Author: manuscrypts

  • Besting myself

    One of my only birthday rituals has been getting a call in the morning from an aunt and uncle, though they have been more friends than uncle/aunt. This year there was no call in the morning. I wondered what happened. I realised that our last conversation ended with me reprimanding them for calling me in the middle of a work day morning! The no-call bothered me and I thought to myself that at some point in their life, people should let go of their egos and silly sulks. The note to self was to be more conscious of the ego’s manifestations.

    At work, a colleague wrote, asking for some work to be done at the very last minute. The team was already stretched, and I wrote back curtly, reminding him that we had met for this a few weeks ago, and discussed the deliverables in advance, precisely because I wanted to avoid this! I had a feeling he would escalate this.

    My aunt called in the evening. I couldn’t pick up since I was on a call. She left a voice message. She had woken up with a migraine, and had been in bed all day. We spoke later in the evening, and bantered as usual.

    The colleague wrote back, profusely thanking us for all the help we had given him thus far. He understood that this would be tough, and he was fine with whatever we could manage, even if it was nothing.

    In the many podcasts and books I have read/heard (Jack Kornfield on the TKP podcast being the latest), the lesson is usually about the present moment. Every moment, we have a choice. To be the best version of ourselves, or not. I have had a gazillion misses, and a handful of hits. What I have learned from the latter is that there is an afterglow when we are able to be the best version. It is possible to do that without an expectation in return. In fact, it is quite selfish – such is the feeling.

    In addition to pausing ‘in the moment’, there are two tricks I read/heard to repeat this. The first (from Unwinding Anxiety) is savour the moment and update the brain on how good the feeling is. Because the brain is most likely trained on a notion of loss we might suffer if we say, let go of the ego or interest. Updating it repeatedly redirects it to a new habit formation. The second (from an episode in The Hidden Brain podcast) is also related to habit-changing. Though it was discussed in the context of more standard habits, I realised it could be tooled for this purpose as well. Buy a band or a ring, and make a covenant with yourself – of sticking to the habit you want to create. Each time you fail, switch the band/ring to the other hand.

    Besting myself, as the birthdays pile on, is possible, but it does take effort. However, I am quite sure now that it’s also a journey full of joys. Time to march with the band!

  • Nomadland

    Jessica Bruder

    After I watched the movie, I felt compelled to read the book. For those who have taken the same route, this is not Fern’s story, she is a fictional character. But she does make a great representative for the nonfictional reality of those who have taken a less travelled road. 

    There are two alternate narratives at play – in one, the economics of the times forces people into living a nomad life in RVs and vans. In the other, people choose to live a life of freedom without being tethered to a place. There is deep poignancy in both. While a big culprit is indeed the Great Recession, I found many of the origin stories startling. One wrong move or a chance incident causing a drastic change in lifestyle – a messy divorce, a bad investment, a health condition (self or family). When groceries, utilities, medicines, credit card debts and so on are done, and nothing is left, you start to really think about rent and sometimes choose to be house-less before you become homeless. 

    People with master’s degrees who have held down white-collar jobs, travelled internationally, owned million-dollar properties, now forced to do labor at beet harvests in below-freezing temperatures, made to work overtime in the U.S. Forest Service in part-time jobs without overtime pay, or do mind-numbing work at Amazon warehouses. In all cases body-breaking, at an age when the body is on its downward trajectory. And such is corporate greed that they’d rather have an ambulance waiting outside for the inevitable trips to the hospital than improve working conditions. Intelligent people, who get slotted in roles far below what they are capable of. A globe-trotting software executive now working five days a week at an Amazon warehouse until just before dawn, on overtime shifts lasting 12 hours, with half an hour for lunch and two fifteen minute breaks. In his old life, he had spent $100000 a year, now he has learned to get by with $75 a week. People who have to take 4 ibuprofens for the pain before heading to work! This is the behind-the-scenes of Cyber Monday. 

    What goes on in the minds of those who have taken this path – their relationships with family and the communities they form, their own thoughts of how they are spending their lives, their sense of identity, their future? They don’t want to be thought of as poor and whining, there is pride and sense of agency. And many of them may not choose to go back to their earlier lives. But I wonder. 

    Through many unforgettable people – poets and bloggers and artists and ordinary folks – Jessica Bruder brings this all to life. She hasn’t parachuted into the story at different points. She has gone through the steep learning curve, endured and survived, had an ‘unbeetable experience’, worked in the Amazon warehouse, and lived this life for three years in Halen, her rig. Thanks to that, this isn’t just casual reporting. It’s written with inquisitiveness, understanding and empathy, and is a must-read because there is a life that’s outside of the American Dream, which offers lessons to all of humanity. 

    Notes
    Michael Reynolds “We have to find secure sustenance for people that is not subject to the monster called the economy. The economy is a game. This game should be about nonessential things (motorcycles, computers, televisions). A person feeding their family, staying alive, having shelter…that should not be subject to an economy.”
    “Which parts of this life are you willing to give up so you can keep on living?”

