Looking Inwards #9
Obsession with everything food, little bit of craziness to win, plucking apples, how the world sees us, press freedom index, bigotry, and a desk in a forest.
Hi there!
Thank you for joining me.
I hope you are doing well and that your week is going peacefully.
Orange marmalade from my kitchen. Circa 2013.
I started watching two food documentaries this week: Street Food Latin America and Street Food Asia. Both series on the beautiful science and feeling of food are wholesome and inspiring.
I stay away from anything food related. Not because I don’t like food or cooking, but quite the opposite. I like everything about food a bit too much.
Days in my parents home always revolved around cooking and eating. When I started living on my own, I spent hours strolling and scrolling through grocery stores, farmers markets, restaurants, night street joints, culinary books and blogs, and so on. Many of you may know I have a dormant food blog, and that isn’t my only one. I once walked into and joined an Italian restaurant as a part-time trainee while I had a full-time software job. I was only a ticket away from traveling to Italy to do a culinary course. And I once spent months planning to open up my restaurant.
I haven’t done any of those things because I wanted what I have now more than everything I said above. Food remains the central part of my life though. And such an obsession is obviously followed by its hazards.
I ate so much over the years I gained weight no matter how much I exercised. I reached as much as seventy kilos. First I didn’t realize I was broadening, thickening, and of course ageing faster than I should’ve because my cells were busy digesting food and regenerating exponentially to recover from the exertion of digestion (more on healthy living here). I looked at myself in the mirror with only one objective: to prove I was still as thin as I was once as a little girl. But I was not (let’s ignore the emotional costs of this thought process for a moment).
When I went to South America about five years ago, I ate fried empanadas, large soup bowls, breads and cheeses of all kinds. For the first few months while I fought Chilean cold I maintained my weight. But during the last months when I was just traveling, staying in treehouses, and eating yuca and cheese sticks that’s when fat really started rounding up around my waist.
After traveling around I returned to my friend’s house in Santiago. Her sister (who had been obnoxious to me in the past) held down on one of my love handles and told her sister and my friend that I had those. Ouch. Of course the women had no right to make me so body conscious and make such a dramatic comment on the extra flesh I carried around. I was scarred for life. But those were two countryside Chilean women in their 70s and 80s without permanent work. One of them remains my best friend though and is the main protagonist of this memoir of a Diwali I spent with her in her country home in Chile.
I noticed I had gained in those leisure and sunlit months of travel. I felt heavy, if not unhealthy. I returned to India and joined an aggressive Hatha yoga class. I sweat so much there that when I told my friends they didn’t believe me. How can you sweat doing yoga? Little did they know.
My relationship with food and everything around it turned complex. Or was it always complicated right from my childhood? I will explore more in a separate essay.
But I stay away from food shows because if I start watching them I will spend all my days and nights in front of the television (that’s my Mac). I will shop food, I will cook food, I will eat food, and I will breathe food. And I will be stuck, I know. But food is an essential way to get into lives of people anywhere. And so my quest continues even though I keep my hunger toned down.
A focaccia from my oven. Circa 2013.
In those food shows I saw out-of-this world yet simple dishes that make you wonder how human beings could create so much out of nothing. But the shows did a greater thing. They showed the guts of the people who single-handedly hung onto their beliefs in themselves and worked hard and endured. They went on to change how people look at food not just in their neighborhoods but in their cities. Their food and their passion for it now ripple through their countries and the world.
I wanted to make something extraordinary, say the more than eighty-year-old Thai street food chef, the Argentinian woman who make potato tortillas, and many more. This thought is so connected and related to how artists, writers, entrepreneurs, urban gardeners, foresters, painters, sculptors, and so many start by. Everyone who works with love and care can understand the sentiment here.
We wanted to create something extraordinary, we all say. We are driven by our desire to not only show the world the way we see it, but how we want others to see us.
