April 28, 2021

Some Unalloyed Good

Housekeeping stuff out of the way first:

Hi, hello. I apologise for the long absence from this newsletter, but er, life and depression got in the way, as it does. You may have noticed that this newsletter is no longer being housed on substack - no doubt you’ve heard about the substack scandal that broke out a few weeks ago, and after a lot of deliberation, I’ve made the decision to move places. I am sorry to be leaving substack - it had a pretty interface - and I hope buttondown will not let me down.

Now, the rest.

I now write you as someone with a postgraduate degree and equal parts of relief and guilt about it. But let us not talk of it; or the other thing that rages all around us; let us talk about some unalloyed good that is still left in this world. I’m going to make a list of those for my reference, as well as yours.

1. The contestant in Masterchef Australia who made a dessert shaped like a mushroom ¹ - the dome had basil cremeux, and the stalk had a raspberry condensate inside, and both had a vanilla mousse cover of sorts. There were twigs made of tempered chocolate, sand made with chocolate and matcha, and some liquid nitrogen mist for theatre. She made all of this in under 75 minutes, and she apparently had been playing with this stuff for only a year?!

2. An M.S.Subbulakshmi concert from 1970 that folk from the Vaak newsletter ² have kindly uploaded in youtube. The audio quality is surprisingly great. I’m listening to it in bits, but it is actual bliss when she elaborates upon the phrase ‘pranava swaroopam vakradhundam’ ³. In the comments section of this video, Keshav Desiraju, the author of ‘Of Gifted Voice’ (which references this concert) can be seen sparring with other music aficionados (now that’s a phrase straight of The Hindu).

3. A Skillshare class on painting botanicals in watercolour that I’m taking, thanks to someone with a free account who was feeling generous. It’s wonderful to look at, comes with nifty tips - like using a biiig brush to brush the eraser crumbles off your painting surface - and I drift off to sleep watching it.

4. An account of a neurosurgeon who went to a remote village in Tanzania for a break year, and quickly realised the importance of empowering the local folk to perform surgeries by themselves (at least I hope he does, I’m only 20% into the book). The book ⁴ was published in 2015 - I’m not sure when the neurosurgeon in question visited the place - but it says the country had three neurosurgeons for a population of four crore, and all of them in the capital city. This reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend recently, who told me that there was a paucity of surgeons (of any kind) in Sierra leone even now. This study from 2009 ⁵ puts the number at 10 surgeons for the whole country. The present population of Sierra leone 78 lakhs.

5. I suppose the above factoid ended with a depressing statistic, so here’s a glorious little poem ⁶ for y’all:

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the conversation. The kettle is singing even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots have left their arrogant aloofness and seen the good in you at last. All the birds and creatures of the world are unutterably themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

This was recommended to me by friends, and it reminds me of Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese ⁷ in the best possible way.

1. Ending on a sappy, cutesy note: A smol baby singing along and making elaborate hand gestures with her mom, who’s singing (and playing the ukulele) Tum Saath Ho. ⁸ We’re all such precious beings in childhood, no? The biggest loss of adulthood is the ability to publicly and unabashedly lose yourself in something, I think.

p.s: I wrote this newsletter on markdown, and ‘twas fun! except for item number 6. No matter what I try, it insists on labelling itself as 1. Should I respect its right to self-determination and leave it as is, or will someone who knows markdown tell me what exactly is the issue?

p.p.s: I also hope to put out a newsletter every week, or at least every fortnight; please hold me to it, folks!

… and where to find them:

1. https://youtu.be/C-Lm6IBQirE?t=1212
2. 
   

   

   
   

   Vaak Issue 03 2021 by Carnatic Music - Issuu

   
   
3. 
   

   

   
   

   M S Subbulakshmi at Krishna Gana Sabha, Madras, 1970 - YouTube

   MS SubbulakshmiKrishna Gana Sabha, December 1970Vocal support - Radha Viswanathan Mridangam and Ghatam - unknown This is part 1 of the extended discography …

4. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31328682-a-surgeon-in-the-village
5. https://www.who.int/surgery/QuantifyingSurgicalCapacity_ArchSurg.pdf
6. https://onbeing.org/poetry/everything-is-waiting-for-you/
7. http://www.phys.unm.edu/~tw/fas/yits/archive/oliver_wildgeese.html
8. 
   

   

   
   

   Anjana Madathil - My first attempt with the ukulele! It… | Facebook

   My first attempt with the ukulele! It took me 6months with the little one around....#ukulele #agartumsaathho #ARRahman