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Annapoorni - The Movie

2025-12-10T04:40:00.000-08:00

So I finally watched the Tamil movie Annapoorni. Am I a fan of Nayantara? Nope.

I only wanted to see first hand how the narrative was set for anti-Hindu, pro-Islam propaganda. The brainwashing is so subtle and soft you might say it isn't there and it is all a figment of one's imagination.

But nope. The undermining of Sanatan Dharma is very much present. The Islamic agenda is pushed throughout the movie - from Love Jihad to Islamic food habits to dressing and prayers.

The climax shows a scene in a cooking competition where Nayantara has to make biryani. The first thing she does is wrap herself up in a hijab, kneel down and do namaz!! Seriously!!?

It is a stupid scene in terms of practicality. She is part of a national cooking competition. Competitions are bound by time restrictions. Never ever seen any cooking competition, national or international, where a contestant indulged in such religious theatrics.

It is a wrong scene in terms of the messaging. It tells you how biryani is a Muslim dish. To make a Muslim dish, one has to do namaz first so that it tastes heavenly.

I cook biryani. All I do I wash my hands.

If the filmmaker had shown a Hindu woman praying to Shri Vishnu before making puliogare, it would be immediately labelled as "regressive" and "orthodox." But a Hindu woman dressed in a hijab offering namaz is "devout", "faith", "so beautiful." That is sheer hypocrisy.

The hero, a Muslim, tells the heroine, a Hindu "Don't listen to your parents". The irony cannot be missed. A Muslim man who, even in the twenty-first century follows diktats of a sixth century desert cult, goads the heroine to not obey her parents' 'archaic' rules. These men are notorious for shoving down 1450 years old, archaic practices down their women's throats, all in the name of religion. Blind following is the number one trait of Islam. No questions asked. Just follow what is being told. A woman not listening to parents in a Muslim society and not following their orders is blasphemous and an act of rebellion.

But this is justified in the movie when the girl is Hindu and the adviser is Muslim. Slow claps!

He takes her away from her wedding venue. He asks her to run away from the mandapam. Is this even possible with a Muslim woman and a Hindu man? Nope, unless you want fatwas and Sar Tan Se Juda slogans thrown at you. Mob lynching and murder of Hindu men who dared to marry or have relationships with Muslim women is rampant, though, under-reported or hushed up by the media. And here, we have a Muslim man literally taking the Hindu bride from her wedding in the name of "freedom." Freedom - the word that is the very antithesis of Islam.

All this within the first forty-five minutes of the movie.

The movie explicitly sends the message that the picture on the left (below) is a symbol of oppression while the picture on the right is a symbol of freedom and liberation. Left is ugly, right is beautiful. Only a dickhead would consider being wrapped head to toe in a black tent as beauty as opposed to a woman in solah-shringar (16 adornments). The first one looks like a Goddess, the second one like a widow.

The Muslim boyfriend encourages his Brahmin girlfriend towards non-vegetarianism. If a Brahmin eats chicken, and her parents oppose it, they are orthodox. Can a Hindu man do the same to a Muslim woman and ask her to cut, cook and eat pork? If the heroine made pork biryani, would that be okay? No. That would lead to nation wide protests, burning of cities and endless debates of personal faith. If a Muslim eats pork, then it is haram. Islamic religious belief. In this case, questions of personal taste, freedom and choice do not come up. They are not orthodox for opposing pork. They are "devout Muslims."

Rangarajan, the heroine's father, is the temple chef of the Srirangam Ranganathaswamy temple and is constantly shown as "orthodox" Iyengar family. Can't it be "devout" Iyengar family?

Srirangam Ranganathswamy Devasthana is a thousand year old temple. It has the mummified shrine of Saint Shri Ramanujacharya. It is an important spiritual center for Sri Vaishnavism. It is the first and most important of the 108 sacred Vishnu temples.

The movie shows the daughter of a priest of THIS temple being attracted to the smell of figh being fried, cooking chicken, offering namaz, wearing hijab and being wooed by a Muslim. The movie's sole agenda is to show how the traditions of this Hindu temple and the Brahmins are "regressive", that the Hindu society stifles freedom and personal choice, that they are rigid in their rules, that they are close-minded and narrow in their thinking.

The irony is, all these are traits of Islam, the religion they want to showcase as the torchbearer of liberal values. There is nothing liberal or free in Islam.

Nayantara herself has chosen the Sanathan path in her personal life. Raised a Christian, she follows Hinduism, married a Hindu man, and is raising two boys in the Hindu way of life.

The director of the movie? Nilesh Krishna. Krishna in his name! Veer Savarkar was right when he said he doesn't fear the British or the Muslims but the Hindus against Hindus.

Examination Hall

2025-11-13T05:09:00.000-08:00

Last month, I had been to a PU college for invigilation duty. It was a short assignment of three hours for four days. It had come up on our apartment WhatsApp group and six of us from the apartment went to three different colleges. It was the Mid-term exam.

I saw a boy using scale to make a line after every answer. And tearing the sheets to separate each one. I used to do that too! It was so nostalgic.

The examination hall reminded me of my own student days. I was an academically good student. Unlike others, I loved exams (except math, physics and chemistry). It was a joy writing answers to questions, creating my own kind of artwork on paper with nothing but a pen.

I recall the race against time during an exam. The invigilator saying one hour left. Thirty minutes left. Last five minutes left. I could hear my heart pounding. I liked the sound of that. Ooh! The way I ran my fingers across the paper attempting each and every question and ensuring I did not leave any question unanswered.

I really liked the whole environment of an examination hall. The silence - sometimes sweet, sometimes eerie. Even libraries, with big boards everywhere, daring everyone to "Be Silent" are not as silent as an examination hall. The silence that is only broken by the invigilator's stern rebuke at disobedient students or someone coughing or sneezing or pens dropping or sheets ruffling. Each sound made in the hall is amplified several notches.

Can anyone who has ever been to school ever forget the staring you receive when you ask for additional sheet? That small act is a case study in human behavior. It shows you your status in the class academic hierarchy.

A "dumb" student asking for additional sheet makes everyone laugh gleefully. It is the joke of the day. Muffled laughter everywhere. After all, what on earth is HE writing? That is the question on everyone's minds. Most probably, he is writing the questions itself to fill up the answer sheet and pretend he has understood the subject. Sometimes, he himself is sniggering. Sometimes, he keeps a straight face and that makes it even more funny.

A "bright" student asking for extra sheets draws heavy sighs from everyone. On the one hand, ordinary people are gasping for breath trying to remember and vomit the answers, whatever little they know, and on the other hand, there is this fellow, filling up paper after paper. Merciless monster tormenting others!

In college, my history lecturer Gurumurthy Sir once held out my paper to the class and said look how beautiful this paper is. I know just by looking at its neatness and handwriting that this student knows the answers. Also, it is a joy to look at answer sheets like this. Learn from her. I remember I was sitting in the middle of the bench and when he passed my paper to me, I was melting in shyness. I wasn't very confident then. I was definitely not arrogant. So all these compliments and public praise made me even more humble and I would lower my head and not look at anyone and bite my lips. I wish I had learnt to take compliments well. I wish I had taken great pride and beamed. I was happy, of course but I relished the happiness silently, when alone, revisiting the moment and replaying the compliments. But in public, I didn't know how to react. It made feel very shy.

Another important part of an exam was the discussion pre and post it. Before the exam, there were some students great at causing panic. They would throw up random questions/topics/concepts and ask loudly did you read this? This will come. Teacher said this is important. That was enough to create a mad frenzy among the audience. People would go berserk trying to find out what the answer was.

The discussion post the exam was another stressor. Was this answer right? Was this option correct? Oh God! The sleeplessness this post-exam discussion would induce. We would self-correct our paper and check how much we would probably get. If we got more, it would be such a victory. And if we got less than what we calculated, we would hang our head in shame.

Another thing I remember is the tying of the thread through the hole, through all the sheets, numbered so we don't get the order wrong. That was an elaborate ritual in itself.

When I became a lecturer and naturally, exam invigilator, I would enjoy watching the myriad ways students tried to copy. Their finger movements, head signals, cough codes - it was a nice time pass activity "catching" the culprit and reprimanding them.

One thing I noticed in the exam hall this time was the board work. So neat. So clear. So legible. So beautiful.

As a student, my papers were extremely neatly written. But as a teacher, I could never write so nicely on the board. My board work was a mess. I think fast. I write fast. Paper could withstand the speed of my thoughts but boards couldn't. Sometimes, even I would forget what I had written or couldn't decipher the words. God knows what the students could read from what I wrote on the board. I admired teachers who had great board work. It was impressive how some wrote. Calligraphy at work. Mine was bad. That was something I wished to improve but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't. So when I saw this board work in the PU college where I went as an invigilator, I couldn't help but click a picture.

Passing three hours as an invigilator is no joke is what I realized during this assignment. As lecturers, we know our students. We know other staff. But, during this invigilation duty, it was an unknown college. Also, I was stepping into an academic institution after more than a decade. Three hours staring at unfamiliar faces! The only thing to break the monotony was handing out additional sheets, threads and walking up and down. The experience was invaluable because it brought back so many memories - from school, from college, from university. As a student, as a lecturer.

I want to be a student again. I have truly loved only three things in life - being a student, being a teacher and being a traveler. I can never reach a state of satiety with these. I want more and more of it.

Sthal Marathi Movie

2025-10-30T23:57:00.000-07:00

I watched the Marathi movie Sthal. The opening shot is a dream sequence. Savita and her friends are "interviewing" a prospective groom. The older ladies are sitting around and snickering. They are all enjoying the nervousness of the boy under interrogation. The confidence and glow on Savita's face is a sight to behold.

But it is a dream. And dreams shatter and she wakes up to the reality of her being judged by an army of men around her. She is dismissed for her height and her duskiness. One uncle even says that he is sure she is dark. Her elbows are proof. She has whitened her face with makeup but her dark elbows are a giveaway.

The pain in her eyes and the quiver in her voice are heart-breaking. I could not have lasted on that chair for a minute. But she has to sit on it year after year. Her helplessness is piercing.

My life turned out differently and I was blessed that I did not have to go through her circumstances. I was not subjected to a scrutiny to assess my eligibility for an arranged marriage. I had lucked out. One, there was no male authoritarian figure who forced me. Two, my mother was supportive.

But - what if I were in a situation like that?

My father was an alcoholic. We were broke. We couldn’t afford dowry nor wedding expenses. The arranged marriage would have to be done through loans. And not marriage loan or any other kind of bank loan. Because for collateral, we would have had to mortgage our land. So basically, that’s most of the things working against me in the arranged marriage market.

I remember just once a talk of a boy from Pune. A proposal. Only son. It came through a family friend. I was in my second year degree at the time. That’s it. It didn’t go further. It was mentioned in passing.

As for me, I wasn’t thinking of marriage at all. I never had. All I wanted to do was study and get a job. "To earn" was my ultimate goal.

As soon as I completed my graduation, I left home to do my post-graduation in Mangalore and stayed in the hostel for 2 years. When I finished, I started working as an English Lecturer.

