Publish with Us

Follow Penguin

Follow Penguinsters

Follow Penguin Swadesh

© 2020 Penguin India

Category: Excerpts

Exploring Career 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0: Which Path Suits You?

Posted on by prathod

Ever thought about how jobs used to be and how they are now? Abhijit Bhaduri’s ‘Career 3.0’ shows us the way careers are changing. It’s like going from having just one skill for a job to juggling three or more skills in different places. So let’s take a peek into this shift in the work world and find out which career path suits you best.

 

Career 3.0
Career 3.0 || Abhijit Bhaduri

***

Career 1.0: Monetizing a Single Skill in one Ecosystem

In Career 1.0, individuals are focused on monetizing a single skill that they have developed through training or experience. This may be a skill that they have formally studied or learned through on-the-job experience. Stable workplaces with relatively few changes offer opportunities for a person to continue pursuing a career with a single employer or doing the same work for different employers. Professional sports is a good example of Career 1.0 where a single skill is monetized in one ecosystem as the rules of a game don’t really change. A professional singer spends a lifetime using one skill in one ecosystem.

 

Career 2.0: Monetizing a Second Skill in Two Ecosystems

In Career 2.0, individuals are monetizing a second skill, in a distinctly different ecosystem. This second skill may be something that they have formally studied or trained in, or it may be a skill that they have developed through personal interests or hobbies. A college professor who writes a bestselling book or the CEO who serves on the board of a start-up is operating in a second ecosystem.

The skills gained in an ecosystem may not be useful to succeed in the second ecosystem. That is no different from the accountant who performs as a stand-up comedian on weekends or the coder who drives an Uber to make a few extra bucks. They are all using a second skill, in a new ecosystem in a Career 2.0 model. Earning money from a skill shows how much it is worth. Having another way to make money and growing it makes people feel good about their abilities. They can do both or choose one.

 

Career 3.0: Monetizing Three or More Skills in Different Ecosystems

In Career 3.0, individuals are monetizing three or more skills in different ecosystems. I once met an accountant who works for a large multinational corporation (MNC). He spends his weekends cooking for a restaurant in the neighbourhood whose customers love his curries and cakes. He also plays the keyboard and drums and used to play for a band when he was a student.
The band were so successful that for a while he thought of doing that fulltime. Laughing, he adds, ‘My problem is that I enjoy being an accountant as much as I enjoy being a chef and a musician. Why limit myself?’

 

Paychex, an American firm providing human resources services, found in a survey that 40 per cent of workers in the US have multiple jobs, and half of Gen Z workers are splitting their time between three or more employers. They call it ‘polyworking’. Meanwhile, 33 per cent of millennials are holding down three or more jobs, compared to 28 per cent of baby boomers and 23 per cent of Gen X professionals.

 

There are a few key characteristics that define Career 3.0:

Curiosity: Career 3.0 comes naturally to people who are curious. They will often experiment and learn something new just to be able to figure it out. They teach themselves by watching videos, listening to experts, finding apprenticeships and attending classes. Most of all the learning by being unafraid of failure. When an opportunity comes their way, they are often prepared to grab it. These are people who are comfortable with skills that are often seen to be at two ends of a spectrum—e.g., science and coding both demand logic and are polar opposites of fields like humanities and languages. Curious people often enjoy learning something even though there is no apparent use for it. Quiz contests often bring together people who are curious about everything from Greek mythology to astronomy to sports.

 

Adaptability: Monetizing multiple skills requires adaptability, as individuals may need to shift between different areas of work depending on the demands of each skill. Being comfortable with ambiguity and being flexible go together. An unpredictable world that is constantly evolving needs people who are comfortable with uncertainty. It is much like driving through thick fog. The driver navigates the road ahead one metre at a time.

 

Mindset: Career 3.0 needs the mindset of a VC who has to quickly figure out whether the idea being pitched is a big idea that has potential—an opportunity they must not miss, or if it is a passing fad. It often means that the VC has to place multiple bets knowing that the majority of the investments will fail but that the one that succeeds will more than make up for the rest. It needs the ability to take risks and walk on a path less travelled.

 

Overall, the three career archetypes—Career 1.0, Career 2.0, and Career 3.0—represent different approaches to monetizing skills and building a career. While each approach has its own benefits and drawbacks, the key is to find the right balance that works for an individual’s unique strengths and goals.

 

***

Get your copy of Career 3.0 by Abhijit Bhaduri wherever books are sold.

Gurcharan Das’s Journey to a More Compassionate Self​

Posted on by prathod

What does it mean to understand ourselves and become more compassionate? In this excerpt from Another Sort of Freedom by Gurcharan Das, we explore these deep questions. Let’s think about who we are, how our identity changes, and how we can live with more kindness and empathy beyond the confines of egotism.

Another Sort of Freedom
Another Sort of Freedom || Gurucharan Das

***

‘When God is gone, how do you give meaning to your life?’ my mother had once asked. I had failed to give her a satisfactory answer. But I had an inkling that meaning emerges from pursuing something bigger than yourself. I had experienced it as a spirit of lightness. It usually happened when I was deeply absorbed in my writing. I wasn’t even there – the fingers just kept hitting the keys of my laptop and words kept appearing on the screen. Tendulkar had described the same feeling when he was approaching his last double century. He said the cricket ball had become so big that the bat just had to hit the ball. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the psychologist, calls it ‘flow’. The problem with this feeling is that it is temporary. The big question was: could I extend it to the rest of the day, to the rest of my life? Could self-forgetting become an enduring attitude of living lightly?