And if we set our mind on it, we can make the extraordinary real. We can turn around our family’s future. We can move from a street food joint to a restaurant and become one of the best street chefs of the world whipping up tom yums and pad thais. We can stop our father from selling his restaurant and can become one of the most talked about tortilla kiosk in the city. We could be the one running barbecues even though everyone told us only men could grill. We could love whoever we want. We can create a life of our own and we can own it all.
Belief, hard work, endurance, and a little bit of craziness is all we need.
What do you think we need to feel content with our lives?
Food is a great way to express our passions, purpose, and priorities colorfully on a plate. I baked this potato basket years ago and then spent hours getting a perfect photo.
For this week’s letter,
Some of my writing,
quotes I love,
things to read,
things to watch,
and
travel tips.
Articles of the Week
Climbing Trees and Plucking Apples in Himachal Pradesh—With Local Families
(Last August) I really wanted to join my Himachal host family to harvest their orchard apples, but I was shy to ask. And then I did.
The grandson, the youngest of the three generations living in the house, said we could go into the orchards anytime we like. So I slipped my feet into my slippers — I was afraid by the time I wore shoes the women would have finished plucking apples from the sprawling orchard without me — and ran towards the gardens.
You know one good thing travel teaches you is to put yourself out, ask for favors, and accept them with gratitude. Asking someone for something doesn’t make you a small person.
Click to read the full memoir of the day I spent climbing apple trees and chatting with Himachal women about patriarchy and apple picking traditions. Or Pocket for later.
Sunlit and Slow Living in Coorg’s Stuart Hill and Madikeri Town – In Photos
Our unhurried life on Stuart Hill in Coorg Karnataka is obvious from the pictures, of which many I took drenched in the sun. Mostly we worked for a couple of hours, I spent time with the homestay host (whom we called aunty), we drove for food, watched the six homestay cats play around, and walked around the hill.
The countryside of Karnataka is beautiful. I don’t think one can see it in a lifetime. But little by little, from weekend trips to extended stays in the state, we can see how much of this Southern land is covered by forests (in between residents stay on hills and planes) that people follow their traditions and culture strictly (even though many youngsters have now moved to Bangalore to work) and that natural resources and food is abundant there.
This photo essay is an attempt to show a little of the Coorgy and countryside life of Karnataka.
See the photo essay here or Pocket for later.
Quotes I Love
“It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.” — Arthur Conan Doyle
“working toward our goal and simultaneously letting it go may seem paradoxical, but it is the fastest way to achieve what we want. letting go is not giving up; it is the graceful walk between continuing to put effort into making our preferred reality come true and not allowing our happiness to be controlled by something we do not have. if we remain attached, we tend to feel agitation or even misery. this creates tension in our being that blocks us from fulfilling our desires.” — Yung Pueblo
“And sometimes when we listen, we are led into places we do not expect, into adventures we do not always understand.” — Madeleine L'Engle (Walking on Water)
“I write not only to show the world as I see it, but so that the world sees me as I want it to.” — Yours Truly
What I’ve Been Reading
I’ve been reading short stories, books, articles, and so much more. I can’t possibly list all what I have read in the past week so I’m putting down the things I found the most relevant and worthwhile.
Starting with the most important,
J&K, UP, MP and Tripura saw most attacks on journalists in 2021 by Newslaundry — Reality of India right now.
At least six journalists were killed and 121 journalists and media houses were targeted in India in 2021, according to the India Press Freedom report released by the Right and Risk Analysis Group. Additionally, the report said 44 FIRs were registered against journalists last year, including multiple FIRs against the same journalist in multiple states.
At least 24 journalists were “allegedly attacked physically, threatened, harassed and obstructed from doing their professional works by public officials, including police”. Seventeen of these journalists were “allegedly beaten by police”, with the highest of these cases being reported from Jammu & Kashmir.
Newslaundry
Where are we headed?
India is 'one of world's most dangerous countries for journalists': 2021 World Press Freedom Index — India ranks 142nd out of 180 countries in the Press Freedom index prepared by Reporters Without Borders.
At least all of us acknowledging the threat is a start, no?
