Old and New: Together in Transition Time

First published on August 22, 2014.  Here it is again.  What happens to the old, when the new does not respect it? understand it? or wants to borrow from it?

An old, almost abandoned House in Central Delhi, 2014. Very few such homes are left now.  Most of these homes are actually transformed into apartments today.  This one must be standing only for two reasons, one either the owner is rich enough to own another property, or this is a disputed property that is awaiting resolution.  Yet, these house, have what makes any building a home, a yard, a verandah, sometimes a porch, sometimes a lawn and often, trees, that grow even when no one waters them.  

Apologies to my readers that I have been not been able to write.  Most of you know that I have been travelling.  I have thought so much about writing, but not had the peace.  In many ways its good, because our minds need break. In other ways, without silence our souls lie dormant.

Details and stories will come later.

But my first experience of the last six weeks has been that the world is changing too fast for us to recognise what is going on.  We have little time left to muse or reminisce because before we can have memories, the new transient culture that is visible in disposable goods, transforms into something new.

This change is universal but very evident in developing countries, and even more visible in developing countries that are under global scrutiny due to sheer population, namely India and China.  Due to their numbers, markets and companies are gravitating towards them. Its  obvious that anything that becomes a trend, and even better a necessity will have a large market, even if it lasts only for a short time.  

And I realise how 'thinkers and philosophers', who are not 'thinking' only in terms of money or profit, are crucial to any society, for directing the society to reflect back on itself. 

People just borrow and follow ideas, without a long term understanding of the impact of gadgets and technological changes in life.   

One of the major changes all over the country is the formation of 'apartments' or to apply a british term, 'flats'.  Which has contributed to the burgeoning population of the city (from my childhood city of about 6 million to nearly three times or more).  While this obviously adds to the population density, it also reduces homes into one single covered unit, without yards, verandahs, lawns, and obviously trees.  

I will write about this more in detail later, but this year, there was this sinking feeling that the country does not realise what it is loosing in this mindless progress.  I think that, if we wish there are always alternative paths, but for that we need foresight.  

In  a culture that has made 'money, profit, and convenience its God' there is little room for reflection or critical thinking.

All that drives is 'bhed chaal' (sheep's way, or mindless following wherever the herd is going).

As a part of 'bhed chaal', because there is no room for novel thinking, we are neither connected to others, nor to ourselves. 

Cold Showers, Multiple Times!!

Summer of 2018, they said was the hottest in 200 years.  They had no records of temperatures before that.  Normally, after a few sunny days, we get rain and it all cools down.  But this summer, I remember drinking bottles of chilled water....and being restless.  Amazing how our bodies can get acclimated.  Imagine, I grew up in India and have lived in Fiji, but in Sweden 25 degrees Centigrade can seem hot....

First published on August 19, 2018, here it is again....enjoy...

For all my years in Sweden, I remember summer as pleasantly warm, on a few days during the summer.  Just a few days, and a certain time of the day.   Then, it is back to shawls, socks and sometimes a jacket. Sitting outside requires blankets.

But this year??

The tide has turned, may be a wave, but they say that it is the warmest summer in 260 years in Sweden.  260 years.  So, neither the people living today, nor their great grandparents ever saw such a summer. I remember 2015, the coldest summer in two decades.  But this, the warmest in 260 years...


What temperature you ask--well it reached 35 degree celsius. Believe it or not, I have actually had iced water, upto 20 glasses a day--multiple cold, really cold showers.  I have never had cold showers.  Even in summers it was at least lukewarm, because it never really got really warm.  

Anyway, I started writing this nearly ten days ago.  And well now.....

So now its down to 12 degree centigrade.  So very guilty for complaining.  I am not yet ready for the cold, --not as cold as it has been for the last 2 days.  August 4-7 was just brilliant!!

However, its been nice to have that beautiful summer that one craves for, that summer that Swedes leave the country every year.  But I must say ---just as snow in Texas and even in London to a certain extent is disorienting so has been this summer.  

Every country has its own flavour.  Its nice to break away from it once in a while, but a certain predictability is good too!!

After all there is a reason Swedes head to Thailand every winter!!!

Eclectic Equipment: Cultural Cues

First published on July 14, 2013:  Here it is again.  For it is the season....

A bowl of freshly picked röd vind bär (Red-Wine Berry), from our neighborhood !! 

Every country has something specific, something unique.   We call it culture.  Culture is much-encompassing and includes everything from language, cuisine, clothing, rituals and traditions, which are usually rendered in music, literature, movies of the country.

A small, very small, often overlooked part of that culture is its ‘tools’ and equipment that help us maintain that culture.  It may be as simple as a specially designed needle to string flowers, or make home/handmade shoes (yes every country did that at some point, In India that went on till early 20th century), or as complicated and modern as electricity driven butter churners to put in country’s brand chocolates!!