 

Such questions emerged early in my life when I first encountered David Hume’s Treatise on Human Nature at Harvard. I became aware of the stream of thoughts in my head. A decade later, the voices first appeared involuntarily in my early thirties. These mental experiments continued over the years, and they have convinced me that I could only be sure of the existence of momentary thoughts, not who was having them. Like Hume, I looked for an author but I could not find him. Was I then merely a fictional composite of my momentary selves? If so, how was I able to negotiate from one thought to the next one? What provided continuity between my individual moments, I concluded, were my memories, my desires, and my beliefs. But these mental entities also depended on the temporary roles I was playing, the masks I was wearing. They were, thus, not reliable sources of my permanent existence.

 

All this led to growing scepticism about my permanent identity. I concluded that my I-ness was a fraud of sorts, a sort of fictional narrator that held the story of my life together. I have been much influenced by Donald J, and by Nagarjuna’s Buddhist idea of anatta, ‘no-self’. When the ‘I’ got busted, I was hugely unnerved. I could not live without a concept of personhood. But I still needed to get on with my life. Of all the emotions I possessed, the most overwhelming was a deep concern for my own survival. I still needed an author, an object of my self-concern. If it didn’t exist, how would I be responsible for my actions? Not just in a courtroom but in my conscience. For all practical purposes, I needed a stable concept of a person.

 

As time went by, I gradually became resigned to the absence of a permanent ‘I’ and I underwent a subtle change. I began to view my identity as a useful fiction, a practical necessity, a minimal self. I became a little more detached, seeing through the many roles I was playing in my daily life. My day to day life, however, did not change. I did not suddenly become selfless or philanthropic. Self-concern still defined my attitude towards myself. But I felt less and less at the centre of the universe – I was just one amongst others. My minimal self, in other words, was able to extend the same concern a little more easily to others. As a result, I began to feel a continuum or sameness with other selves. I did not hanker constantly after premium treatment for myself.

 

It was this awakening that raised a hope. If my minimal self could more easily identify with the selves of others, could I become more empathetic, a more compassionate person? Could I overcome some of the worst, egotistical defects in my character, and liberate myself from bondages that had nagged me all my life? I had lived my life in the constant belief that my interests trumped everyone else’s. And my behaviour had been consistently egocentric. There were exceptions from time to time — a few early moments of awakening! The obvious one being the pencil box incident in kindergarten. When Ayan was about to be wrongly punished for stealing the rich kid’s pencil box, he had cried out, appealed to me. I remained silent. My feeling of shame was followed by profound concern for Ayan, which has never left me. A few months later, I had experienced this in a different way during the Partition violence. On this occasion, I felt a wave of empathy for the handsome Muslim policeman on the railway platform just as he was stabbed to death by two Sikh boys. I bumped first into Ayan and then into the Partition, both without warning, and they pulled me out of my egocentric self, at least for a while.

***

Get your copy of Another Sort of Freedom by Gurcharan Das wherever books are sold.

The Bengal Connection in Hindol Sengupta’s ‘Soul And Sword’

Posted on by prathod

Discover the fascinating journey of modern Bengali literature in this exclusive excerpt from Soul and Sword by Hindol Sengupta. Explore the profound influence of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s renowned work, ‘Ananda Math,’ on the socio-political landscape and its role in shaping the term ‘Hindutva,’ marking a pivotal moment in India’s cultural and political evolution.

Soul And Sword
Soul And Sword || Hindol Sengupta

***

The arrival of the printing press in Bengal in 1777 created a new genre of popular literature in the Bengali language by men who had been educated in British-founded institutions and trained to embrace ideas in English. The classic example was Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, now considered the father of modern Bengali literature. Chattopadhyay was among the earliest students at Presidency College and the University of Calcutta, both explicitly set up to impart English language education among the locals by the British.

Chattopadhyay went on to become a civil servant in the British administration, rising not only to the high rank of deputy magistrate but also receiving major honours such as the Companion of the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire (CMEOIE) in 1894 and the ultimate social prize of that time, the title of Rai Bahadur in 1891.

 

But it was Chattopadhyay who wrote the book that in a sense started what is now known as agni yug or the age of fire where the British consistently faced armed revolt and rebellion led usually by young men and women who had been trained in the best British institutions, many of them even in higher education in England. Ananda Math, which can be loosely translated as the ‘shrine of happiness’, was set against a real-life famine in Bengal caused by administrative malpractice and corruption under Company rule.

 

It told the story of a band of warrior monks fighting a guerrilla warfare from the forests of Bengal against the East India Company (and their puppet, the Muslim nawab) and its usurious taxes, and robbing the Company and the Nawab to feed the desperately hungry. Ananda Math had an anthem sung by the ascetics in praise of their motherland called ‘Vande Mataram’ (All Hail the Mother). It quickly became the war cry for the nationalistic stirrings that were emerging as the age of fire dawned. Revolutionaries cried ‘Vande Mataram’ as they bombed British vehicles and buildings while fighting pitched gun battles with the colonial police, and sang it loudly while marching up the gallows. It was a favourite of Mahatma Gandhi and was adopted as the national song of independent India.