My father had passed away while I was in my second year of college. That was also the year I fell in love with a college mate. I told my mother about it. And that was that.

Marriage proposals were never sought. I was clear who I was going to marry. I don’t know if it pained my mother that I was going to marry a Malayali Christian. He was a “good boy.”

Luckily for me, I did not have to face the pressure of someone else deciding for me who I should or should not love or marry. Good or bad, it was up to me and I was prepared to face the consequences of it and I DID. Till today, I do not regret it at all.

But what if I had to?

What if I had to wear a saree and present myself before the prospective groom’s family? What if I had to go through their piercing gazes? What if I could see them judging me, whispering disparaging comments, and making it clear through gestures that I wasn’t “good enough” for their laadla beta? So many what ifs.

I wasn’t an overly confident person at that age. My overthinking and my awareness of my family’s financial condition were enough to put me on the backfoot. Would I have then accepted whoever accepted me first? I clearly would not have had a choice, right? It would be a big deal if a boy and his esteemed family considered me worthy of their name. What would have happened to me? Would I have died a little each day? Would I have dared to ask to continue my education and do my PG? Would I have dared to ask for permission to work? Would I have dared to speak? Would I have committed mental suicide? That wajood one speaks of – what would my wajood be? Maid, wife, bearer of children?

I was a people pleaser then. I would have done everything in my capacity to please anyone who crossed my path in my dear husband’s household.

I have run away from situations that felt nauseating. Claustrophobia, both real and imagined, are my worst enemies. I run.

Considering the way I have turned out eventually, I think I would not have lasted in such a marriage. I would have abandoned it. I would have chosen a poor but peaceful life somewhere far way. I would have worked for a pittance for survival. But I think I would not have continued as a second class citizen in a rich household.

I keep hearing that anth mei sab achcha hota hai. It does, doesn’t it? I struggled a lot through my career choices. I struggled a lot because of the personal decisions I took. They were all my decisions, mine alone. No one to blame. No one to seek sympathy from. No one to expect empathy from. No support. Just me, my decisions and their consequences.

In the end, sab achcha hi hua. It is not like I have a husband who is a Shri Ram. It is not like I am so rich that I have maids hovering all over me. It is not like I have children who are modern day avatars of Shravana Kumara who adored his parents to death.

No. Not at all. But the thing that did happen is I grew through my mistakes. I learnt through all my bad choices. I loved. I grieved. I lived life fully, experiencing everything with a conscious heart, that this is all my making. And for reasons I cannot adequately explain, I feel content about it. I would not have wanted it any other way. It was and is truly MY life. And I lived it on my terms – both the good and the bad. I was free then. I am free now. Aur kya chahiye?

The Kannada Language Row – A Kannadathi’s Perspective

2025-08-19T22:36:00.000-07:00

You, yes you, who have come to Bangalore – for better livelihood and a better life. You dream of better education, better job and improved living standards – for yourself, for your kids and even your aging parents.

It has been a year since you came. I speak to you in Kannada and you say you don’t know. I smile and say it’s ok. I immediately switch to a language you speak. So, if you speak Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and if I know those languages, I converse with you in that language. I make you feel comfortable in the new city and make you feel welcome. If I don’t know your language, then I make use of broken words of every language I know, mix it up with sign language and try and speak with you. The intention is to be inclusive.

A few years later, we meet again. I speak to you in Kannada. You say you don’t Kannada. I am surprised. Why hasn’t she learnt at least a few words, some basic sentences? Is that too much to ask for? But I smile and again reply in the language you know.

A decade later, we meet again. I speak to you in Kannada. You say you don’t know Kannada. Really? After all these years? Now, I am not just surprised but sad and angry. How many years does it take for someone to pick up a few sentences in any Indian language?

If you have to go to Germany, to study or to work, you take classes to learn the language. Same is the case with Japanese, Spanish and French. I know of people who have learnt Arabic, the toughest of all languages within a few years of going overseas.

You go to Tamil Nadu; they will make you learn Tamil in under 6 months. Same with Kerala. The only states that don’t force you to learn their local language are Maharashtra and Andhra & Telangana, besides, of course, Karnataka. In MH, AP & TL, the thinking is you don’t “need” Marathi or Telugu. Hindi will suffice. Almost everyone converses and understands Hindi. The people too are very friendly and don’t come down too hard on the ‘outsiders’ for not knowing the local language.

Is the warm and welcoming nature of the locals making people take the local culture and language for granted? They want to settle in the city and enjoy all the perks the city offers but refuse, knowingly, arrogantly, to learn the language and assimilate. Why this arrogance and refusal to not want to blend in?

I blame the locals for not making their language “cool”. I blame the locals for not insisting on speaking in the local language, with everyone and at all costs. I blame the locals for being too friendly, easy-going and accommodating towards the outsiders. When they don’t care, why should you?

Migration is not new to Bangalore. It has been happening from the 1970’s itself. If you watch old Kannada movies, you can find Malayali, Telugu and Hindi characters in the stories, speaking in, either their language, or in heavily accented Kannada. But it peaked in the 2000s. I came to Bangalore in 2001 and I have seen the transition the city has undergone. In 2002 I lived in a remote locality called Venkatapura. Our neighborhood grocery store person was a Malayali. The Mallus had already come and successfully set up their business in a place nobody knew or even heard of, back then. The area also had a lot of youngsters from North-East India, living together in big numbers.

So, NO - migration is not a new phenomena. But the speed at which it has happened in the last decade and a half is unbelievable. Almost every train and bus that comes into Bangalore brings a new set of settlers, job hunters, livelihood seekers, students. Hitherto unknown areas have sprung up in and around the city. Thousands of apartments and housing colonies everywhere. Even the locals are not aware or heard of names of some of the areas. In certain areas, there are no locals, just outsiders. Some dominated by NE, some by Mallus, some by Tamils.

When we walk around, we can hardly recognize if this is Bangalore or some other state.

I know of people who are in Bangalore since 2009 and don’t know a word of Kannada. If the locals had harassed or forced them to learn Kannada, as the news reports claim, would they have not learnt it by now? After two decades?

Many of my friends and colleagues have bought apartments here. They have even got their parents to live here. Apparently, parents have better safety and security in this new city than in their own native place where they grew up and lived for so many years. Or all their life. Their children study here, their jobs are here, their entire life is here. Many don’t even visit their native places anymore as it is too “hot” there and uncomfortable. They are so adjusted to Bangalore now.

And yet, ask them to speak one line in Kannada and they say, I don’t know Kannada.

The reason you, without remorse or shame, say that you don’t know the language is because you do not care or respect the language of the land you have made your home. You came here only to enjoy all the benefits. You have the audacity to even criticize the city the slightest chance you get. You do not care for the culture or the people.

If people had forced you to learn Kannada, in 10 years, wouldn’t you have risen to advanced levels of fluency? If we had forced you, you would have become expert and fluent speakers.

No, we did not force.

We thought you would own this place, this place you call “home”. We thought you will love this place. We thought you will appreciate all the things the city has given you. And in return, you will yearn to “belong” to the city and not remain “an outsider” forever.

But boy! We were so wrong.

Learn each other’s language. We have taken the trouble to learn yours. Why can’t you do the same? We can now speak in at least five languages. Can’t you learn just one?

My Biggest Fear

2025-06-19T21:34:00.000-07:00

I used to be petrified of my future, in the past. When I was younger, all I feared was not having money when I grew older. In my 20’s, I dreaded financial dependence. I was scared of having to ask someone else for money. The money could be for anything, for meeting my daily needs, for buying clothes, for going out, for donating to a cause I believe in, for eating out, for travelling, for ordering in, a zillion things.

I was so afraid of my unseen future that I would save. I was an obsessive, compulsive saver. I did not want to have to beg anyone for money. That meek look on my face, the extended arms, the seemingly endless wait, the anxiety of rejection – all these accompanied a request for money. I did not want to go through it. I have seen men making their women wait before they doled out the cash. Some perverse pleasure in watching the dependence.

Today, at 48, I am in the future, that I always wondered about, in my past. I retired at 45. And yet, I am not financially dependent. No, I don’t ask anyone for money to fulfill any of my needs. In fact, even though, it has been three years since my last full-time job, I have been living off my savings and even help run the show at home. The thing I feared, that thing never came to pass. My worst nightmare never materialized and boy, am I glad!

I am joyful and content today. I feel all those years of slogging my ass off and saving and struggling and taking on all the responsibilities of a job, house, family, child, all of the sweat and tears paid off. Today, when I nap in the afternoon for an hour, when I read a book, when I do gardening, when I cook what I like to eat and feed my family and not only cook but cook well and happily too, when I stretch my body for a bit of online yoga, when I chant mantras and shlokas, I feel at peace. I feel my life did amount to something. That, finally, it all added up well.

I read somewhere that the real luxuries of life are sleep, freedom to travel, peace of mind, a siesta, an evening walk, leisurely late Sundays, home food, good clothes, doing what you like when you like. All the things that we take for granted or never value when we are young.

I like the person that I have become. The old me is a happy me, a content me. The young me was really terrified of how things would turn out eventually. I would constantly worry. As a youngster, I was mortified that my life may go from bad to worse. What if this happened? What if that happened? The what ifs never came to be. Thank God for that. It is a divine kripa (blessing) that your 40’s are fulfilling and peaceful and relaxed.

Does it happen often, that what we fear the most, never fructifies? Given the fact that I am a compulsive overthinker, it can be traumatizing visualizing a future so dark. But in the end, things turned out well. At least, so far.

I remember a school friend once remarked that I am someone who likes to be in control. Yeah, right! I do. The fact that at 48, I have not lost my marbles, yet, and that I still call the shots in most areas concerning my life and that I can still afford, money-wise, to do what I like, even if it is just a relaxing facial once a month, yeah, that is satisfying.

Salt Sugar Fat Part Three

2025-01-30T21:23:00.000-08:00

This post is a summary of the book "Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us" by Michael Moss.

The book was read and summarized for the reading app "bookbhook.com" in December of 2016.

PART THREE SALT

People Love Salt

In the 1980s, news reports focused the nation’s attention on a growing danger: high blood pressure, the silent killer. Several factors were cited including obesity, smoking and diabetes. The other was salt.

The problem was sodium, one of the chemical elements in salt. Americans were eating so much salt that they were getting 10 times the amount of sodium the body needed. Where was all this salt coming from? It was coming from the processed food industry. Food manufacturers were abusing their influence on America’s eating habits. The bulk of their meals came from the supermarket, where the price of convenience was the salt that these groceries contained. The companies making these products were not just adding salt. They were dumping sack after sack of it. More than sugar and fat, the salting of processed food had become a way to increase sales and consumption.

Among the 5 basic tastes, salt is one of the hardest to live without. Salt or sodium chloride gives food their taste appeal – from bacon, pizza, cheese and French fries to pickles, salad dressings, snack foods and baked goods. People crave salty foods. The supermarket is a goldmine of salt-heavy foods. The idea of salt inducing feelings of joy seems crazy, given that it is a mineral, dead and devoid of any sustenance. Sugar and fat, by contrast, come from plants and animals and are loaded with the calories people need to avoid withering away.