Here you get to see two simple ones.  One each from two of the countries I have lived in.

Normally I would put a quiz here and ask the readers to guess what they are.  But I will save us the time.

So, here the first one is from Fiji.  Wanna guess?

Coconut scraper:  Used so few times, that the prices is still sticking on it!!

Well, this one is a very cheap version of a coconut-scraper.  I bought it while I was living in Fiji.  I never really had to scrap it, since the woman who helped me would do it for me whenever I needed it.  I also found out that the local grocery story MH (Morris Hedstrom--a Swedish/Nordic Name by the way) had a mechanized coconut-scraper, which did the same job for very little money (or may be it was free, I do not remember) and almost no effort.

This one, made of aluminum, is not very strong.  I bet there are better ones. I have hardly used it since I moved out of Fiji.  Every time I try it bends out of shape—literally.  So, I keep it as a souvenir!

And here is one from Sweden.  

 Berry picking device

A few days ago I was at the ICA—which sadly enough is the closest thing to Wal-mart here. (I say the saddest thing, because I see Sweden fast changing its ways to the US and it bothers me.  Walmart is convenient, but it has ruined small town America.  And there needs to be a separate post on the issue).  The only good thing is that with Swedish laws, people cannot be underpaid and health insurance in included if you are a resident in the country (which even I did not get in the US until I worked at University--so not only the unemployed were excluded, those with jobs at many stores such as walmart were overlooked, no wonder walmart wants to expand. No matter what the justification behind limiting access to facilities and services every human needs, when we make money and profit more important than people, the result can never be ‘people’ it is always a ‘frenzy’.  Having lived here for over three years, now I can say that.  There is a calm and peace on the faces of people that I hardly ever saw in the US, a level of contentment—again a separate post is required for that)—

So, ICA in that sense is still different from Walmart.  At ICA, when I noticed these gadgets….I asked a couple of bubbly teenagers who were chatting away around a display of huge candles… ‘excuse me, what is this?”

The pretty blondes giggled, gulped, and giggled again!!  Then gesturing with their hands, they said, ‘You use them to ---“ they made a gesture of scooping out something ‘take out the berries”

Ah!! The light bulb moment! I am sure some in the US know about it.  But I have never been berry-picking.  All my Swedish friends and many European friends can spot a berry shrub and say, ‘ah, blueberry, strawberry……”

Just like, even after having lived over a decade and a half away from India, and even in India I was in north India, when I arrived in Fiji, I could easily spot a Papaya tree and a banana tree--- people living in the northern hemisphere can easily spot berries.  Both Papaya and banana trees are more common in the south of India, but even being a northerner I knew them well.   I can pick out a mango tree, a guava tree, a curry leaf tree, a tamarind tree, a neem tree and some more….

Somethings we just absorb as a part of our growing up, and never realize that that is a part of our composite knowledge.

Some tools are always more familiar to us.  Some measurements do not require measuring cups because we have baked the cakes, kneaded the dough, and whisked the cream so often that we ‘sense’ the measurements.

That sensing, when it becomes a reflex action, is a good portion of what makes for culture!  So, what I leave you all with is, how much of that ‘reflex action’ focus do we have today on basic survival skills, cooking, sewing, carpentry, ----most of the knowledge that we call education is only about ‘how to get a job’ while we outsource our everyday living.  And hence require higher paying jobs so that we can afford to buy the basics.  Processed foods, eating out, getting food delivered, ----

Food, an important, and borderless ritual--requires meditation, time and thoughtfulness.  At least what we learn from Ayurveda, and other holistic philosophies, is that the mental state of the cook is crucial to the ultimate effect--not the taste of the food (Read 'Like Water for Chocolate', or Mistress of Spices' to read a 'magic realism' version of this idea). Since the state of the ingredients, how they were grown, cooked and presented, including the physical,mental and emotional health of the cook, was important, I knew several of my relatives who had decided never to eat anything but 'home-cooked' food.  Two of my uncles lived that way.  Our modern thinking would say, 'Ah such pressure on the wife, why must a woman do all this?" But they were not picky about that. Either wives cared enough to cook ahead of time or the men did with eating fruits and yogurt that day.  This conversation today is missing in our times of what Susan Douglas calls, 'the food porn'  We are seduced by chocolates and ice creams and yet told that a skinny body should be and can be had, despite consuming all these!!  Kellog's cornflakes, Hagendaas, and CocaCola, all lead to a great figure and a high self-esteem!!

May be there should be a weekend class to get the children acquainted with basic culture appropriate tools, if for nothing else, to demystify plain survival skills such as gathering food and cooking!!