 

Little commented upon or studied, though, is one major fact about Ananda Math. It is the earliest text to mention the word ‘Hindutva’.5 Tucked away somewhere in the middle of the story, there is a sentence in the third part of the book that, translated, reads, ‘Because Hindu dharma was disappearing, many Hindus were eager to reestablish Hindutva.’ There could be many reasons why this has not been commented upon earlier. First, even though Bankim is known to have increasingly worked on Hindu identity in his writing in this period, he never really returned to explore this word in detail, preferring instead to talk in terms of dharma, or the Hindu term for the moral law of the universe. His treatise on the subject published in 1888 is called Dharmatattva, which seeks to answer questions on the fundamentals of Hindu ethics. Second, one of the best-known translations of Ananda Math, by the Cambridge professor of Hinduism Julius Lipner, translates this sentence without using the word ‘Hindutva’, or for that matter ‘Hindu dharma’. In Lipner’s translation, it reads, ‘Because the Hindu rule of life had disappeared, many Hindus were keen to establish a sense of Hindu identity.’ Lipner prefers to give a rough translation of the phrase ‘Hindu dharma’, which is used by Chattopadhyay and translates Hindutva as ‘Hindu identity’, possibly to explain these terms lucidly to non-Indian audiences. Since the word ‘Hindutva’ is politically loaded, Lipner may have avoided its use too, preferring to offer an expanded translation.

Lipner, though, has written about the kind of vision Chattopadhyay offered in Ananda Math, and otherwise, about the Hindu world view and politics.

 

‘This was not the traditional Hinduism that tends to be studied in scholarly introductions to Hinduism, nor indeed the kind of popular Hinduism practised by ordinary people in the towns and villages. It was rather a reinvented model, taking its cue from the thinking of the Hindu elite of the time who had been involved for a considerable period— outstandingly from the time of Rammohan Roy in the first decades of the 19th century—in a kind of ideological dialectic with tendentious British reconstructions of Hindu religious culture. As Bankim formulated his model, he played an important role in imparting new dimensions and facets to the neo-Hinduism of the age. At the core of Bankim’s thinking in this regard was the concept of the Eternal Code, or sanatana dharma. The idea was that there is an eternal Hindu dharma or way of righteous living which governs all aspects of existence—cultural, social, political, religious—in terms of which the Hindus would flourish in the modern age. This dharma is the fruit of the discipline of what he calls the inward knowledge: an introspective mode of awareness Hindu philosophers and savants, especially Vedantins, have distinctively and expertly developed from time immemorial. But this inward knowledge had been lost through neglect and the vagaries of time. As a result, Hindu civilization has suffered decline, and Hindus have been subjugated by outsiders for a long period. The advent of the British—their mastery of the world of sense experience, which for Bankim was the fruit of the outward knowledge—provided Hindus with the opportunity to access anew the inward knowledge. For a judicious grasp of the former led to an understanding of the latter. After all, the inward knowledge was to establish the conditions externally on which a new Hindu civilization, adapted to modern times, was
to be constructed.’

***

Get a copy of Soul and Sword by Hindol Sengupta wherever books are sold.

Gulzar’s ‘Triveni’: A Confluence of Poetry and Meaning

Posted on by prathod

Explore the world of poetic creation with Gulzar as he brings forth his latest masterpiece, Triveni. Just like the meeting point of three rivers reveals hidden secrets, his Triveni poems bring a twist to each couplet, making it a captivating journey. But that’s not all – discover Neha R. Krishna‘s unique attempt to transform Triveni into Japanese Tanka poetry.

Get ready to be spellbound!

 

Triveni
Triveni || Gulzar, Neha R. Krishna

***

Triveni

I was rowing in words and meters of poetry when I happened to invent the form of Triveni. It’s a short poem of three lines. The first two lines make a complete thought, like a couplet of a ghazal. But the third line adds an extra dimension, which is hidden or out of sight in the first two lines.

Triveni ends revealing the hidden thought, which changes the perspective or extends the thought of the couplet. The name Triveni refers to the confluence of three distinct streams or rivers at Prayag. The deep green water of Jamuna, meet the golden Ganga, and hidden from view is the mythical Sarswati, flowing quietly beneath.

‘Triveni’ is to reveal ‘Saraswati’, poetically.

देर तक आस्माँ पे उड़ते रहे
इक परिन्दे के बाल-व-पर सारे

बाज़ अपना शिकार ले के गया !

 

All the fur and feathers of a bird
Kept flying in the sky for a long time

The falcon swooped away with its prey!

Neha, a young competent poet, was rowing in Triveni. She wished to translate Triveni in a Japanese form of poetry called Tanka. I felt inquisitive. She has explained it in her translator’s note. I hope you too feel as inquisitive while reading it. I found it very interesting.

 -Gulzar

***

 

Translator’s Note

Tanka is a short lyric poem. Various poetic elements like mood, theme, nature, characters, etc., are posed in a particular structure that give Tanka its body and soul. With this concept note, I am addressing the fundamental techniques of writing a Tanka, this will also assist the readers to comprehend and appreciate the structure.

 

What Is Tanka?
Tanka is a lyrical poem, a short verse, a short song. It is one of the oldest forms, originating in Japan, in the seventh century. A traditional Japanese Tanka has thirty-one morae or sounds that follow a 5-7-5-7-7 sound structure.

 

The Difference between Traditional Tanka and Contemporary Tanka
Tanka in contemporary English is more flexible and does not adhere to the traditional 5-7-5-7-7 syllabic structure or the pattern of short/long/short/long/long line format.

 

Why Transcreating Triveni into Tanka?
The aesthetic sense, the grace of cadence and the rich imagery of Tanka appear inclined to Triveni. Even in Triveni, images are juxtaposed with the technique of link and shift. Just like any lyrical Tanka poem, Triveni can also be composed and sung. The length of images of Triveni fits well in Tanka as it gives more space to retain the multi-layered essence. Triveni’s L3 strongly adds to or changes the narration of L1 and L2. In the same way, Tanka has a very strong and unexpected L5.
There is musicality in these short poems even though they never rhyme, which allows them to be enriched with a rustic edge, conjuring up a magical and musical image.