The desire for salt has some basis in evolutionary history. When everything lived in the ocean, animals had no problem getting the sodium they needed to survive. They wallowed in salty water. On land, however, the early climate was hot and dry. The human mouths that crawled out of the sea developed the salty taste receptors.

But people today are devouring salt. Salty foods are linked to drug abuse. The blood gets overwhelmed when processed food is eaten, flooding the system with its heavy loads of salt, sugar and fat. Narcotics and food that is high in salt, sugar and fat, act alike. They reach the brain’s pleasure zones, those areas that reward us with enjoyable feelings for doing the right thing by our bodies. Salt was similar to sex, voluntary exercise, fats and chocolates in its possessing addictive qualities.

Most people never feel true hunger pain, the result of being starved for nutrition. We can go without food or water. The body has enough calories. But people who fast for a day feel awful. Your body expects that you will feed it and if you don’t do it, you feel awful. We eat not so much for pleasure as we do to ward off this awful feeling. People are drawn to foods that are heavily salty, sweet or fatty for reasons other than hunger. They are drawn to these foods by emotional cues and the wish to avoid the fear of hunger. The food companies created a desire for salt where none existed before. Babies love sugar the instant they are born. But babies do not like salt. They don’t like it at all until they are 6 months and even then they have to be coaxed.

The salty taste that drives people to keep eating popcorn until the bag is empty is just the start of salt’s powers. Manufacturers view salt as the most magical of the three pillars of processed foods, for all the things it can do beyond exciting the taste buds. Salt is the great fixer. It corrects myriad problems. Cornflakes taste metallic without it. Crackers are bitter and soggy and stick to the roof of your mouth. Ham turns so rubbery it can bounce. Salt is the convenient antidote for the processed food industry which is heavily reliant on reheated meats. Companies add sodium to delay the start of bacterial decay, to bind ingredients and to blend mixtures. They have become essential components in processed foods making them look and taste attractive and last longer on the shelf.

The Same Great Salty Taste Your Customers Crave

The salt that the company Cargill sells to food manufacturers is no ordinary salt. In the processing plants that Cargill owns, this rock is changed into a vast array of shapes and designs. It is smashed, ground, pulverized, flaked and reshaped in hundreds of ways, all with one goal in mind: to maximize its power in food. Cargill sells 40 different types of processed salt, from a fine powder to large granules. Its salts are finely tuned bliss machines. The popcorn makers get a flake that clings to every nook and cranny of the snack. Processed meat and cheese get a salt that has been crushed into a texture-less, fine powder, which makes for easier absorption by our bodies and brains.

The flavor that salt imparts to food is just one of the attributes that manufacturers rely on. It makes sugar taste sweeter. It adds crunch to crackers and frozen waffles. It delays spoilage. It masks the bitter or dull taste that hounds so many processed foods before salt is added.

Without salt, processed food companies cease to exist.

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1. What do I gain by reading this summary?

Read to know how and why the food companies are hooked on salt, sugar and fat. Their desire to achieve the greatest allure for the lowest possible cost has drawn them to these 3 ingredients. Sugar not only sweetens but adds bulk and texture. Fats can be slipped into food to stimulate overeating. Salt has miraculous powers to boost the appeal of processed foods.

2. What are the interesting conversation starters from this book (any one)

Read how the manufacturers of processed foods have used the salt, sugar and fat as weapons to defeat their competitors and to keep us coming back for more. They have doubled their efforts to dominate the American diet.

3. Why should I buy this book after reading this summary? (Key things that you have not included in the summary)

Read about Howard Moskowitz, the legendary food scientist who engineered the new flavor for Dr. Pepper. Also, learn about how Cargill became the $134 billion food industry giant that it is today.

Salt Sugar Fat Part Two

2025-01-21T22:17:00.000-08:00

This post is a summary of the book "Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us" by Michael Moss.

The book was read and summarized for the reading app "bookbhook.com" in December of 2016.

PART TWO FAT

That Gooey, Sticky Mouth Feel

Fat’s power to generate pleasure is on par with sweet. It is a powerful component of processed food, a pillar ingredient. Fat is surely oily in some of its forms. Canola, soy, olive, and corn are all liquid fats, viscous and flowing, easily spotted and identifiable as fat. Other fat in our food is a solid at room temperatures and not readily recognized. The taste of fat is harder to pin down. It is not part of our primary tastes. All the other tastes have receptors in the taste buds. No such receptor for fat has been found.

And yet, the food industry depends on it. Fat turns listless chips into crunchy marvels, parched breads into silky loaves, drab lunchmeat into savory delicatessen. Some types of fat furnish processed foods with a fundamental need: the capacity to sit on the grocery shelf months at a time. Fat also gives cookies more bulk and a firmer texture. It substitutes for water in lending tenderness and mouth feel to crackers. It lessens the rubbery texture in hot dogs, deepens their color, and keeps them from sticking to the grill. It also performs a range of culinary tricks for food manufacturers. It can mask and convey other flavors in food, all at the same time. This act of delivering other flavors is one of fat’s most valued functions. Fat doesn’t blast away at our mouths like sugar does.

But in one respect, fat is less powerful than the other 2 key stones of processed foods, sugar and salt. Fat’s public image has always been horrid. If a food isn’t fatty, it’s greasy or oily or heavy. Fat in food is equated with fat on the body. Fat is an energy colossus. It packs 9 calorie into each gram. This has led to the proliferation of products that claim to have less fat or lower fat.

Fat is about feel or texture. The feel of fatty foods is described with words like smooth, firm, disappears, slippery, melts, moist and warm. These textural attributes are known as mouth feel of fat. Fat is as much a feeling as it is a taste. Most of the sugary foods in our diets are not just pure sugar. They are linked up with fat.

There is no bliss point for fat. No matter how rich the food, fat is so pleasing to the brain that it never gives the signal to stop eating. Our bodies want more and more fat. There was something about the sugar and fat combination that created a powerful interplay. They boosted one another to levels of allure that neither could reach alone. The heaviest cream tasted even better when a little sugar was added. A dish or drink could be very high in fat and people wouldn’t be aware of it. Fat is trickier than sugar. In these mixtures of fat and sugar you find in so many products, most of the calories come from fat.

Liquid Gold

Americans now eat as much as 33 pounds of cheese, triple the amount they consumed in the 1970s. This is the result of efforts by the food industry. They have changed the way cheese is eaten. Cheese has become an ingredient, something we add to other food. It’s slipped into packaged foods, from the frozen pizzas, to peanut-butter-and-cheese-crackers to packaged dinner entrees to the breakfast sandwiches. The dairy aisle is loaded with cheese made more and more convenient for use in recipes, to boost the usage at home.

This deployment of cheese as a food additive is a windfall for food companies. It has equally big implications for overeating. Cheese is not readily identified as a fatty food. It remains solid at room temperature and hides from view.

It is every bit as attractive as sugary food. People have their limits on sweetness. But cheese is different. Cheese has fat. The fatter the food, the better we like it. This meant cheese could be added to other food products without any worries that people would walk away. The added fat could be counted upon to make them more attractive.

Food companies used this to increase consumption of its packaged, just-add-meat dinners and in the television ad campaigns they sang, Liquid Gold. There exists an opportunity for cheese ingredients in every aisle of the supermarket. One of the biggest free-for-alls took place in the freezer aisle. Frozen pizza: the more cheese that was added, the better the pizzas sold. The food industry embraced cheese – the fattest of all fat-based products.

Salt Sugar Fat: Part One

2025-01-16T21:03:00.000-08:00

This post is a summary of the book "Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us" by Michael Moss.

The book was read and summarized for the reading app "bookbhook.com" in December of 2016.

Part One: SUGAR

Exploiting the Biology of the Child

Children develop a taste for salt at 4 or 5 months, their liking for sweet at birth. They prefer higher levels of both. It’s a reflection of their basic biology. There are 3 aspects of sugar that make it attractive to children. One, the sweet taste is their signal for foods that are rich in energy, and since kids are growing so fast, their bodies want foods that give quick fuel. Two, we didn’t evolve in an environment that had sweet foods. So we feel excited when we eat sugar. Three, it makes them feel good. It’s an analgesic. It reduces crying in a baby.

This is why much of the grocery store food is sweet. They are exploiting the biology of the child, teaching the child the level of sweetness the food should be. Sugar is linked to the brain’s pleasure zones. Our brains discharge signals of pleasure as a reward for choosing the tastiest foods. We don’t even have to eat sugar to feel its allure. Any refined starch that the body converts to sugar will do. The faster the starch becomes sugar, the quicker our brain gets the reward for it. We like the refined things because they bring us immediate pleasure associated with sugar.

Food manufacturers know that sugar makes food irresistible. They determine the “bliss point” for sugar- the precise amount of sweetness that made food enjoyable. They use it to perfect their product formulas. It’s also used to pull off manufacturing miracles; from donuts that fry up bigger to bread that won’t go stale to cereal that is fluffy. Limit sugar and you are left with cookies, crackers and breads that come out shrunken, pale, or flat.

Some of this craving for sugar is the result of the massive amounts of sugar added to processed foods. It is a learned behavior. The sweeter the industry made its food, the sweeter the kids liked their foods to be. Companies will sell a lot more if they can determine the precise bliss point for sugar in each of the items. Sugar’s value to food companies is high.

How do you get People to Crave?

Search for just the right amount of certain ingredients to generate the greatest appeal among consumers. Engineer sugar and create the biggest crave. The defining facet of consumer craving: the bliss point.

Grocery products have lots of attributes that make them attractive, chief among them are color, smell, packaging and taste. Through optimization, food engineers alter these variables slightly and make new versions with the aim to find the most perfect variation. Sensory-specific satiety is the tendency for big distinct flavors to overwhelm the brain which responds by making you feel full really fast. It became a guiding principle for the processed food industry. They pique the taste buds enough to be alluring but don’t have a distinct overriding single flavor that says to the brain: Enough already!

They worked on how to maximize the power of sugar in foods. The liking of food rose as the amount of sugar was increased but only to a point; after that peak, adding more sugar was not only a waste, it diminished the allure of the food. Many of the Prego sauces-whether cheesy, chunky or light- have one feature in common: The largest ingredient after tomatoes is sugar.

They tried to determine the factors that drove people not merely to like their food but to eagerly snatch it up. They sought to identify exactly what it is about foods that take us to this level of desire. Hunger is a poor driver of cravings. We are driven to eat by other forces in our lives. Some of these are emotional needs while others reflect the pillars of processed food: taste, aroma, appearance and texture. One ingredient-sugar-can do it all.

Convenience with a Capital C

The phrase “convenience foods” galvanized the industry. Food manufacturers were pushing the frozen, fast, and boxed all time-saving innovations. There is a battle between convenience food that wasn’t so healthy and healthy food that wasn’t so convenient. This struggle for the nation’s diet played out in the sugary products that Americans were eating for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

America’s population was surging and the industry saw its role as nothing less than nurturing the masses by delivering food that was safe, easy to prepare and affordable. Serving the modern customer became an art, with convenience the super-additive that was changing the whole face of competitive business. Customer expectations were so high and the pace at which new products were introduced so fast that the homemaker can’t say what is it she really wants – until after some company creates it and she finds it in a retail store. These foods had to be easy t buy, store, open, prepare and eat. This drive for convenience had become a mantra.

