recipe

She is sitting on the kitchen countertop, watching me cut some green chillies.

“Can we make something with just chilly? We will call it Chilly Chilly!”

I have been accused of teaching too much, now have to pay the price.

“What are you listening to?”

“Recipe”

“You can’t cook even curd rice without listening to Veena?”

Inspiration hits her suddenly.

“Ok, I will write down the recipe as you make it. Amma said I can do it myself sometime.”

She brings a notebook. There are few recipes in it already, copied from her various grandmas. Is this how recipes are handed down through generations? She wrote down the account of what happened so far and caught up. 

“Put cheenachatti on stove, turn on stove, pour oil. What next?”

“Mustard. Hing. Red chillies.”

“How much mustard? 1 pinch, 2 pinch, 3 pinch.. are you trying to confuse me?”

“No, it is just manodharmam”

“I just have to go and come back. Will something happen meanwhile?”

“No”

Now I have to wait for her to come back to continue. She loves almost everything I make, which is a blessing. She is going to be a big foodie, I can tell, by the way she dips her nose literally into the kadai every time.

…

Later in the day, the notebook is on my table, with a new recipe from her great grandmother. Plan for the weekend.     

our tribe

Someone told me today that he wanted to work in a team of high intelligence people. While we should not suffer fools, I think there might have been narrow thinking or understanding behind this. While we have always heard of the role of heart and gut, I recently learned that it is legitimate to consider heart and gut as other two kinds of minds – with neurons, even though vastly less in number compared to brain. When my friend said intelligent, it was one dimensional – he meant logical / mathematical intelligence. But there are others – linguistic, emotional, kinesthetic etc. We all know people who are musically gifted, superlative athletes or who can speak seven languages.

Netflix (poster boy of the times) CEO was quoted as saying his team should be like a sports team rather than a family, that they should ultimately win. While intention of a business is to make money at the end of the day, can it be done in an environment that is like a family that has strong bonds, where each one has other’s back? Manchester United had a coach for decades, players who entered the training academy as boys and retired as captain of the senior team with entire stadium applauding their retirement matches. At the same time, Real Madrid where coaches and players are continuously bought and sold to get the best in the world may not be winning every season.

I would rather work for entire life in a team of compassionate, curious, honest and humble people with good values. How great it will be if we find such a tribe and be set for life?

purpose

What’s next? Is that question bothering more people these days? Does the pandemic and lockdown have anything to do with it? Traditional office work provided social connection, shared goals of a community and friendships. Since the lockdown, social connection moved online and the work was reduced to its bare essentials - accomplishing well defined goals. When stripped to bare bones, are we now seeing work for what it was? Are we searching for more meaning and purpose now? I think we all have lot of time on our hands to explore this question, in isolation and without distractions. I feel not finding satisfactory answers could lead people to take more chances, atleast to break out and see what else is possible.

Beyond questioning the fundamental meaning of work, there are other side effects too. With no chance to just bump into someone, unless we express multi fold compared to earlier, it might be difficult to understand others and to be understood. “Serendipitous conversations” and “watercooler moments” were phrases heard recently. People who were expressive in person are reduced to sterilized, measured, careful statements in chat, email or phone. Phone conversations are for a specific need. Agenda-less discussions about anything under the sun, aided by a coffee, are missing. It is just like the saying that long distance relationships are doomed to fail. Only remedy in these times seems to be to try harder to reach out more without a specific purpose, say more than usual, be vulnerable and share first.

Group of people could slowly drift apart – the strong ties of shared goal, common purpose, feeling of going on an adventurous journey together is coming apart. Unless we continuously refine the purpose, repeat it and reassure, there may not be anything in common to fight for.

I hope the end result, when we come out of this pandemic, will be good for all. Ties that could not hold might be broken for the sake of new beginnings. I hope more people will find new answers to the meaning of life (or work) too.

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1. I had come across this towards the beginning of this crisis – “In a crisis - an opportunity for a more meaningful life”. Was reminded of this due to another conversation today.

stories

I have been thinking for some time that most stories are extreme approximations of actual lives lived. Details glossed over, unpleasant and embarrassing parts left out and moments of doubts and anxiety omitted. I heard an accomplished film script writer saying no one wants to know about the boring life of a protagonist -  if they show him waking up, going through the motions and getting ready, audience will lose patience. But who will ever see the hero waking up, just having dreamt a bad dream, lie awake thinking about the day ahead and pointlessness of the job he has to do, but still make the effort to get up and put himself through the paces. That itself should be heroic enough. Sometimes we come across an ordinary moment from daily life written up in a book and think that is the first time someone else had expressed that exact thought which you always had and never told anyone.

I heard someone say that we should tell our stories so that for someone somewhere it might become validation that such thoughts are normal and such lives are okay. But it takes enormous courage to say it as it is. I hope I can express myself in words that are true to what I feel, have courage to be seen and never judge others when they do the same. Without being a cynic, know also that I might not have heard the full story still, that it is hard for another to say it and make allowance for the same.

1. I came across this passage in the book “If on a winter’s night a traveler” that triggered above thought – “Do you want to demonstrate that the living also have a wordless language, with which books cannot be written but which can only be lived, second by second, which cannot be recorded or remembered? First comes this wordless language of living bodies then the words books are written with, and attempts to translate that first language are vain…”

2. In what I think of as déjà vu, happened to come across this facebook post which was talking exactly about untold stories. 

3. There are 115 days left in 2020. It is one of the weirdest year I have ever lived through and it is not yet over. Rather than getting rid of this year and deciding new “new year resolutions”, I thought why not start now itself? What if I take on a 100 days challenge – read atleast 25 pages a day, write journal or blog daily, exercise for 30 mins and cook a meal. At the very minimum, it will distract me from all the other worries and anxieties. I have 15 days cushion too to make up for any lapses.

free mixer

It is her birthday, as per the birth star. She is a teenager now. 

To celebrate, she is baking an egg less cake with her grand mother, from a youtube recipe. 

She is making whipping cream from some powder and milk.  After she and her mother tried with the mixer where the crank wheel needs to be turned as fast as you can, they turned to me. I was grumbling that this is enough after a minute. Then she showed me a video of someone mixing the cream - it was a hand mixer which was automatic, battery operated maybe. I said see, we should have had that than this much effort. 

She says she has "a energy efficient, climate friendly, low cost - free mixer" - me! That too came with buy one get one free. 

I said I had enough, get it done with your mother. 

She says - should have expected only this much from the free one. And gives it to her mother saying - the one bought with money will work better!