  • Sashay Taproom & Kitchen

    It’s been a while since we did this – both going to a new place, and writing about it. It’s probably the 40s effect – we prefer, and are more comfortable, with known places. And our balcony. Also, the appetite is not what it used to be. Be that as it may, we finally crawled out of our shells and decided to drop in at Sashay, which seems to be part of the The Sulit Whitefield.

    The place is fairly large with some outdoor seating, and a few smoking sections. Nothing really extravagant, just understated elegance. Since we are usually early birds, we had the pick of tables, and chose one where we could have a view outside. There weren’t enough smokers around to bother us. The place did get crowded by the time we left, at about 8.

    We decided to drop in because the menu on Zomato showed quite some variety, but the restaurant menu was different, with many of the dishes being unavailable. We still enough of choice though. D ordered the gin-based Dream Shine which had orange tart and carrom puree. Since I really couldn’t find any whisky-based drink, I asked if I could get an Old Fashioned. Sanjeev, who took our order, was kind enough to get me one, but they ran out of bitters and the whisky I wanted. So it turned out to be a very compromised drink.

    The Cheese Chicken Tikka was everything it promised to be – creamy, with a three cheese sauce that we really liked. The nano parathas provided texture and a bit of spice, so the dish was perfect.

    The overall reduction in items does not seem to have affected the Dim Sum section. There were a ton of options to choose from. We finally agreed on the Roasted Pork Pâté. The filling was excellent, but I thought the wrapper could have been a bit thinner.

    For mains, the only dish that really appealed to us was something we normally wouldn’t have ordered at a taproom. But the neer dosa – nattu koli saar, which I didn’t remember seeing on the Zomato version of the menu. We really loved the spicy curry, but as D pointed out, you should be fine with coconut milk for you to share that opinion. Around this time, the service staff seemed to change, and Sanjeev disappeared for a bit.

    This led to a drop in the overall service quality as well. When we asked for a couple of neer dosas, they gave us six – 2 plates, and when we pointed that out, we were told we could parcel it. Given it was a gravy, we asked whether we could get a finger bowl. Nope. Maybe it had something to do with being called a taproom. Ok, sorry. I then reverted to my 20s attitude, asked for an extra glass, and made my own finger bowl. Not sorry. Sigh.

    The bill came to a little over Rs.3300. My whisky was the chief contributor, and I am now even more clear that barring craft beer, I have no business drinking alcohol outside the house! The place has a decent ambience, but the service was patchy. We’re unlikely to drop in again.

    P.S. It has been so long that I was impressed by the Inresto software that also told us what people at other tables were having!

    Sashay Taproom & Kitchen, 131/B, EPIP 2nd Phase, 1A Main Road, Whitefield Ph: +918045688068

  • The Cold War: A World History

    Odd Arne Westad

    Growing up in the 80s in India, it was impossible not to have experienced the Cold War in some way – from listening to adults discussing it to having USA vs USSR wrestling matches between us kids! So this was nostalgia to some extent. And even though not by design, this was an opportune time to read this. To understand the direction and extent of the US hegemony in the last three decades and its impact on contemporary geopolitics, and to read it at the specific time when the Russian military invasion of Ukraine is bringing out a world order that is not just US-centric.

    The Cold War is about not just about philosophy and politics, but people, places and the events that were either cause or effect. Ideologically, it was a contest of how the world and its citizens should be organised and into that whirlpool a lot of countries, policies and people were sucked. And in the end, as Depeche Mode sang, “The dawning of another year…one in four still here”. 

    It is interesting to note that this level of bipolar conflicts are quite rare in world history, barring say Spain’s Catholicism vs English Protestantism. Though the Cold War can be seen as a confrontation between capitalism and socialism from 1945 to 1989, its roots exist even before World War 1. And its impact can be seen in contemporary politics – from the state of Afghanistan to authoritarian China to unhinged North Korea. 

    Socialism as a thought had existed since the French Revolution but its acceleration and the start of the Cold War happened in the context of two processes – the emergence of new states (50 in 1900 to 200 by the end of the century) and the transfer of power to the United States during the world wars. This combined with the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the creation of the Soviet state as an alternate to the US brand of capitalism set the stage. The socialists considered the war a creation of capitalism and saw it as a war between robbers and thieves who had nothing in common with the soldiers fighting the war. The only thing that could benefit the common man was socialism and communism. Lenin set up Comintern in 1919 to which a bunch of nationalists and anti colonialists flocked. Towards the end of WW2, Churchill used “an iron curtain” despite the Soviets being an ally.