Convenience is the great additive. There is convenience of form. The dog food patties as soft as hamburgers but so durable that they could sit on the shelf until needed. There is convenience of time. The grocery stores stay open in the evenings to accommodate increasing numbers of women who worked outside the home. There is convenience of packaging. Beer in bottles that was now disposable.

Americans were willing to pay well for this additive to the products they purchase, to use their greater wealth to buy fuller lives and better things to do with their time than mix, blend, sort, trim, measure, cook, serve. Time-saving gadgets arrived in the store that helped the homemaker trade her new wealth for some extra time away from the kitchen; ready-to-bake biscuits, special detergents, plastic lids on cans of milk for easier pouring.

38% of American women were leaving the home to work. As food manufacturers saw it, these women needed help. They couldn’t cook meals from scratch. Evenings became rushed. The processed food companies saw it as their mission to change the nature of home economics. The remarkable rise of ‘convenience’ or processed foods heralded by slogans ‘instant’ ‘ready to cook’ and ‘heat and serve’ set off a revolution in eating habits.

Is it Cereal or Candy?

The overconsumption of salt and sugar was the primary contributor to the nation’s health woes. Kellogg in 1896 came out with flaked cereal, from boiled wheat and called it Kellogg’s Corn Flakes. It marked the birth of sweetened breakfast. The public’s enthusiasm for cereal was growing. Within a decade, 51% of women worked outside. These women had more money than time. Dinner was a struggle and breakfast stressful. Convenience was crucial to starting the day and food companies controlled the breakfast table. By 1970, Kellogg, Post and General Mills crammed the grocery store. The Big Three controlled the cereal aisle.

This changed in 1975. Sugar became a matter of distress. One cereal, Sugar Orange Crisps, packed a sugar load of 70.8%. Mayer, a nutrition professor, saw sugar as a dangerous additive in food, linking to diabetes. He penned an article titled ‘Is it Cereal or Candy?’ and said some candy bars had more protein than many cereals. He called them sugar-coated vitamin pills. He wanted cereals containing over 50% sugar to be labelled cereal confections and be sold in the candy section. Kellogg changed its product name from Sugar Frosted Flakes to Frosted Flakes. Other manufacturers also dropped the word sugar. The deemphasizing of sugar went deeper than the name on the box. The Federal Trade Commission asked for a total ban on all advertising to children for any product, food or otherwise.

Instead of having the food technician experiment with tastes and textures, the marketing guys hunted for ideas that suited the advertising needs first and worried about pleasing the palate of consumers second. The driver for this reversal was the recognition that branding was overwhelmingly important. The Kellogg icons-Frosted Flakes or Special K-all had distinct identities, carefully honed by hundreds of millions of dollars of advertising. It labored to burn the brands into the minds of American consumers over the years. The concept drew on the psychology of perceptions. If a cereal could evoke the joy of an afternoon snack, it could generate sales not only as a breakfast food but also as a snack.

Frenemies - A Book Summary

2024-02-24T06:31:00.000-08:00

frenemies

The Epic Disruption of the Advertising Industry (and Why This Matters)

KEN AULETTA

P.S: This blog post is a book summary I wrote in 2018 for bookbhook.com. an online reading app

Advertising means to give attention to. Advertising connects seller and buyer. Media is dependent on advertising revenue. The same is true of music and newspapers. But in today’s digital age, its survival is under threat.

The book gives us a ringside view of how former friends have become foes. The term frenemies is used to talk of companies that cooperate and compete. They are present everywhere.

Consumers are true frenemies because while they hate intrusive ads, they are dependent on them for free media. Advertisers do not know how to sell products on mobile devices without annoying consumers or how to reach a younger lot that skips ads. They do not know how to retain consumer attention. The consumer chooses from a multitude of options. A mass audience is rare.

Adding to this chaos is the disruption caused by Facebook and Google. Digital innovations have impacted the media industry economically. Newspapers, magazines, television and radio have witnessed a decline in their advertising revenue. This revenue is diverted to digital entities.

Earlier there were only 6 media channels to connect with the customer – television, print, radio, newspapers, outdoor advertising and direct marketing through mailers. Today, there are many different channels, and billions of smartphones, and personal devices with apps. These allow advertisers to both talk and anger people. Television viewing time has decreased because people are glued to their mobiles.

Facebook argues that data gives more information about each individual. Earlier, the brand would address an audience with a TV ad. They would not know who had been hit. It was marketing at people. Digital companies help them target individual consumers. Every digital platform assures the brand of this innovation. This is marketing for people.

Data has always been there but the difference is in the analysis of the data. The difference also lies in the consumers’ decision to choose what they wish to interact with and when. 2007 was a landmark year for consumer empowerment when Apple launched the iPhone, the first smart phone. Facebook also re-directed its attention from college students to everyone. Amazon launched Kindle.

Big data comes from 3 sources. First-party data comes from companies that interact with customers directly and retain their credit cards. It also comes from department stores, credit card and car companies, Amazon, magazines and newspapers and companies depended on subscriptions. Facebook and Google bank some of the richest first-party data. Second-party data is anonymous. It has a lot of individual information from different sources, like clients, and data companies like Nielsen. Third-party data is got from catalogues and stores. The task is to assemble all this data to match the products of its clients with targeted consumers.

A smart phone platform and its embedded GPS enable brands to track and engage with users. There are limitations to the mobile platform too. Ads on mobiles soak up battery. The small screens are restrictive. Consumers dislike the ads and install ad blockers to avoid the interruptions.

Clients want to introduce new products and build brand identity. But how can they do it when ads on mobile phones are not as effective? Also, consumers are scattered across several channels and social networks. How can they reach the mass audience critical to their business? Another issue is how to target the next generation. The millennials, in the age group of 21 to 34, are digitally savvy. The Generation Z, born after 1997, hate being sold to especially when people get an astonishing 5000 marketing messages every day.

Facebook and Google help advertisers build the brand business. They compete with each other in consumer data collection. This data is loaded with targeting information. However, they are adamant about not sharing the data with anyone. They are the new-age digital frenemies. With the help of marketing services like DoubleClick (Google) and Atlas (Facebook) they leverage the data. They are agency and platform rivals. Brands are petrified of Amazon too because Amazon has even better data. They know when a customer actually bought something.

If people learn that their privacy is compromised, they will approach the government and demand protection of their data, leading to widespread protests against such companies. While data helps agencies with improved tools to target customers, it also helps clients know which of their ads sell and which don’t. Today, technology has demonetized information and given people more alternatives. They can easily skip ads, express their views, vote, and escape old media platforms.

Frenemies

Facebook’s entire business is advertising. They claim they are only trying to help boost sales by helping brands think through real business problems and understand how mobile is impacting marketing. They will eventually gain because clients will invest more with them as they have the dominant platform.

Facebook sells under false pretences. They are not a technology company; they are just a platform, a media platform. It is a frenemy. It is competing for advertising dollars. It complements television because with TV viewing down among the millennials, it is great at finding that audience.

Fear about Facebook’s advertising ambitions is fueled by its size, and its refusal to share its data. By 2016, it collected $27 billion from ads and made profits of $10 billion. Of every new digital ad dollar, 85 cents went to Facebook and Google. Their digital dominance increasingly mattered. Facebook and Google have two-thirds of mobile ad revenue. They have first-party data on people. In a mobile world, it is the surest way to identify people. Its goal is to entice people to spend 100% of their time on Facebook. They want to become the Internet.

Since Facebook and Google protect their data from advertisers, clients cannot target consumers on other platforms or in their future ad campaigns. If the agencies can extract more information from Facebook about what their users like and do, their ad targeting would be more accurate.

Digital companies know much more about consumers than non-digital platforms. Facebook, Google and Amazon are the 3 digital giants. Advertisers want the data from all three. Facebook’s user data is based on their social interaction. Google’s data reveals a person’s intent because it is a search engine. Amazon has actual purchasing data. They all have a monetary incentive to safeguard their data. They claim that they are protecting the privacy of their users and assure them not to share names or personal information.

Facebook depends on selling ad space. It pitches advertisers. Mobile video is the new frontier of advertising, the new television. 100 million hours of video were watched daily on Facebook. No other medium in marketing has ever been as personal as the mobile. We carry it with us everywhere and all the time. We store personal information, pictures, and apps on it. We don’t loan the phone to others. Since it is so personal, ads have to be personal too and must not interrupt. It presents opportunities to communicate to consumers in new ways. Hence, clients divert ad dollars to Facebook to drive business results. Facebook boasts that it reduces costs and serves customers by eliminating middlemen.

Consumer - the Ultimate Frenemy

Consumers are against all advertising. Mobile technology has brought ads relentlessly into people’s lives. It has also given them tools to block them. To the consumer, it is a happy solution. Consumers are annoyed by pre-roll and banner ads. They are angered by lethargic ad page load speeds and troubled by unsolicited marketing messages draining their batteries. They are anxious that their privacy was being invaded.

Apple earns barely 1% of its revenues from advertising. It helps consumers protect their devices from ads. Apple prioritized the user experience.

But websites, media companies, marketers, and ad-dependent companies like Facebook and Google cry hoarse. They say that ad blockers adversely affect their ability to inform users and subsidize content. They allege that Apple and ad blockers are killing the industry. Apple and ad blocker advocates, on the other hand, say advertisers are committing suicide with their senseless, pushy ads.

Apple’s move was part of the tussle between Apple and Google for smartphone supremacy. Apple makes money selling hardware and software, Google by selling ads. Apple intentionally offered consumers something Google couldn’t. Apple knows that when an online service is free, you are not the consumer; you are the product.

Data has gained prominence in targeting consumers. Technological innovations are changing the landscape of consumer engagement.

God's Money

2022-08-03T04:16:00.002-07:00

It was Tanvi’s 6^th birthday on the 6^th of June 2012. I had decided to spend exactly six thousand rupees this time. I wanted to see if I could give her a memorable birthday without spending an exorbitant amount of money.

And I did!

Here’s how: Lunch at Malleshwaram Sevasadan (home for under-privileged girls) - Rs 600, Make A Wish Foundation - Rs 1500, and the rest for dress, cake, and going out.

The plan, then, was when she turns 7, the budget will be Rs 7000.

Why am I writing all this on my blog?

I remember Saru Singhal’s FB status message, long back, when she had mentioned, how someone was constantly bragging about the causes he was contributing to. And Mithlash responded that, at least, he is showing off about a good thing.

For the longest time in my life, I too believed in the saying that when you do something good, even your left hand should not know what your right hand is doing.

I started earning in the year 2000. My very first job was as an English Lecturer in a Government First Grade College. The salary was Rs 3000. I got my first paycheck after 3 months of working – Rs 9000. The first thing I did was keep aside Rs 900. I had created various heads Home, Shopping, Mother, Savings, and God’s Money. The 900 went under God’s money.

I had read that 10% of what a man earns must be kept for God. It basically means to keep aside some amount from your earnings for a social cause, to help someone less fortunate than oneself.