***

उड़ के जाते हुए पंछी ने बस इतना देखा
देर तक हाथ हिलाती रही वह शाख़ फ़िज़ा में

अलविदा कहती थी या पास बुलाती थी उसे?

 

bird leaves
while the branch sways
in the wind—
urging it to come back
or bidding a goodbye?

***

साँवले साहिल पे गुलमोहर का पेड़
जैसे लैला की माँग में सिन्दूर

धरम बदल गया बेचारी का

 

a gulmohar tree
at dusk—
as Laila wears vermilion
her religion
allegedly changes

***

सब पे आती है, सब की बारी है
मौत मुनसिफ़ है, कम-ओ-बेश नहीं

ज़िन्दगी सब पे क्यों नही क्यों आती?

 

to all it comes
everyone has their turn,
death is just
neither less nor more—
why doesn’t life happen to all?

***

काश आये कोई शायर की सुने
शे’र के दर्द से मर जायेगा यह

चाँदनी फाँक रहा था शब भर!

 

wishing . . . someone
to come listen to the poet
he will die
from the pain of a couplet—
all night was grazing moonlight

***

रात, परेशां सड़को पर इक डोलत  साया
खम् से टकर बे ा के गिरा और फ़ौत हुआ

अंधेरे की नाजायज़ औलाद थी कोई!

 

a wiggly shadow
upset on the street at night
hits a pole, falls and dies—
must be an illicit
offspring of the darkness

***

Get your copy of Triveni by Gulzar wherever books are sold

Can Love Conquer It All? Find Out in Aisha Sarwari’s ‘Heart Tantrums’

Posted on by prathod

Come along on a deeply personal journey as we delve into the pages of Aisha Sarwari‘s Heart Tantrums. In this touching story, explore the complexities of forgiveness and love all in the shadow of a cancer diagnosis. Aisha’s words will prompt you to reflect on the profound depths of our own relationships and the strength of the human spirit.

Don’t miss this emotional excerpt – scroll to read and be moved by the power of love and forgiveness.

Heart Tantrums
Heart Tantrums || Aisha Sarwari

***

Is it possible to forgive someone who has cancer? To permit yourself anger against a brain tumour cancer patient in the first place.

It is ghastly the way ugly and messy parts of life happened to us when we should have still been in the rainbows-and-butterflies phase of our youth.

Then again, why should we be exempt from the games nature and fate play by interchanging wrath and gifts?

It was a winter’s day and we were on our way home from a dinner at a journalist friend’s place where an ex-PM and three former ministers were also present. We had been sitting around the fire, talking about how messed up their political party is.

 

It was almost midnight and the moon was missing. This was Yasser’s chemo week and his anti-seizure meds were three hours late. I noticed he started behaving oddly. On our car window, the flower sellers’ roses and jasmine bracelets were wilted. They were imploring us to buy the last of their stock for the night, in exchange for a prayer, of course. They said, May your marriage last a million years. We didn’t buy anything from them, but they stood there pressing their faces against our car window, beseechingly.

 

Distracted, I stopped the car a bit too close to the one ahead  of me at the traffic light.

 

Yasser looked like he was trying to not say something. Then he said it: ‘There should be a distance of one car between us and the car ahead of ours,’ said Yasser, looking apprehensive and also half-ready for my mood. I hate that he still doesn’t trust me behind the wheel. Just the other day, we had had another fight about teaching Zoe to drive an old car rather than a new car. He obviously wanted her to learn in an older car and I felt she should have an automatic gear car with power steering.

 

‘I’ve been driving for twenty-five years, I think I’m okay,’ I rolled my eyes.

‘But look, it’s dangerously close to that car’s bumper,’ Yasser replied.

‘That’s because neither car is moving,’ I countered. ‘Can you please just drive carefully?’

‘Is the car all you care about?’ I snapped, my heart already heavy with dread and anger.

‘The car is at risk this way,’ he said.

‘The car is at risk. You are such an amazing husband, to the car!’ I half-accused, half-vindicated.

‘You can do whatever you want to the car when I’m gone,’ he said flatly.

‘Can you not?’ I pleaded. (Pause)

I wanted to kick myself for always fighting about the car.

Things got real very fast. I wanted to retract my anger.

The lights turned green and I drove on, slower than usual, a wide berth between our vehicle and the car ahead.

‘You have to be prepared, Aishi,’ he said quietly.

I wanted to say so much, but instead I held his hand. There was cold sweat on it. Yasser has cold sweat on his hands when he’s unwell or when he has an emotional seizure.

His hand got colder and he refused to open it for mine.

‘Can you please drive with both hands, thank you?’ he said finally.

I felt a cocktail of anger and fear shooting up inside me again—almost grief. Yet I held my peace.

He moved his hand away from mine—clammy fingers peeling away from my soft, warm ones, trying to convey a meaning.

My hand lay unreciprocated on his lap, like a damp squib—a letter in a bottle smashed against the cliffs. I put my hand where it belonged, gripping the steering wheel with both hands.

‘I forgive you, Yasser, and I hope you forgive me too. I really thought love would be enough,’ I said to the road ahead of me.

***

Get your copy of Heart Tantrums by Aisha Sarwari wherever books are sold.

From Rome with Love: Jhumpa Lahiri’s Roman Stories Unveiled

Posted on by prathod

Jhumpa Lahiri is back, and this time she’s taking you to Rome to savor some delicious Roman Stories. Lahiri beautifully captures the dynamics of various gatherings, bringing together people from different backgrounds and countries. Immerse yourself in the allure of these Roman Stories – grab your copy now!

