space. And yet, with the reader and tablet explosion, I wonder how long these books will be around. Even if I stubbornly resisted e-books, would there be a market to support it? The economics just might not work out. These thoughts crossed my mind when I read this wonderful article on the process of book publishing – its past, present and future.

    On Brain Pickings, one of my favourite sites, I caught these words from Carl Sagan that completely resonate with me

    What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.

    I’m just getting familiar with the idea of a book community thanks to Goodreads. The idea of reading books and seeing annotations left by those who have read it before me, ‘browsing their thoughts’, including, probably the author’s, and thus ‘traveling’ across time and space does seem fascinating, something that is provided by the current form of reading only to some measure.

    In the interim, I wish someone would build a white label e-book, that looks and feels just like a real book, one which I can really bookmark, flip pages etc, but one in which I can download a book and it would automatically change the cover, re-paginate and bring in all the benefits of technology. Best of both worlds to help me evolve! Maybe it already exists. 🙂

    until next time, booking the future

    “We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten.” (Bill Gates)

  • First Darling of the Morning: Selected Memories

    Thrity Umrigar

    Its difficult not to like a book that starts off with a reference to ‘The Sound of Music’. After all, for a generation, there are so many memories attached to that movie. It serves as a good snapshot for what the book holds in store, a ‘Wonder Years’ kind of nostalgic trip, one that I could immediately identify with, and one that supplies many lump-in-the-throat moments. The book is billed as ‘Selected Memories of an Indian Childhood’ and has done an excellent job of it.

    We are with the child when she discovers how the world has different rules for adults and children, when she thinks that she would never grow out of Enid Blyton, only to switch loyalties to Mills & Boon years later. We see her move on to Herman Hesse and becoming obsessed with Van Gogh. We are with her as she grows up and realises that the people around her existed long before her, and are part of stories she never knew.

    Though the story is primarily about her growing up, the author manages to cover a lot of other ground and link it very well with her life. The story of a city that was united across classes by cricket, the story of a middle class that is mostly in denial of the poor that surround them, but also makes unwritten rules for transactions with them. The story of the various strings that pull us, some visible, some not so.

    As she looks back on her life after finishing college and realises the paradoxical importance and unimportance of her relationships with the various people and things in her life – music, books, politics, parents, teachers, relatives and friends, and slowly tries to put them in perspective, I saw a story that could in many ways describe most of humankind and the lives we create for ourselves. And that perhaps would explain why I consider this a must-read.