From 2000 to 2009, the year I quit my full-time job, I have been having God’s money allocation. From Rs 3000 in the year 2000 to Rs 37,000 by 2009, God’s money moved from just Rs 300 per month to Rs 3700 in 2009.

That’s ten years of using that amount for causes I felt strongly about. Even my mother didn’t know what I was doing with that money. She thought I was putting it in the hundi (donation box) of temples. After all, it was for God.

Somehow, I wasn’t comfortable with the idea. I wasn’t sure if it went to the upkeep of the religious place and thus helping the needy and the poor or if it was misused by the government.

It took me more than a decade to realize that my reservations were right. When I learned about the State Mujarayi Department, I couldn't believe it at first. I was glad I did not put any money in the hundi all those years. The government controls Hindu temples. Ironically, in a so-called secular country, the government does not control churches and mosques. All churches, mosques, and madrasas use the money they collect for their own welfare, expansion, and growth. But, the money (nearly Rs 7300 crores; Tirupati alone contributes almost 3000 crores) collected from 1,30,000 temples across India is used for "minority" (Christian & Muslim) appeasement. It is used for activities like sponsoring Hajj pilgrimage with subsidies (it has recently been stopped), special salaries & pensions to mullahs & fathers, education courses & scholarships, and so on. Barely a small amount goes to the actual development of the temples themselves. The loot and the misuse are unimaginable and have been going on for ages, thanks to the ignorance and spinelessness of idiotic Hindus like me who are fooled every day in the name of secularism.

Anyways, at the time, I did not know any of this. I searched for organizations to contribute to. In the early 2000s, I still did not know what Google was, and that it would throw up any information we sought in a jiffy. So I would search various magazines and newspapers and make a note of institutions I wanted to support.

I was looking for institutions that were making a difference in the lives of others. CRY was the first institution I contributed to. It was for the cause of girls education for a year, and survival needs for 2 years. Later on, I added Akshaya Patra (meals). Parikrma (food and education), Help Age India (senior citizens), and Make A Wish Foundation (fulfilling wishes of terminally ill children).

Jean Sasson writes in her book, Growing up Bin Laden that "the joy of giving is more acute when sharing creates personal hardship. It is easy enough to share when one has plenty". True that! Given my background and my financial condition at the time, the money I was keeping aside was hard to part with. But the dogged determination to continue doing the right thing ensured that I never once held back. It gave me immense joy then. And today, after all these years, as I look back, it is the same feeling of fulfillment. I don't know where the 90% of the money I earned went. Survival needs ate up everything. But that tiny 10% is the reason for a satisfied smile.

Jean Sassion also states that "Sharing does not necessarily mean the giving of money or goods. There are times that the greatest gift is to set aside one’s own troubles and listen, to care about another’s heartache". But I have learned that planned and consistent monetary help to institutions and individuals that are deserving is the need of the hour.

Middle-Class Dreams

2022-07-19T04:05:00.008-07:00

Remember this picture of Neeraj Chopra? He had posted this on social media saying a small dream of his had come true, that he was able to take his parents on their first flight.

Why is it so hard to go on an airplane?

As an 80's kid, an airplane was my ultimate fantasy. I was your typical middle-class kid, fascinated by strange objects, unfamiliar people, and far-away places. Cities and their modern gadgets had a particular pull.

I was growing up in a village 450 km from the state capital of Bangalore. It is an 8 hours drive, by today's driving standards and road conditions. The nearest airport of Mangalore was still 75 km away. It was a 2 hours drive from my village. The airport itself was 13 km away from Mangalore city. Today, it costs around Rs 1000 just to come to the city from the airport. Multiple options for airport transfers are still not available. You either take the prepaid taxi or be at the mercy of the drivers outside. They are waiting for return passengers to take back to the city as they drop off the others at the arrival point.

THAT is the extent to which an airplane was a "far-away" thing for us.

Forty years ago, it would have been easier to die and go to heaven than go to the airport.

No wonder, the mere sound of the passing airplane was enough to make us stop whatever we were doing. We would rush out, look up at the sky, catch a glimpse of this wondrous modern invention, and wave at it vigorously. I really thought people inside could see us and were smiling or waving back at us! Also, sometimes, this flying machine made thin, white lines in the sky. We were told that chocolates were given to all the passengers on board and that it was free and unlimited. Can you imagine the power of the two words - Free And Unlimited? We love these words. Even separately they were great and here, they were together!

For those of us, who went to Dharmasthala on an annual temple trip, in a 'rented-for-the-day' Ambassador, an airplane was mesmerizing. I remember the moment when I looked at the airplane for the first time. It was on our school trip to the Mangalore Airport.

The plane was huge. It was long. It was white. It was slim. It had tiny windows. I wondered how people could look out of those windows? Did they have to stand?

My only references for windows were, those on our local, private buses and the 'big-as-a-door' Ambassador car windows, in which you could slip a child in and out with ease.

I dreamt about the tray the air hostess would bring to my seat and I would choose the chocolate I wanted. Those dreams, those little wishes, those nights thinking of the airplane - it was haunting. It was haunting because I knew very well, that I did not have the money then or perhaps, worse still, never have the money in the future either, to actually be "inside" an actual plane and go from place to place.

Many years later, during one of my training sessions, I remember a girl saying, her only dream was to take a flight from Vishakhapatnam to Hyderabad. This was in 2020. I knew exactly how she felt. I knew, without saying anything more, exactly what her dream meant to her. But at the same time, I wondered how a dream of a villager like me, from an unknown village, from a bygone era, was still a dream of many, in better jobs, better cities, and in the year 2020! For a middle-class person, these are what dreams are made of - irrespective of where we live. Hum aur hamare sapne!

So, did my airplane dream come true? Yes, it did. It was from Hyderabad to Bangalore in 2003. It was an Air Deccan flight. The low-cost airline of the 2000s. It was the cheapest flight available back then. It was famously said, at the time, that traveling by Air Deccan was as good as traveling by AC first class train, almost the same fare. Captain Gopinath's dream to make flying accessible to the masses had certainly made it possible for many like me to fly.

I do not remember now the fare we paid. Or where we bought the tickets. Can't be online, right? Most likely it was through a travel agent.

We were sweating inside the cabin and I was thinking, "Come on now, the machine of my dreams cannot be this uncomfortable, can it?" Someone told us it was so hot because the AC had been switched off. They were waiting for everyone to be on board and the flight to take off for the AC to be switched on.

Fortunately for me, many of my subsequent flights were paid for by the companies I worked for.

As a family, paying for an air ticket is something we still go back and forth on, for days on end. I just cannot digest that it still costs so much. I remember our trips to Orissa, Gujarat, and Assam. A large part of the expense was just the flight. Sometimes, 50% of the total travel expenses!

No wonder, flying is one of the most treasured middle-class dreams.

Paiso How Sindhis Do Business

2022-07-11T07:01:00.002-07:00

Book Summary

This book outlines the history of Sindhi businessmen. It shows how five chosen businesses benefited from being Sindhi.

The Sindhi Community – A Look into History

Sindhis came from Sindh, now in Pakistan, and were mostly businessmen and traders. They introduced the system of hundis or bill discounting and parchis or promissory notes. They were a witness to innumerable invasions but prospered despite them. They are capable of thriving even in the face of adversity. No wonder, there are many rags-to-riches stories in this community.

Sindhis sacrifice profit margins for a large turnover. They are sector-agnostic and are focused on, profit and growth, earning their wealth wisely and spending it smartly. Their business has evolved from trade to finance, export, retail, computers, and real estate.

The heirs nurture business aspirations from an early age because they are trained in the family business from childhood. Sindhis do not promote formal education as they feel the same time could be better spent in earning money. After all, there is nothing better than practice and experience to refine one’s business sense.

A Sindhi’s sole goal in life is to make money. They are satisfied only when they accumulate wealth. They are known to brazenly display their wealth. They indulge in showiness and present a picture of abundance because business needs a steady supply of large credit.

Sindhis engage themselves in various philanthropic activities. They regularly donate to charity but the donations are seldom anonymous. They are made in the name of a parent, or some family name, bringing the donor prestige. Many Sindhi institutions are behind the education and healthcare foundation of Mumbai.

There are some common traits among the business families. One person or one family owns the business. Not many Sindhi businesses are publicly listed companies or professionally managed. It is also unusual to see a joint family doing business together over two generations because of the commonly held belief that partnerships between brothers do not last long. All this is due to Sindhi values and the lack of professional training.

But things have undergone a sea change with time. Sindhis have evolved with the world as illustrated in the book with the following accounts.

v The Harilelas of Hong Kong proves that 100 members of one family can live under one roof, lead independent lives and do different businesses.

v The Lakhi Group shows how brothers can live apart but run the same business all over the world, continuing the same values.

v Harish Fabiani is India’s first-ever individual angel investor. His company is completely professionally managed.

v Jitu Virwani of the Embassy Group is the largest office space landlord in India.

v Ramola Motwani of Merrimac Ventures exemplifies how educating the next generation has enhanced the business horizon and how being corporate strengthened business practices.

P.S: This book was read and the summary was written in September 2018 for bookbhook.com, a reading app.

Alcohol

2022-07-07T04:55:00.000-07:00

I don't drink. This sentence is a statement. It is a fact. It does not come from a place of judgment. I do not speak it from a moral high ground.

I have never felt like drinking alcohol. I did not drink it hiding from my parents as a youngster. I did not drink when I lived in Bangalore away from home and my parents, enjoying the freedom and my hard-earned money. I did not drink it when my beer-guzzling husband nudged me to try mocktails or at least just a Breezer saying it does not contain alcohol.

I did not drink because I simply hate the smell. It is not that I have smelt every bottle, but whatever I have smelt, has put me off. That is one reason - practical and simple. The other is because I never understood the need to drink to feel "high."

People say they drink for various reasons:

a) socially. They drink to belong to a group. Drinkers instantly bond, and a group of friends who drink together, stays together.

b) to feel light. When you are stressed out, there is nothing like liquor to destress you. It totally relaxes you.

c) to feel the high.

d) to sleep well.

e) no reason. It is a habit. I want to have at least one bad habit. I have been doing it for years now and I don't want to stop.

I have not felt the need for an external stimulant to feel high. I am high on life, as cheesy and cliched as that sounds. There is so much to do and see in this world and being alive is an opportunity every day to strike off one small wish from your list, that there is no greater high for me than that. For instance, when I know I will go trekking the next day, why would I spend the previous night drowning myself in liquor? I would rather sleep well dreaming about the trek.

People drink and forget where they are and what they did. If something makes you forget, why do it? Aren't things that you spend money on, supposed to help you make memories, that you will remember and cherish? You should want to remember and relive the moments.

I kind of get the bit about being able to bond better after a couple of pegs are down your throat. I have seen strangers loosen up after a drink. They chat with random people and random people become pals at the end of the night.

I just think spending so much money to be pals with strangers is a bit too much.

And sometimes, misunderstandings and fights are brushed under the carpet with the excuse, "He was drunk when he said that."