 

 

Roman Stories
Roman Stories || Jhumpa Lahiri

***

I should note straightaway that P’s parties took place every year at her house, on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, during the mild winters we typically enjoy in this city. Unlike the slog of other winter holidays spent with family, always arduous, P’s birthday, at the beginning of the new year, was an unpredictable gathering, languorous and light. I looked forward to the commotion of the crowded house, the pots of water on the verge of boiling, the smartly dressed wives always ready to lend a hand in the kitchen. I waited for the first few glasses of prosecco before lunch to go to my head, sampled the various appetizers. Then I liked to join the other adults out on the patio for a little fresh air, to smoke a cigarette and comment on the soccer game the kids played without interruption in the yard.
The atmosphere at P’s party was warm but impersonal, owing to the number of people invited, who knew one another either too well or not at all. You’d encounter two distinct groups, like two opposing currents that crisscross in the ocean, forming a perfectly symmetrical shape, only to cancel each other out a moment later. On one side there were those like me and my wife, old friends of P and her husband who came every year, and on the other our counterparts: foreigners who’d show up for a few years, or sometimes just once.

 

They came from different countries, for work or for love, for a change of scenery, or for some other mysterious reason. They were a nomadic population that piqued my interest— prototypes, perhaps, for one of my future stories, the kind of people I’d have the chance to meet and casually observe only at P’s house. In no time at all they’d manage to visit nearly all parts of our country, tackling the smaller towns on the weekends, skiing our mountains in February, and swimming in our crystalline seas in July. They’d pick up a decent smattering of our language, adapt to the food, forgive the daily chaos. Overnight they’d become minor experts in the historical events
we’d memorized as kids and had all but forgotten—which emperor succeeded which, what they accomplished. They had a strategic relationship with this city without ever fully being a part of it, knowing that sooner or later their trip would end and one day they’d be gone.

 

They were so different from the group I belonged to: those of us born and raised in Rome, who bemoaned the city’s alarming decline but could never leave it behind. The type of people for whom just moving to a new neighborhood in their thirties—going to a new pharmacy, buying the newspaper from a different newsstand, finding a table at a different coffee bar—was the equivalent of departure, displacement, complete rupture.

 

P was an old friend of my wife’s. They’d known each other for many years, before we started dating, having grown up on the same block lined with grand palazzi. As kids they played together until dark; they went to the same elementary school and then the same challenging high school; they wandered off to buy contraband cigarettes from a shady guy behind a piazza that was quiet in those days. They went to the same university and, after graduating, rented a fifth-floor apartment in the thick of the city center. In the summers they traveled together to other countries—experiences they still loved to talk about. Then matters of the heart intervened: my wife met me at a New Year’s Eve party, while P married a staid but friendly lawyer, a man of average height, good looking but slightly cross-eyed, and became a mother of four—three boys in quick succession, and then, like a simple but welcome dessert after a three-course meal, a girl.

 

Not long before the girl was born, P had a brush with death. A renowned doctor, always among those invited to the party, ended up saving her life with a tricky surgery. From then on, this yearly gathering became a constant: this sunny afternoon around her birthday, this merry, lavish lunch that brought together a wide range of people. P liked to fill the house and churn her friends together—relatives, neighbors, parents of her children’s classmates. She liked to throw open the door at least fifty times, offering something to eat, playing host, exchanging a few words with everyone.

 

It was thanks to my wife, then, that I went to that house once a year, a somewhat secluded house on the city’s outskirts. To get there, you took a curved, picturesque road, lined with cypresses and tumbling ivy. A road that swept you away, an urban road that ferried you toward the sea and put the frenzied city far behind. At a certain point there was a sharp right turn; you had to keep an eye out, it was easy to miss. After that it became a sort of residential labyrinth, with narrow, shaded, unpaved streets. You couldn’t see the houses, just tall gates and the house numbers etched in stone.

***

Get your copy of Roman Stories by Jhumpa Lahiri wherever books are sold.

The Gut-Brain Connection: Dimple Jangda’s Guide to Wellness

Posted on by prathod

Prepare to uncover the extraordinary abilities hidden within your gut in this exclusive sneak peek from ‘Heal Your Gut, Mind, and Emotions’ by Dimple Jangda. Learn how your gut holds the key to your intuition, emotions, and overall health, all explained in a way that’s easy to understand. Discover the incredible relationship between your gut and mind, and pick up practical tips to boost your well-being.

Read this exclusive excerpt to know more!

 

Heal your Gut, Mind and Emotions
Heal your Gut, Mind and Emotions || Dimple Jangda

***

I have a heart-feeling or a brain-feeling, said no one ever. It is a gut-feeling, gut intuition, or gut instinct that we all crave to experience and follow. Have you ever had a gut feeling about something, and when you followed what it was telling you, it was the best decision you made? But how is it possible for us to feel through the gut? Shouldn’t our feelings come from a purer place, like the heart centre, or from a more superior organ, like the brain?
We always follow our gut, because deep down even our body knows that, Intuition comes from the gut!

Many scientists call the gut ‘a second brain’. Some scientists have gone one step forward to say that the gut could be the biggest brain in the body, because there are more neurons lining the gut walls than there are neurons in the brain. Neurons are your information messengers that transmit information between different areas within the brain, and also between the brain and the nervous system connected to all other organs.