    And thus began the tussle that saw historic personality clashes and alliances – FDR, Stalin, Churchill, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Brezhnev, Johnson, Khrushchev, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Gorbachev as well as Latin American, East European and African dictators, Chinese autocrats, South Asian, Middle Eastern and “non aligned” leaders like Nehru and Sukarno. Not to mention China playing the superpowers and sometimes getting played. The Cold War had places as far away as Berlin, Brazil, Baghdad and Busan all becoming a theatre of war. When one looks at the dictatorships that the US propped up in Latin America, it is easy to wonder whether it’s really different from what the USSR did in Eastern Europe. The book also takes us through the context in which organisations like the UN, IMF and NATO were formed and how they became the arenas of the Cold War. Multiple spurts of arms races, events such as the Korean, Vietnam and Afghanistan wars, the Suez Canal clash, Cuban missile crisis, and even an ‘internal’ event like Watergate all left their mark. 

    It is fascinating to think about how the world might have been different if Gorbachev had decided not to take his annual vacation in Crimea in August 1991. Would there have been a coup at all, or would he have been able to put it down and steer the Soviet into a democratic coalition of independent republics? Would they have been part of the EU now? Would there be Putin, or even Donald Trump? Odd Arne Westad does a great job of making this narrative of contemporary history accessible and engaging. It is not an easy task to map time, places and people and cover everything that deserves a spot, but he does a fabulous job. if you’re even slightly interested in history, this should be in your reading list.

    Side Notes
    1. Denmark in 1899 was the first country to have an agreement of annual negotiations over wages and working conditions. Probably explains its quality of life now.
    2. Capitalist Norway has more state ownership of companies than China
    3. Hilarious Soviet Russia jokes on pg 368, 535
    4. Romania was so poverty-stricken that when Ceausescu visited Queen Elizabeth in 1978, the palace staff removed all valuables from guest rooms because he and his wife Elena might take them back with them!
    5. One does feel sad for Gorbachev and how under-appreciated he was by his own people. For a Communist leader, Glasnost and perestroika were extremely liberal initiatives with the good intent of providing more freedom and a better quality of life for the people of USSR
    6. An entire chapter is devoted to Indira Gandhi and boy, she was strong! In intent, speech, and action. To stand up to the might of the US when surrounded by Pakistan and China is no mean feat. “My father was a statesman, I am a political woman. My father was a saint. I am not.”

  • Mall me, maybe

    On a Friday last month, D and I decided to do something on a whim. We broke our now established weekend pattern of ‘logically arguing’ with ourselves and deciding to stay at home and watch a movie on OTT. Off(line) we went to the neighbourhood mall to watch a Malayalam movie, which turned out to be excellent, though the movie hall was just about half-packed. Since we’d had an early dinner, we decided to drop in at a Third Wave that we thought was new. But we hadn’t been to the mall in ages, and couldn’t be sure.

    In a lovely post titled Fountains of Youths, Jamie Loftus visits food courts from Alaska to Arizona and talks to teens about the local mall, and their favourite fare at the food courts. As I read it, I found myself time travelling to the 80s. To Suburban Store in well, the suburbs of Cochin. It was a department store but with malls being non-existent this was magic enough for me. They had two aisles full of toys after all. In the 90s, it was Abad Plaza on Cochin’s main street, the only place that had French fries! 🙂

    Zoom to the early 2000s and Transit at the Forum Mall, Koramangala was a regular hangout. We weren’t teens, but if Jamie talked to us, we would have had a few perspectives. In the 2010s, when Phoenix opened shop in Whitefield, we used to make the trek twice a year from Koramangala for the end of season sale. And chocolate momos at the food court were a ritual.

    Our visits have dwindled since then, and just before COVID, I was melancholic about my snobbery (or about finally adulting?) when passing through a food court, I realised that my sensibilities had changed to an extent where I asked D, how we could have eaten this! And in the context of the mall, “why are so many people here!” 😐

    At 10PM, we were one of a handful of customers at Third Wave. I sat sipping a Chamomile (I had given up after experiments at home, but thanks to this, realised that it is possible not to thoroughly destroy something!). The shops were closed and my cherished people-gawking pastime was impossible, but I realised I liked this. Late night in an empty mall. The coffee shop is adjacent to a book store and I told D that I missed the ‘discoveries’ at book stores. Amazon has spoilt me.

    One of two other customers at the coffee shop was an elderly man. It was only when his driver (I think) came to wheel him out that I noticed he was in a wheelchair. He tried to convince his helper to have something, and failed. He left, checking out books as the security watched him, and smiling at us as he went past. I sighed. A few minutes later, we paid and left. Once upon a time we would have walked home, but the roads have too many dogs that turn to dire wolves. Once upon a time, I’d have carried a stick, but now a fight has too many downsides.

    Something has shifted in me, I realised, as I turned back to look at the mall before getting into the cab. Maybe I will give Crossword some of my book business. And every once in a while, watch a movie in theatres. Discovery doesn’t just work for books. There is a joy in seeing other people laugh at the jokes while watching a movie, smiling back at an old man in a wheelchair in a mall at 10PM, and just seeing people outside the confines of a screen or an office. It seems we have come full circle. We are human again.