As for the sleep better rationale, if I need alcohol to sleep well, night after night, there must be something bugging me, right? A good day in your life is one where, you are so tired, mentally or physically, depending on your job type, that the bed calls out to you, embraces you in a soft slumber, and awakens you to the refreshing start of another beautiful day. And assuming that alcohol does give you sound sleep, wouldn't that be dependence? A man does not tolerate being controlled by his wife. But he is okay with being controlled by his drink. That is something I cannot fathom. Anyways, I have nothing against people who drink. I don't understand the logic, that's all. Ultimately, to each his own. Live and let live.

I can't stand alcohol, but boy, do I love the bottles the damn thing comes packed in? I am truly like the kid in a candy shop when I accompany my husband as he shops for his beer. I explore the isles, looking for quirky bottles. Some in vibrant colors, some in lovely designs. I am totally fascinated by the bottles. The myriad shapes these bottles come in! Exquisite designs!

Cheers to that!

The Birthday Frock

2022-06-16T04:04:00.007-07:00

The park reverberated with the screams and cries of the neighborhood children. The exercise equipment meant for the adults was taken over by the kids. Whether their brittle bones could handle the stress of gym equipment was a matter of least consequence.

They giggled and raced each other as they did the squats and the waist turns and the push ups. The sun was inching towards his descent and the parents were getting impatient to take their kids home. But there was no sign of the games ending any time soon. I knew, slowly, the scene would change.

In less than half an hour, I would see mothers dragging their kids away from the swing and the slide. I would see fathers sternly ordering their kids to begin marching home-wards. But there was still time for all that.

As I sat there, watching the proceedings, I noticed two girls, playing in the sand, under the tree. The older one must have been around 11 and the younger around 8. The eight-year-old looked like the daughter of the labourer who was working in the building that was being constructed right across the park.

Just then, the mother of the older one walked in. The daughter saw her, ran to her and asked her if she had bought her birthday frock.

The girl’s birthdays fell a day apart.

The younger one wore the same birthday frock that the older one had worn for her previous birthday. She was on cloud nine.

The older one wore the new frock for a day, threw it on the floor once the party was over and forgot all about it. The novelty had already worn out for her. She was already making a list of what she wanted for her next birthday.

Her mother quietly picked up the Rs 3000/- frock from the floor, caressed it and mentally made a note of giving it away to the laborer's daughter for her next birthday.

Some children will be happy with used frocks and some not even with new ones. The joy that a new one brings to the face of the rich kid can never match the joy the poor kid feels even with old one.

**********

Published My First Book !

2021-11-30T21:43:00.008-08:00

30 November 2021 - memorable day in my life. My very first book got publised on Notion Press and is now available on

Notion Press link:

https://notionpress.com/read/40-and-pregnant

and

Amazon link:

https://www.amazon.in/dp/B09MS8RG5Q

and soon will be available on Flipkart as well.

Want to thank all the readers and followers of my blog.

You are the reason I continued my writing journey.

Thank you all for your encouragement.

Give and Take

2019-06-14T02:46:00.000-07:00

The book “Give and Take” by Adam Grant vindicated my beliefs. The book talks about how you can be a kind-hearted person and still get ahead in the world.

I have been sceptical and unsure of my approach to life and work and people and relationships. Though I believe in the workings of karma, I have had numerous instances to question its efficacy. Life is not fair at all and all of us have heard enough stories of people stamping on others to get ahead in life and actually being visibly more successful and famous.

Grant says in the book that people are either takers or givers.

We all have met a few “takers” in our lives. They like to get more than they give. They put their own interests ahead of others’ needs. They feel that to succeed, they must be better than others. They self-promote and ensure that they get plenty of credit for their efforts.

Givers are a comparatively rare breed in the place of work. They prefer to give more than they receive. Givers are other-focused. They pay attention to what other people need from them. Giving can be infectious. It spreads quickly and widely especially across social networks.

What is noteworthy is that these preferences are not about money. The givers and takers differ in their attitudes and actions toward other people. If you are a taker, you help others strategically, when the benefits to you offset the personal costs.

If you are a giver, you might use a different cost-benefit analysis: you help whenever the benefit to others exceed the personal costs. In short, as a giver, you help others without expecting anything in return. If you are a giver at work, you simply endeavour to be generous in sharing your time, energy, knowledge, skills, ideas and connections with other people who can benefit from them.

I read Grant in Feb 2017 and wrote this post a year later in 2018. I have read and re-read the draft of this post several times in the past one year. It is mid-2019 now and I have not yet published the post. Why couldn’t I finish editing the write-up? Why did it take me so long? Am I not entirely convinced with Grant’s categorization of people? He has provided several real-life examples to prove that all is not lost for the “givers” and if one is, by nature, a giver, one must not lose hope. Though the world seems to be quite ‘matlabi’ (self-serving), it is surprising how many people actually go out of their way to help others in whatever capacity they can. There really are many “good” people out there. There really are many “givers.” I guess this post is just a big shout out to all those GEMS.

Divorce

2019-05-16T02:48:00.001-07:00

I didn’t marry the first guy I loved. I love the guy I married. Had I married B and then felt suffocated, which I am sure I would have, divorce would have been a messy option.

It is interesting that second relationships or marriages have a stronger chance of endurance than a first relationship or marriage, especially one that happened at a young age. This post comes in the heels of having just finished reading ‘Committed’ by Elizabeth Gilbert. I read the book a few years back and wrote a draft of this post back then! The book dwells upon the institution of marriage and its history and what makes it so desirable and in some cultures, essential.

For me, marriage hasn’t been a sacred or religious entity. It wasn’t so when I almost got married to the guy I fell in love with in college nor when I finally actually got married to Sathya. Though I respect all the customs and rites involved in a Hindu wedding, the force that wants me to believe in marriage, and one that is still binding me to Sathya, is not that.

Had I felt as strangulated and gasping for air with Sathya as I felt with B, I am sure I would have considered living on my own and not been in a marriage that had turned into a farce. I am fortunate it doesn’t feel so. And I also understand and know that for many women, and even men for that matter, marriage can be debilitating. Sometimes, we all feel like the wild animal that has been caught by the ring master of a circus. He has no choice but to perform.

Most Asian and Middle-Eastern cultures regard marriage very highly. Children, family, social responsibilities are built into the expectations of a young adolescent. The ultimate aim is to “settle down.” For the woman, the search is on to find a man who earns well and can afford to look after his wife and kids financially. For the man, to find a wife who will cook well and raise well-behaved kids. So naturally, divorce is an extremely stigmatized word. Why couldn’t the woman have adjusted? That is the first question people ask.

I have thought of that option too, many times, over a 13 year marriage. Misunderstandings and fights and the isolation and that ‘being alone’ feeling that follows makes us think of divorce as a solution. If we move apart, live far away from each other, we reason, at least one of us can be happy. I have said this explicitly to Sathya “I will work and take care of the children, you please live peacefully at least from now on as we have messed up each other’s lives for so many years. Be a free bird”. You would think a man would want to hear that. He would be waiting for it. A bird is the ultimate symbol of freedom. But even that bird flies back to its nest as the sun sets. Every one of us longs for the security of a place we can call home. Many men are like that.

If a relationship is about repeated fights, constant misunderstandings, endless anxiety, continuous worry, what is the point of being together? I walked out of one relationship and into another in the hope that each fight would be better than the last; that as the sun sets, you would still want to be with each other, that being together was a better option than being alone or apart. Thank God, it is!

Women and Spending Power

2019-05-15T02:11:00.001-07:00

When I was on a child-raising break to be with Tanvi as her daycare center was not good, I picked up a few freelance training assignments during that period, tasted blood, and have only been freelancing Why am I getting into all these humdrum details? Because whenever I have been without work (read: without a steady income), some months with no money at all (freelancing is an unpredictable work choice), I have been very (to the power of 10) depressed.

I have been depressed because I couldn’t shop for myself, couldn’t shop for my family, couldn’t shop for the house, and least of all, could not even do grocery shopping. Shopping offers a temporary high, is exciting for a fleeting moment. I have heard that tirade against shopping a zillion times. But the freedom - to flash my debit card (earlier) or electronic wallets (now), on a sudden impulse to buy something that lasts, for the house – is supremely tempting. The irresistible itch to pick up stuff from a flash sale or abuse insane discounts during public holidays or festivals or the crazy cash-back deals they flaunt online, I am guilty of it. Just knowing you have money on you in case you need to buy something on an impulse – that’s a coveted feeling.

But this beautiful joy, which comes with financial power, is lost when you don’t earn. And then I go into severe depression. And since I am an incurable worrier, at times, I have been so depressed that I go online and do those (free) Tarot card readings! What a horrible phase that was - feeling unwanted, desperate for attention, feeling the lack of respect. I would upload the same resume twice in one week hoping for a head hunter’s call. Not because I would join the first company that called, but to reassure myself that my skill-sets still had a market value and that if I chose, I could be the earning member of the family again.

I love running my household. I love planning, buying, securing, and cushioning for the family. I even love buying milk and coriander leaves as much as I love buying a laptop or phone and paying off debts and budgeting for road trips. It fulfills me. I am ‘masculine’ in that sense; more a provider than a nurturer. Being an enabler makes me happy. Providing for the needs of our home makes me feel proud of myself. Never having to say ‘no’ or ‘don’t have money for that when my daughter asks for something, is my ultimate success parameter.

The kitchen stifles me. I don’t really enjoy being in that part of the house. I feel trapped. I feel like the cockroach that scuttles away at the sight of a human. But the cockroach has nowhere to go, as every corner is sprayed with insect repellent. It knows the spray means sure death in a few minutes. Husband’s money, what husband bought, what husband gifted, what husband planned, where the husband took - it has never given me joy. Strangely, I have eyed women with jealousy when their husbands have showered them with expensive gifts or vacations. I have thought to myself, “Wow! What a life. How lucky is she.” And then go right back to feeling sick that I am not that kind of “husband.” I would be bored being a wife whose sole purpose in life was to ‘keep house’ (ghar sambhalo) for which she would be rewarded with monthly shopping sprees in various malls in the city.

The buoyancy you feel when you know you are still wanted in the job market – that’s a high. The exhilaration of cash in your wallet, the pride when you hand over your card to the waiter at the restaurant, the look in the cashier’s eyes as you punch in your password on the swipe machine, the smile on your face when you look at things around you and realize you bought them – I miss that. It’s been ten months since my last training assignment. My baby is 8 months old now and I have not been able to get back to work. I am depressed.

[This post was written 7 months back. I could publish it only today. My daughter is 15 months old now. And I am back on the work track.]

Character Flaw

2018-10-25T01:24:00.001-07:00

Remember that scene from Simran where she asks her fiancé if he has any character flaws? He replies saying if she had a boyfriend, he wasn’t going to hold it against her. And she quips, “Having a boyfriend is not a character flaw. If anything, it takes skill to flirt. My character flaw is I am addicted to gambling and stealing.”

The dictionary tells you a violent temper is a character flaw because it affects the person’s actions. So a flaw is something of an imperfection, a limitation. If you look at Shakespearean heroes, each of them had a distinctive flaw that defined them and ultimately, destroyed them. Othello was suspicious, Hamlet indecisive and King Lear loved flattery.