 

The gut is directly connected to the brain.
The gut has a direct hotline access to the brain. It sends messages to the brain every micromillion second. The vagus nerve, or the vagal nerve, plays a critical role here, controlling the gut–brain axis, carrying messages from the digestive system and organs to the brain and vice versa. It originates from the brainstem, passes through the neck and the thorax, down to the abdomen, and controls bodily functions such as digestion, heart rate, and the immune system. In fact, scientists have discovered that treating the vagus nerve allows us to treat even psychiatric disorders like depression, PTSD, and gastrointestinal disorders like indigestion and irritable bowel syndrome.

 

Sing, hum and chant your way to good gut health! The vagus nerve is the most sensitive and also the weakest nerve. It governs the respiratory system, digestive and neuron health, and sends messages to the gut on when to churn the food, what kind of enzyme production to keep, how much stomach acid levels to maintain, when to contract which muscle in order to push the food into the intestines. When these signals are strong or at a high vagal tone, it signifies healthy digestion and your ability to adapt to stress. But when these signals are weak, it signifies a low vagal tone and poor digestive health.

 

How can we strengthen the vagal nerve at home? The vagus nerve is also directly connected to your vocal cord and the muscles at the back of your throat. You can sing, hum, chant, gargle with a mixture of warm water, turmeric and salt, and do the Brahmi pranayama to strengthen the vagus nerve. You see, the morning prayer and songs our mothers made us sing were not just to please God, but to improve our gut health too. Chanting not only strengthens the vagal nerve and digestion, it also improves mental health by replacing any negative sounds in our brain with positive sounds. It improves focus, mental clarity, concentration and coordination.

 

The gut and brain have a 1:1 relationship.
It is almost like a marriage between two equals and, for a healthy relationship, both must have equal opportunities to express themselves. While you are busy relishing a piece of dessert, your brain sends messages to the gut on what kind of food is about to arrive, and what kind of digestive juices to prepare for the new guest. Meanwhile, your gut continuously sends feedback to the brain on how its feeling, when it is full, when to stop eating. However, when we sit with poor posture, the gut–brain axis gets impacted, causing delayed signals from the gut to the brain, leading to overeating. This is why, in many Asian cultures, elders emphasize the importance of sitting on the floor to eat. When you sit cross legged, it corrects the posture of your spine, allows your gut and brain to smoothly communicate, which prevents you from overeating.

 

Emotions are experienced in the gut
When you feel anxious, scared, excited, happy, nervous, where do you feel it? You first feel it in the gut. You experience butterflies fluttering in the stomach, and if you entered a place that holds a negative vibe, you would also have this gut-wrenching feeling that something is not right. And your gut is never wrong. It is like a compass installed inside of you to navigate smoothly through this world. Listen to it. Memories are also stored in the gut. When we eat a delicacy that is similar to our grandmother’s recipe, nostalgia hits.
Suddenly our mind gets flooded with all our childhood memories! In fact, advertisers will use that emotion to sell you packaged food products. That is because emotions are experienced through touch, taste, sound, and smell; and the sum of those emotions are stored in the form of memories. Your gut responds to those memories by reminding you exactly how you felt before. The neurons in your brain and your gut make memories by firing together, which allows you to recall multiple memories at the same time. So, emotions and memories are also stored in the gut, and you have an added reason to protect it.

Over 75 per cent of serotonin is released in the gut

 

Serotonin is the ‘feel-good hormone’ which plays a key role in fighting off anxiety and depression. When the gut is healthy and happy, it sends positive signals to the brain. But when the gut is unhealthy, it sends distress signals to the brain. When we eat a simple home-cooked meal that is made with fresh ingredients, lovingly prepared by our grandparent, parent, partner or even by us, we naturally feel satiated and happy due to the serotonin released in the gut. But when we eat reheated, packaged foods that have preservatives and a short shelf life, the feeling isn’t the same. The gut responds to the quality of the ingredients, the cooking methods and releases serotonin accordingly.

The way to everybody’s heart is through the gut!

***

Get your copy of Heal Your Gut, Mind & Emotions by Dimple Jangda wherever books are sold.

Tea and Tender Moments from Vivek Shanbhag’s Sakina’s Kiss

Posted on by prathod

Step into the colorful streets of Kodai, where a bright red cotton sari sets the scene for an intimate journey in  Sakina’s Kiss by Vivek Shanbhag and translated by Srinath Perur. A casual conversation over tea unveils stories, secrets, and a budding connection between two souls.

Read this exclusive excerpt that beautifully captures the essence of human connection and the power of shared moments in an ever-changing world.

 

Sakina's Kiss
Sakina’s Kiss || Vivek Shanbhag

***

That evening we aimlessly roamed the streets of Kodai. Viji was wearing a bright red cotton sari with a green border. As we went up and down the inclines, I told her how, the year I joined work, I went to Mumbai for a week-long management course. A man named Tiwari was one of the speakers, and some of us had gathered around him in the tea-break after his lecture. When I learnt his talk had been based on a book called Another World, I asked him, stupidly, where the book was available. I don’t know what he thought, but he drew a copy of the book from his bag, placed it in my hands, said ‘good luck’ and left.

 

I started reading it that very evening. The other world of the book was the office, and it felt like every workplace problem described in it was taken from my own office. For someone like me, who came from a village, the office had become a place of silent dread. There were foreign clients to deal with, MBAs who held everything from the west as sacred. I felt suffocated without being able to say why. This book, and then others like it, helped me. With their pages as my wings, it felt like I could fly over everything that troubled me at work. As I immersed myself in book after book, I found that the things I read in them came back to me when I found myself in those situations. Not just that, I actually heard these parts in Tiwari’s voice. ‘You know,’ I said to Viji. ‘His voice is deep and serious, perfect for a guru.’