Did Amazon decide to shutdown Westland without trying to recover it from the losses because of the pressure of the current government? Please read the article to know the story. Though after reading the piece I’ve more unresolved questions than answers.
About human beings, society, and their beliefs,
Joker movie script — Yes I read the script of the movie Joker to see how we human beings can drive someone to insanity by being so insensitive and unthoughtful. When we imagine we won’t be punished, we do what we like, irrespective of the damage we may cause someone. For me Joker has always been a real movie, a transition of a child into a beast who wouldn’t blink before killing anyone. The script is also a great help in understanding how to develop a character and how to write a script (The movie is up on Netflix).
I recommend the script to those readers who want to see how one of the most captivating medium of communications these days - that is the cinema - rolls about.
O, dreaded one, come tomorrow by Varsha Venugopal — A hilarious read on the ghostly folklore of South India that tells a lot about the culture of our Southern lands.
South Indian ghosts know they have pliant believers who enjoy being spooked even as they appeal to higher powers to blunt their mischief.
Varsha Venugopal
On that note, here is a treasure trove of Omens and Superstitions of North India compiled as early as 1912 by Edgar Thurston. I haven’t read the book in whole but whatever I have read has stupefied me. Only read if you are deeply interested in cultures and traditions of the past as it’s not an entertaining narrative read but more of a factual account of India’s oldest superstitions.
A little about nature,
Photographic Composites Document the Mesmerizing Flight Trails of Vultures, Crows, and Bats — one of the most beautiful things I saw this week were these beautiful black swirls above the earth, ocean, or shooting out from behind the greens in the distance. Who could have imagined bird trails could create such systematic and gorgeous patterns in the skies?
Humans and nature together,
Did you know in Cambodia a rat used to sniff out mines? Magawa recently died after sniffing out some 100 landmines and explosives in five years.
Make dried fish while the sun shines by Akila Kannadasan — A story of how a community of Tamil Nadu women and men dry fish, their sole livelihood.
What I’ve Been Watching/Listening
This week I’ve been watching many videos in the later hours of the day. When you focus on work at hand from early morning until evening, getting lost in the visuals can refresh the mind. And I happily went for the entertainment and information of the visual media.
Court movie — After a really long while I’ve seen a movie made in India that’s so authentic, real, and relevant. There couldn’t be a better time to watch Court, a movie that shows bigotry should be India’s new motto (or should I say the world?).
We are intolerant about everything today - another caste, age group, religion, political views, gender, relations, opinion, education, profession, love choices, clothes, and even leisure activities. Our judicial system that’s supposed to protect us is not only a silent but archaic system that ends up only giving the troublemakers a higher ground to stand.
You must have read above that India stands 148 out of 180 in global Press Freedom. And it’s not only the press that lacks freedom. Every Indian citizen is scared to speak up.
The movie Court shows how a poet, singer, and activist is repeatedly put behind the bars on the basis of made up proof that is sometimes so ridiculous you wonder why a case was even registered in the first place. But does the judge call out on the ridiculous claims? No. Does the public prosecutor has any interest in the truth of the case? No. Do people for whom that writer is singing care or they just forget his act to dance to a song? They just dance.
Every character’s personal life is shown to make us realize that people aren’t objective human beings. How we think and what we do behind the scenes is what we do in public and in our professions. We have even stopped caring about phrasing ourselves properly. And that’s scary.
Please watch Court.
And for all my Wanderlusters!
I’ve shared many cultural pieces about different parts of India, South America, and Asia above. So here I’m directly heading to some recent pictures from Auroville.
a dosa place nearby Auroville. Notice the pile of banana leaves in the front.
I found African Tulip tree in the Tamil Nadu forests and I can’t be happier. Bangalore is full of these red-peaked beauties.
A South-Indian temple nearby. This girl was freely playing badminton there with another little one.
Cows retiring for the day after a day full of grazing.
My desk these days.
Thank you for reading.
I hope your week goes well and your weekend is refreshing. Take good care of yourselves :)
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Yours,
Priyanka
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