One of my character flaws is (oh yes, I have many. Not a Shakespearean heroine to have just one!) I keep quiet in situations where I know I should have spoken. Keeping quiet is my undoing. But I keep quiet, nonetheless. And regret it to eternity! I keep quiet when a friend or family member or even an acquaintance (just realized that the category ‘friends/family/acquaintances’ – practically covers the entire world) hurts me or says mean words, or throws sarcastic comments, or insults, or generally behaves badly. I keep quiet thinking, if I speak, things will turn ugly; there will be a full blown war and the relationship will end.

I know. I know. It is a stupid logic. It never works. That is why it is my most potent flaw.

I keep quiet till I can keep quiet no more. No more could be in terms of months and years! It depends - a) on the person or the kind of relationship I share with him/her: close family/dear friend/close friend or colleague of the spouse b) how long have I known the person: couple of meetings, random encounters, or repeated interactions.

I keep quiet for so long that I can’t take it any longer. It’s too much negativity to take in. I lose sleep over it. I think I got this trait from my mother. Or it’s just that we both are Aquarians. According to Sigmund Freud “unexpressed emotions never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways. An outburst of anger is the outward expression of inner pain that has been silenced for far too long.” Trust the experts. He is right. All that buried frustration and pent up anger just explodes like a volcano one day. And then, what I feared the most, all along, from the first instance, actually happens. The relationship ends. For the longest time, I thought why did I leave behind so many friends and why did so many leave me? The blame falls on me for the end. I become the ‘bad’ person who spoilt a good thing. The silence costs me my name and my respect.

But I never learn. Another relationship, another hurt, another silence, another outburst.

A research states that humans are wired to forgive. It is a problem. This ‘maaf kardo’ mind-set is why some people continue to stay in bad relationships. Humans have a tendency to give others a benefit of the doubt. We forgive even when we have evidence that they don’t deserve it. We do so because people sometimes behave badly by accident. We think we may be mistaken. If we act on negative impressions too soon, we might miss out on the many benefits of social connection and end a relationship abruptly.

Now, that’s some strong research backing my character flaw!

What is my Legacy?

2017-10-29T00:06:00.001-07:00

What is my legacy? I came across the word in some Whatsapp forward. It was the word I was looking for to encapsulate all the questions that floated in my mind regarding my life. What was I doing? Why am I alive? Was 40 years worth it? Did I do what life wanted me to?

Legacy – sounds perfect, sounds right. So what is my legacy going to be? What will it be that will make my being a burden on Mother Earth worth it? My two (one is on the way) children? Would they carry on my values and thoughts and sprinkle the Sujatha sawdust on the world and make my existence relevant? The people I taught and trained throughout a career that lasted a good 13 years, a fruitful decade - would they be the ones to lend meaning to my life? While teaching them the concepts that I had to as the equivalent for what I was paid for but also touching their lives in some small ways – would that be my redemption?

I have wandered along these lines for a long time. I guess being jobless, at home and carrying a child in you, one has all the time in the world for these inane thoughts. Otherwise, one would be too busy “living” life or “making a living” to care about what it will all mean at the end of the journey. Have I reached the end of my journey?

One afternoon, as I was cooking, I overheard my neighbour yelling at her maid. She keeps all her windows shut and drawn with heavy curtains. But her voice was so loud that it blasted through my kitchen door which leads to our utility area and is always open. Her words were not clear but the anger was evident. The maid was mumbling something in defence. She works for my neighbour for Rs 2500 for 3 hours of back breaking work. It’s a 5 member family. So imagine the clothes and utensils that the maid has to clean. The clothes are washed by hand. How do I know? Our backyards are adjacent to each other. I can see the 4-5 long rows of clothes including bed-sheets, curtains and floor mats being hung out to dry daily. The neighbor has, in less than 2 years, changed four maids – fighting with all of them, sometimes screaming for coming 10 minutes, sometimes shouting for doing the work 10 minutes early. Everyday there was some problem. At first, I thought the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law were at each other’s throats.

And then, I sat on the sofa, rested my head back and closed my eyes for a long time. I felt a strange sense of calm. I knew my life was indeed worth something. I was not a loud, abusive woman like my neighbour. I don’t say that all maids are nice. Some are nasty, some lazy, some downright greedy. I heaved a sigh of relief that I was not, never was, a monster. For a few 1000 rupees a month, working 2-3 hours daily, with no holidays or weekly Sunday off, no hike, most of them illiterate and hence not able to work anywhere else or at anything else, it’s definitely not easy being a maid. And if I have been civil and tolerant with them, this insignificant life hasn’t been so insignificant after all.

At an age where everyone mistreats everyone else, sometimes just to be human, is a big deal. It is easy today to consider someone even a wee bit below us as “low”. To not succumb to abuse of power, even if that is of a house lady over her maid who she hardly considers a human in the first place – is quite something. If nothing else at all, I’m glad I passed at least this test. I’ve never ever been mean to any of my maids. Even the ones I fired, I politely asked them not to come from next month telling them I’ll do the work myself. It takes a great deal of effort for rich, educated people to not be rude to others. Empathy and decency are the first casualties in the pursuit of wealth and knowledge.

How Do I Improve My English?

2017-10-09T05:42:00.001-07:00

I get asked this a lot.

I am an English teacher.

There are two assumptions people make. One, my English is good because I studied in an English medium school. It was a CBSE school. From 4^th to 12^th standard, I studied there. Before that it was state syllabus. Two, my English is good because I did my Masters in English. Both these are true; but only partially. CBSE education by itself doesn't guarantee good language skills and nor does an M.A.

I can cite plenty of exceptions for both scenarios. I have seen it with my own school classmates and I see it now with the class mates and friends of my daughter. Those who studied with me, many from better backgrounds, suck at the language. Their grammar is pathetic and so is their sentence formation, even basic sentences and comprehension skills are non-existent. And if M.A in English guaranteed good English, my batch of 20 students would have produced writers and bloggers. There are none that I know of. Not yet, at least.

Wait, doesn't CBSE education ensure greater English fluency? Not necessarily, definitely not equally among all learners. But it helps. These students can navigate daily, mundane social interactions in English with greater ease. They are only slightly better than the others. But what makes the actual difference is the individual student's efforts.

How did my English become better? My parents were not educated; neither of them could speak or write English. We never spoke English at home, I did not go for tuition. Nobody in my immediate family is a doctor or an engineer to have their language skills brush off on me. Here's what made the difference:

A. Reading.

In high school, I spent a lot of time in the library. I finished Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys - the whole series. I had read all the classics. I didn’t know meanings of simple words like gasped, shrieked, and yelled. I still continued to read. I searched my big, fat Oxford dictionary and wrote the words and their meanings in my notebook. By the time I finished one library book, I had so many words whose meanings I didn’t know! These words, slowly and gradually, crept into my language. Over time, I graduated to reading a wider variety of books without being fazed by the difficult language used in them.

B. Talking.
Conversing in English, with as many people as possible, as many times and as often as possible is one of the best ways to improve your English. Many of us whose parents didn’t speak the language, had to work extra hard at it. And we did. Hard work didn’t scare us nor were we lazy. We did all we could to improve our fluency. It paid off - many years later.

C. Liking the language.

I scored just about 60% in my 10th and 12th in English. Those were the lowest marks on my mark sheet. I had scored more than 80% in other subjects. But I was passionate about the world that knowing English gave me an access to. I loved the myriad stories and was fascinated by characters whose lives were so different from my own. I liked learning, reading and speaking English.

When I joined Mangalore University, and sat through the lectures of Parinitha Mam and R. Shashidhar Sir, I was transfixed. Their depth of knowledge and way of articulating a thought had me spell bound. It was not an inborn talent. It took years of reading to reach that level of excellence. I spent my two years in the University mostly in the library - picking up random books, reading them, making notes. I devoured the pages.

It also helped that, by then, English had become my linguistic anchor. Growing up in Bombay, I was fluent in Hindi and Marathi. But for class 4, when I came to my village, I had to pick up Kannada. I learnt Kannada alphabets at the age of 12 and over the years completely forgot Marathi. At a time when I was rudderless, English became the language I thought and spoke in, in my mind. Does that help? Yes, it does. When you “think” in a particular language, you express yourselves better in that one. Even today, I can’t express myself very well in either Hindi or Kannada or Tulu. I don’t have the bandwidth needed for it. Sad but true.

D. Applying.
So, passion for the language, willingness to put in hours and hours of reading, and talking are 3 main prerequisites for language development.

Next, is the application. Reading will throw at you many words, styles of writing, sentence structures, grammatical usage, idioms and phrases. But if you don't consciously, I repeat, consciously use those words in the sentences you speak and write in everyday conversations, they will stay dormant and you will continue to know and use only the few 100 words that helps you manage everyday language transactions.

Let me give you an example. Here are some phrases I came across during my recent reading:

Twice the trouble for half the price
By the time we got back to her, I was about to throw up a lung.
What he doesn't have in brains he makes up for in speed.
A heart on two legs... a good person
Turns turtle (slow) and crashes
That stinks like an eight week old pile of fish guts
Super stealthy silence
Quiet as a ghost walking on cotton balls

I have not yet used them in my writing or conversation. They won't be a part of my active vocabulary until and unless I actually use them. As a student, I religiously used the words I learnt. I almost forced them into sentences so that I could remember them. But now my vocabulary has stagnated because I have not been applying the new words learnt with as much devotion as I did earlier. If I had continued the practice of learning at least 5 new words everyday and actually USING them, my English would have been even better.

Why Me?

2017-09-07T02:27:00.001-07:00

I recently watched many videos on YouTube on Rheumatoid Arthritis. The first time I heard that word was from a friend who said she had it. The videos disturbed me and I recalled snippets of her blog entries describing similar experiences.

This friend had first appeared in my high school class in the middle of an academic year. The Gulf war had broken out and they had to flee and come back to India. She was stout, with a big, round mouth and prominent teeth and a big laugh. In my eyes, everything was big about her except her hair. Her hair was short. Or what we called, bob cut. I, the villager, didn’t know then that there was a country called Kuwait. Since she had come from “foreign”, I thought she ate a lot of chocolates and was privileged.

Some people’s struggles with sickness are the stuff that many of us cannot imagine. But it resonates with people who suffer similarly; just as she has found strength and comfort in reading those that have suffered more than her. But is that the purpose of her life - to inspire others like her. Motivate those who may be having a harder time than her; to say to them, to not give up; to hold on for just a day more; to keep the faith. That despite her illness, she has found ways and means to share laughter and jokes, build friendships with people she may not have met in real life or renew those from her past – online. To experience the selfless love of her spouse who stood beside her like a rock of Gibraltar. That life can have meaning even when one feels there is none. That the daily chores of cooking, cleaning and washing can either turn into an unbearable drudgery or ways to engage one -self in tasks that keep one’s mind busy. She has lived through her illness with a lot of grace and strength. I wonder if she’d be the kind of woman she is if it weren’t for what she went through and is going through.

I have been reading a lot on the role of pain in human life. Is pain good? We all want to be happy. We actively chase happiness and do everything in our capacity to avoid pain. Being healthy is a huge part of being happy. But what if pain befalls us? What if it is our destiny to be in a state of health that needed constant medical intervention, family support and care? How does one live through it? Why should I live through it?