 

I explained to Viji that Tiwari had entered my life at a time when I was struggling even to talk to my colleagues. On the few occasions I worked up the courage to tell them I was feeling out of place, they looked at me kindly and brushed it off saying, ‘Don’t take these things so seriously.’ There was nothing in common between me and those who had grown up in the city. If they brought up the music of their youth and mentioned Metallica or Judas Priest, I would simply go quiet. ‘Oh, you poor thing!’ Viji said. ‘You didn’t know those bands They’re not bad. But then, why should you have heard of them…’

 

I felt a little uneasy that she knew about that kind of music. But I also noticed that Viji paid attention to the smallest details when I told her about my life and ended up taking my side. I was overcome with affection. I yearned to unburden all my secrets to her. When I sensed Viji was willing to let me into her world, I asked, ‘Which was your first book?’

 

‘It was called Talk to Me. It’s about having conversations with oneself. But it will take me a long time to tell my story. It begins in childhood.’

 

‘What’s the rush? You can go on all day and all night if you want. I am here to listen.’

 

When Viji started, we were standing below a tree at a roadside teashop, her face dappled by the evening sun. Her hair was in a loose bun, held in place by a large clip. Her brown lips and the marks left by long-ago acne stood out in this light. Her nose was enticingly rounded at its tip. And how sexy a slight overbite is! She only had to part her lips a fraction to look desirable. I watched mesmerized every time she took a sip of tea and her lips moved to meet the rim of the cup. The ardour of a new marriage magnifies everything. I saw her upper lip rest on the cup’s rim, test the tea’s temperature, and then advance with a gentle quiver to take a sip. Unable to help myself, I said, ‘Hand me your cup for a second.’

 

‘Why?’ she asked, puzzled.

 

‘I’ll tell you, give it to me.’

 

I placed my half-empty cup on the shop’s counter, took her cup in my right hand, turned it round to where her lips had touched the cup’s rim, took a lingering sip and said, ‘Ah! So good!’

 

She had caught on by now. She said, teasingly, ‘What are you doing?’

 

I rolled my eyes coyly, said, ‘Nothing at all,’ and handed her back the cup.

 

Viji plunged into her story with enthusiasm. ‘You won’t believe it,’ she said. ‘But I used to talk to my self all the time as a child.’ She told me how she used to come home from school at four in the afternoon and have the house to herself until her mother returned from work at five. During this hour she stood in front of her mother’s dressing table mirror and talked to herself, complete with gestures and expressions. She would make faces, roar with laughter, abuse classmates she did not get along with. ‘You know, one day I tried to imitate the dances I had seen in films. I even took my clothes off and tossed them here and there,’ she said, laughing.

 

***

Get your copy of Sakina’s Kiss by Vivek Shanbhag wherever books are sold.

A Glimpse into the Life of Chambalgarh’s Famed Tigress, Mallika

Posted on by prathod

Step into the heart of the wild with Gargi Rawat in her latest book, Tiger Season. Join the suspenseful journey as the jeep navigates the wilderness, heartbeats racing, in search of the elusive tiger. Then, a breathtaking moment unfolds — Mallika, Chambalgarh’s iconic tigress, comes into view, embodying the essence of India’s majestic wildlife.

Read this excerpt to get a glimpse of the life of Tigress Mallika.

Tiger Season
Tiger Season || Gargi Rawat

***

The jeep lunged forward to reposition itself and my breathing accentuated with the change in gears. Jaya too was desperately checking her camera settings as our guide and driver moved the jeep for a more panoramic view.

 

I felt on edge and the constant shift of the gearbox, the braking of pedals and the sound of an ageing chassis was adding to my stress. The monkeys continued their chattering and occasional hooting, but they had stopped the alarm call. The sambar had stopped calling as well. Maybe the tiger had settled down? Not a good sign as I couldn’t spot it!

 

The vines on the banyan tree to our left suddenly moved and I jerked my head around for a closer look. It was only a peacock dislocating a broken shoot that dropped on its way down to those grey thick roots.

Everything was silent again and my heart sank. Time was running out. We had been filming for three days in this vast expanse of green with not so much as a sighting of even a sliver of tiger stripes.

 

I looked back to see Jaya scowl at me, her mouth pursed forlornly. In any case, we would have to be out of the park soon, and our team of driver and guide were becoming restless.

‘We have to leave soon,’ said the driver, Lakhan Singh. ‘I don’t want to lose my driving permit.’
I wish you would, I thought to myself unkindly but did not say it aloud. I was irritated and stressed. It also wasn’t the best-kept jeep in the world, and he hadn’t done much to help us in our quest anyway.

 

‘Chalo then, let’s go,’ I said resignedly after another few minutes.

He switched on the engine and, with one final look around, the jeep took off on the dirt road. Lakhan Singh had to swerve round the almost 180-degree bend in the track, only to brake suddenly. We nearly fell and just about managed to steady ourselves.

 

I was on the verge of scolding Lakhan but was rendered speechless.
There she was!

It was Mallika, sitting languidly, sprawled across the breadth of the road, barely metres away from where we were positioned. We hadn’t seen her because of the curve in the road and the tall grass had blocked our view. I gripped Jaya’s arm, only to realize she was already
filming.

 

The most overwhelming sensation at that moment was the hush of stillness that had descended around us. Here was perhaps the most famous tiger in the world, the greatest ambassador of her species. I felt a swell of emotion rising but suppressed it as it reached my throat.

Lakhan Singh and Faiz, our guide, appeared even more excited than I was. Relieved perhaps. I had to hold Lakhan Singh’s shoulder to calm him down as he took photos with his phone. Then I carefully took out my own phone to get some pictures as well.

 

For a tigress of her age, Mallika looked in good form. Her coat had yellowed with the onset of summer, and apart from a missing canine, there was little that suggested she was seventeen years old, by no means young for a species that seldom survives beyond fourteen years in the wild.

No other predator in the wild had been filmed, photographed or documented for as long and as much as Mallika. By observing her, scientists and writers, filmmakers and photographers had learnt much about the behaviour of tigers in the wild.

 

She had brought up no less than twelve tigers to adulthood, and her progeny now inhabited different parts of the Chambalgarh jungle in Rajasthan. According to some, even farther afield.

 

It was with good reason that Mallika had found such fame; India retained almost 70 per cent of the world’s wild tiger population, and within the country, Chambalgarh was considered the most accessible tiger reserve of them all. And its most famous inhabitant was Mallika, the grand dame of the park.

 

Tourists and journalists had flushed her with titles, each according to their experience of her behaviour. Some called her ‘the lady of the mountain’, basing their name on her frequent sightings atop the most prominent hill of Chambalgarh.

 

Others referred to her as ‘bear slayer’, following on her determined onslaughts against the formidable sloth bears that grant tigers only a cursory respect. One story claimed that a sloth bear had killed one of her cubs, sparking her lifelong, deadly feud against them. A particular video of her wounding and then killing a large sloth bear after a prolonged encounter had even gone viral on YouTube.

She was a photographer’s delight. Over the years, magazines had carried various prize-winning photographs of her, on a hilltop, looking down on the vast expanse of the forest, swimming across the lake with three cubs and fiercely facing down a bear.

 

Right now, she remained sitting on the road, licking a paw and casually looking about her, with a constant flicking of her tail.

***

Get your copy of Tiger Season by Gargi Rawat wherever books are sold.

Let’s Test the Special Theory of Indian Cooking! ​

Posted on by prathod

Ever wondered how to whip up the essence of India’s diverse flavors in your own kitchen? Krish Ashok‘s The Illustrated Masala Lab has the answer! Dive into an inquisitive world where cooking algorithms meet urban ingredients, and unlock a symphony of irresistible tastes. Ready to revolutionize your cooking game? You might to test the special theory of Indian Cooking!

Read this excerpt to spice up your life, one recipe at a time!

The Illustrated Masala Lab
The Illustrated Masala Lab || Krish Ashok

***

Special Theory of Indian Cooking(Conditions Apply)

 

Let us first get the conditions out of the way. This generalized set of algorithms will not cover every single culinary tradition in India. It will, for the most part, restrict itself to urban, middle class India, the kinds of ingredients that are likely to be available and cooking techniques that are practical in a smallish apartment. So, no tandoors, no wood fire and no nomadic horseman-style dum cooking by burying meat and rice into the ground with coal embers.

 

The second condition is that culinary traditions in India not only vary across state and linguistic boundaries, but also by caste and community, which is why the examples here will largely be restricted to the kinds of dishes available in run-of-the-mill restaurants. So forgive me if I have missed out Cudappah cuisine while including Hyderabadi. The intent here is to arm you with a way of thinking that will help you make a specific dish from, say, Odisha with confidence. The algorithms themselves may not cover every single sub-cuisine in the country. If this chapter ignores your community and state’s cuisine, it’s not deliberate. The examples are for representative purposes only. You can instantiate a version of this for your cuisine rather easily.

 

The third and final caveat is that we shall keep aside that universe within a universe of starters, snacks and tiffin items, because trying to cram that in will be the equivalent of boiling the Indian Ocean. Instead, we shall stick to gravies, rice dishes, breads, chutneys/raitas and salads. These algorithms will give you a wide-enough repertoire to start with. The rest of the journey, as always, is up to you. Treat this like high-school science education. University is on you.

 

So, the special theory of Indian cooking starts with the all-important question: What do you want to cook? Depending on your answer, you can opt for the following paths:

1. The Indian gravy algorithm: This will present a generalized algorithm and metamodel for preparing vegetables, legumes, meat or eggs in a sauce-like gravy that is flavoured in a specific regional style, like Malabar, Punjabi or Bengali.

 

2. The rice dish algorithm: A generalized method for preparing steamed rice, flavoured rice, khichdi, pulao and rice for biryani. There are numerous other ways of cooking rice in the subcontinent, but these five are the most utilitarian.

 

3. The Indian bread algorithm: Standardized and consistent methods for preparing doughs for unleavened breads (chapatti and paratha), leavened breads (naan and kulcha) and non-gluten-based breads (bajra or jowar roti). We will stop at the dough stage because rolling and baking/tawa operations are better learnt by watching an experienced hand. You can’t learn it from a book.

 

4. The chutney and raita generator: A metamodel for generating your own chutney and raita recipes from whatever ingredients you have available.

 

5. The salad generator: A metamodel for generating your own salad recipes by hitting the right balance of greens, crunch, protein, acid and flavouring.

 

The second question to ask is: How do you want to make this dish?
1. I’d like to see what’s in my fridge and pantry and make the best of it.

2. It’s my wife’s birthday and she is from Panjim, so I am looking to make a dish that evokes a specific regional cuisine, say pork vindaloo.

 

Once you have the answer to this, you need to execute Step 0, which is prepping the ingredients, after all consistency and productivity require you to approach home cooking the way restaurants do it. Also, prepping is not just cleaning and chopping, it includes a whole range of activities from brining to marinating to steaming and sautéing, all of which will make you a better home cook. In fact, a lot of prep work is actually cooking for the most part.

 

***

Intrigued to know more?

Get your copy of The Illustrated Masala Lab by Krish Ashok wherever books are sold.

error: Content is protected !!