Someone wrote it beautifully when he said the following. Here is a snapshot of the lines.

Many of the stories of grief and sorrow, of loss, of bereavement, have the power to comfort another similarly suffering, weary soul. When we read some of the life experiences of people on the internet, we are thankful that our load is a lot lighter. That life truly is a gift, even when it sucks and you feel there couldn’t possibly be anything worse than this. That life is short. That some days are really good and pleasant even when there is an overcast sky outside. That family is everything. That family need not mean 10 siblings and 100 relatives. Sometimes, it’s just your spouse beside you and he alone is equal to an army. Many say grief is similar to death. When you go through something that is sorrowful, your old soul dies and you have to recreate your life from nothing but the will to live. You know that if you have been able to get through this, the worst, you can get through anything.

Pain cleanses and purifies us in a way that happiness cannot. I guess the people who suffer unbearable physical or emotional pain leave behind a whiff of hope - that all is still not lost. I remember reading the story of this labourer from Rajasthan who was gang-raped, and was left to die on a railway track. Her mother tried to make some money by brokering a deal with the rapists and then, abandoned her. She is fighting a legal battle, all alone. She is now working for an NGO and learning to read and write. One life and such power to transform the lives of others!

The Love That Never Was

2017-07-29T07:24:00.000-07:00

Are all mothers loving? No! They are not. Most of them are; just not all. My granny was not.

Granny had five children - 3 daughters, 2 sons; my mother the eldest. My granny did not love her.

She stopped my mother from going to school. Grandpa was the headmaster of a small school, a very good teacher. But in front of his wife, he was a mouse. He couldn’t stop his eldest, dearest and most obedient of all children from being abused in the hands of her own mother. He remained a mute spectator throughout his life. May be granny thought that since she had so many children, one after the other, she needed an extra hand to manage the household. She sent my mother to work on the rice fields – from the age of seven.

My mother would finish her back breaking work, eight hours or more daily, and come home – to continue to work some more. She had to help cook dinner and wash clothes of the family and do the dishes too. Watch the Japanese serial “Oshin” to have an idea of the kind of hardships some young girls are put through in life.

My mother described her childhood in one word “Tired.” She was tired all the time. She didn’t have friends her age because she wasn’t allowed to play. She had to work. The only ‘nice’ thing she recalls is her rare walks with her father, the only person who loved her and cared for her. She continued to work and support her family. She got her siblings married and helped her brothers set up businesses.

My mother never cried as she narrated her childhood stories. I guess sometimes the pain one goes through is so much that the tears never come out. They harden and lie in your heart – insoluble, occupying a large part of it. Maybe they flowed like a teaming river once upon a time but now they have turned into little rocks of sorrow.

My mother forgave my granny because granny carried her in her womb for nine months. I thought that was a stupid excuse to pardon someone’s sins. If I ill-treat my children, I have no moral right to do the melodrama of the womb thing even if it’s true that carrying a baby is an arduous journey.

My mother used to peep through the windows of the classroom her father taught in and my granny would pull her and drag her back to the fields. What kind of a mother does that? A cruel mother!

Do cruel mothers exist? They do. But, we as children, are fed this glorious narrative that mothers are Gods, mothers are all forgiving, all loving and since God couldn’t be everywhere, he sent mothers. Or some such crap. When I read about other cruel mothers, I am not shocked. I am pained. I believe that these horror stories are possible. Our social narrative hurries to portray the father as the evil one and finds it hard to accept that mothers can be mean too. Truth is, some of them are.

When I think of my own childhood, it was way, way, way, way better than hers in every possible way – schooling, clothes, food, games, fun, and affection – EVERY aspect. Sometimes, I sit staring into empty space, thinking of the futility of my mother’s sacrifices and hardships. Why is life so hard for some? My eyes warm up; tears cloud my vision and slowly trickle down my cheeks in a feeble attempt to right the wrong. They sting my cheeks. They are worthless. But I can’t stop them. They don’t listen to me, my voice of reason, to my pleading, to let go, that it’s over. They choke my throat and there is a numbing pain in my head. How do I stop it? How do I move on?

I feel guilt and shame when I complain of silly things. I complain Sathya didn’t call me from office to check how I was. I complain Tanvi didn’t finish the work I had told her ten times. I complain and I complain. The tears mock me. They drip down and wet my heart. They soak it with remorse. A heart of gratitude - wouldn’t that be a good enough reward for the life I have received? The heart softens, momentarily. The tears have drenched it. It is warm and moist now. I turn my head and look at the pictures of my family. I smile - immensely thankful.

I have been blessed - for nothing. My mother has been cursed - for nothing.

Is it karma? The only explanation my mother gave was maybe she was a monster in her previous life. She was paying her dues in this one and trying to secure a better life in her next.

The only explanation I can give for my good life is I am reaping what my mother sowed. Her kindness has earned me a decent life. Like Ajay Devgan says in a movie, “Dua mei yaad rakhna”, I guess there are people who remember me in their prayers.

Letter to My First Born

2017-07-12T23:57:00.000-07:00

Dear Tanvi

This is the second time I am writing to you. I had written to you, once earlier, about how I had met your father.

I had also expressed, in a post not addressed to you, what I had felt, for the longest time, with respect to having a second child. The only reason I could think of, back then, to go for a second child was to be able to give you a sibling, for companionship.

But all three of us, Sathya, you and I, were not in favor of a second one, particularly YOU. You always said, very categorically, that you didn’t want any sister or brother. You commanded both of us to love you and only you. You insisted that you alone were enough for us. You were firm in your opinion that you had enough friends to play with and I needn’t worry about companionship issues. You knew you didn't want to be bothered with helping clean a new "dirty" baby. This was how you felt as recently as the beginning of this year.

Your reactions had vindicated us somehow. See, she doesn’t want, then why should we? She is enough for us. So, for ten long years, I was on IUCD because none of us wanted a new member in the family,

And now, when you are 11 years old, we learnt that you are going to be a big sister! Next year!

You have always had friends of all age groups – Surya and Siddharth the brothers are just 4 and 6 years old, Sonith is 5 years old. I have seen you playing with even smaller kids in the park. But the two weeks of summer vacations spent in your grandfather’s apartment complex – meeting and playing with Vedanth has stirred something in you. You have spent hours playing with little Vedanth, who runs to you and roars with laughter. You actually told me, when you heard from me the 'shocking news' that I was carrying, "Amma, keep the baby. I don’t care if it is a boy or a girl or a transgender" (wait, where did you learn that word!!!). From a child who was very adamant about not wanting a sibling to now this seemingly grown up, mature girl who is very clear about keeping the baby - THAT is the change that prompted us to realize that this baby is a welcome addition. What has changed is now YOU WANT a sibling.

And I am feeling more convinced, as each day passes, that this awkward gap of almost twelve years between your sibling and you is actually a blessing. (Someone remarked, hearing about my ‘accidental’ pregnancy, “Jisko Aana Hota Hai Woh Aake Hi Rahega” - One who has to come, will come, no matter what). If I had had the second child earlier and by all probability I would have had if I hadn’t been on IUCD for so long, I would have had to take care of two young children. And that would have driven me nuts. Now that you are on your own, independent and strong, I can concentrate on the new baby. Your strong desire to have the baby has pushed me to cherish this unexpected pregnancy.

The reason to go for a second child this late in life (at 40) is because I can see you taking care of another life. And I want to see it. I want to lie down and look at my two children, cuddling and playing with each other. I can see myself as a mother hen as I write this. I can also relive all the moments with you and take you through your own development, with this baby. Taking care of an expectant mother and a new born – you are about to shoulder a huge responsibility, my dear. I hope and pray, quite selfishly so, you are going to be the mother I missed during my first pregnancy/delivery. You are going to be my source of strength and motivation that I lacked earlier. Last time, I remember constantly consoling myself with the lines of the famous Hindi song that went “Jiska Koi Nai Uska Toh Khuda Hai Yaaro” (God is with the person who has no one else). I was alone and God was with me then. This time, he has said he is busy handling more critical cases and has left me in your care. You are God’s own assistant to me.

Love you,

Amma

Touristy

2017-06-23T08:50:00.000-07:00

Someone once remarked to me, right after a trip, “Oh I see that you did all the touristy things?” That was not the first time. I have heard this before – from acquaintances, strangers and even close friends. Many have said this. I am sure you too, at some point, would have heard this same retort from someone in your circle.

What is this “touristy” thing? I checked the dictionary to see the meaning. It says “it relates to or visited by tourists” and “often used to suggest tawdriness or lack of authenticity”. Oh so that is an underhand comment meant to mock your style of travel.

Let us look at the logistics of a trip. Food, cost of transport, accommodation, clothes, camera, sight-seeing costs – that’s a whole bunch of expenses a person who travels has to factor in, excluding the planning that goes on weeks in advance. One has to be decently rich or at least willing to spend one’s hard-earned money on travel for any trip to become a reality.

So tell me, if you are going on a three day trip to another country, spending nearly 50,000, what are you most likely to do or see? Which fool will sit in a cafe and watch life pass by? Would you too not do the same ‘touristy’ things that you sneer others about? Or at least, see the most frequented and talked about paces first and then if time and money permits, explore lesser known places. Spending so much money for so little time in a new city or a new country, one of course would like to see the most famous places first.

Only a person who lives there would go around exploring the lesser known places. That is because having lived so long there he would have heard about it from someone. Or if you are a super wealthy traveller or travelling on company money then yeah you might skip the more famous places for the quieter ones just to relax and be away from the crowd. Or if you are a solo backpacker, you would again focus your energies on few select places not frequented by more regular people. In all cases, you would either have the luxury of time or money.

I don’t think any normal person, by which I mean a middle class, working class family like my own, who has saved money and planned for the trip for months in advance, will go to a new place and choose to sit in a remote corner of the town just so he can boast about saying “oh, I don’t do the touristy things.” I mean, who goes to Singapore for the first time ever, and doesn’t see the famous Night Safari or the Jurong Bird Park. Or who goes to Mysore and doesn’t see The Palace, the Zoo or the Chamundi Hills? Or who goes to Sikkim and doesn’t visit a Buddhist monastery or eat momos? Who goes to Chennai and doesn’t spend some time in the Marina Beach? Who goes to Kanyakumari and doesn’t visit the Vivekananda Memorial? Or who goes to Jaipur and doesn't see the Hawa Mahal?Is that touristy for you?

If it is, I really want to peep into your travel diary. I want to see what were the things you did and places you visited when you first visited a city with your saved up money. Two places in India that we as a family have gone repeatedly are Mysore and Udupi. Each time we have explored a different facet of the city, the little nukes and corners, the lesser known eateries that serve absolutely delicious local dishes. But the first time we went to both these places, we visited the Zoo, the Palace, Chamundi Hills and so on. They are a must to see places in Mysore. And if that counts as “touristy” “tawdry” or lacking in imagination, that is only because, may be, You haven’t gone out enough. So, pack your bags, loosen your purse strings and go visit a new place. And then we will sit and talk of all the things You did “differently.”