Volume 13
Hello kind readers,
I took up cooking more seriously this month. I decided to venture into the realm of savoury food to prove this newfound seriousness. Considerably less cake was baked in my kitchen this month. A large chunk of my time cooking savoury dishes consisted of battles with balls of unrelenting dough. 'Knead it to activate the gluten' they said, as I wrestled with a ball of what felt like wheat glue to make the ideal case for my chicken dumplings. I baked bread, a quiche and also managed to cook semi-decent chicken dumplings folded like tortellinis. Cooking can be rather relaxing when you give it some time. The experience of cooking is filled with little moments like peeling garlic segments and reveling in the pungent sulfuric aroma knowing that your hands will smell of garlic till the next day. This is but a little sacrifice for an excellent sauce to go with your pasta that you luckily acquired at the grocery store. Similarly, feeling like you aged a lifetime waiting for the pan of thinly cut onions to caramelise and turn into a deep honey-like brown while also feeling like you shed all tears you were allowed in the same lifetime to cut the aforementioned wretched (but tasty) onions.
Cooking also leads to big bouts of insight about yourself and life. It inflicts on you a particular kind of cruelty of not being able to write your epiphanies somewhere because your hands are deep in a ball of dough or stirring a dish that mustn't be left still. I have felt largely dissociated with my body and my life this month, but cooking compelled me to use the sensory organs I was so consciously ignoring. I begrudgingly gave in to the kitchen's sensory demands.
The content of this month isn't about cooking. It is more about coming to terms with the injustice in the world and educating oneself. My kind friend, Shilpa Rao, sent several links my way this month and for that I am very grateful. I have shared a few here. There are pods/articles about art, love, black holes, history of the Swastika, meandering rivers and other internet flotsam I encountered this month. Enjoy!
ARTICLES
Spell to be said against hatred - this is a beautiful poem, please read it.
PODCASTS
Lettering Artist Lauren Hom on Clever - On taking the leap from advertising to lettering, being risk averse and ways of keeping yourself creatively challenged. Check out Lauren's incredible work.
Steven Heller on Design Matters - He discusses his new book, "The Swastika," which traces the evolution of the mark from symbol of good fortune to embodiment of hatred and fascism. Its journey will surprise you.
Stephen Batchelor on Finding Ease in Aloneness - One of the great challenges of life is to learn to be alone peaceably, at home in oneself. And now, by way of a virus, we have been sent inside physically and emotionally, even if we’re not home on our own. Stephen Batchelor teaches how to approach solitude as a graceful and life-giving practice.
++ Bessel van der Kolk on How Trauma Lodges in the Body - He talks about how talk therapy isn't enough to deal with trauma and developments in state-of-the-art therapeutic treatments including body work like yoga and eye movement therapy.
++ Jacqueline Novogratz - Towards a Moral Revolution - Novogratz is an innovator in creative, human-centered capitalism. She talks about her new book Manifesto for a Moral Revolution.
The Infinite Monkey Cage - Black Holes - This was funnier than I expected.
VIDEOS
The urgency of intersectionality by Kimberlé Crenshaw - "If we can't see a problem we can't solve a problem."
++ How to transform sinking cities into landscapes that fight floods - harness the water that collects in our concretized cities unable to percolate and feed nature. We must fix our relationship with water now.
++ My year reading a book from every country in the world - the speaker realised nearly all the books in her shelf were written by British and North American writers. This led her to 'read the world' by reading at least one translated book from each country in the world. Here is her blog with her entire list of books. I want to try this too. Is anyone with me?
BOOKS
I read these books this month -
The Silent Patient - an interesting psychological thriller if you're into the genre. I am a thriller novice and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Why Loiter? An interesting take on urban spaces, women and our right to reclaim space. My favourite parts of the book were - using enjoyment instead of violence as a lens to look at how women use spaces and the research on how women of different communities and income groups in different localities use space differently.
Writers and Lovers - I enjoyed this book. It had a satisfying end. This is the story of a writer in her 30s who is pondering if it was perhaps more prudent to give up her dream for a better job like most of her peers in college had done. She struggles with money, health, and writing as the rug is pulled from beneath her feet when her. mother passed away on a trip to South America. This book is packed with emotion without being maudlin. There is humour in places that aren't obvious and above all there is hope.
ART
In 1900, activist W. E. B. Du Bois used infographics to challenge white supremacy
'We Have Been in a Lockdown for Three Decades’ - a harrowing account of life in Kashmir by graphic novelist by Malik Sajad.
Meander Maps for Imaginary Rivers
++ The Marvelous Mississippi River Meander Maps.
I hope you had a good month, whatever good means anymore. I hope you find something interesting here. Be conscious of what you feed your mind. Stay safe, stay hydrated, eat healthy and hate other people less.
Best,
Sachi
May your ventures in the kitchen be joyful.
I took up cooking more seriously this month. I decided to venture into the realm of savoury food to prove this newfound seriousness. Considerably less cake was baked in my kitchen this month. A large chunk of my time cooking savoury dishes consisted of battles with balls of unrelenting dough. 'Knead it to activate the gluten' they said, as I wrestled with a ball of what felt like wheat glue to make the ideal case for my chicken dumplings. I baked bread, a quiche and also managed to cook semi-decent chicken dumplings folded like tortellinis. Cooking can be rather relaxing when you give it some time. The experience of cooking is filled with little moments like peeling garlic segments and reveling in the pungent sulfuric aroma knowing that your hands will smell of garlic till the next day. This is but a little sacrifice for an excellent sauce to go with your pasta that you luckily acquired at the grocery store. Similarly, feeling like you aged a lifetime waiting for the pan of thinly cut onions to caramelise and turn into a deep honey-like brown while also feeling like you shed all tears you were allowed in the same lifetime to cut the aforementioned wretched (but tasty) onions.
Cooking also leads to big bouts of insight about yourself and life. It inflicts on you a particular kind of cruelty of not being able to write your epiphanies somewhere because your hands are deep in a ball of dough or stirring a dish that mustn't be left still. I have felt largely dissociated with my body and my life this month, but cooking compelled me to use the sensory organs I was so consciously ignoring. I begrudgingly gave in to the kitchen's sensory demands.
The content of this month isn't about cooking. It is more about coming to terms with the injustice in the world and educating oneself. My kind friend, Shilpa Rao, sent several links my way this month and for that I am very grateful. I have shared a few here. There are pods/articles about art, love, black holes, history of the Swastika, meandering rivers and other internet flotsam I encountered this month. Enjoy!
ARTICLES
Spell to be said against hatred - this is a beautiful poem, please read it.
++ What I Said When My White Friend Asked for My Black Opinion on White Privilege - Incidents like this happen daily to minorities and Dalits in India. There is so much work to be done. So many stories that we must listen to so we can finally begin to rebuild society. Please read this and let us start a conversation in our country too.
++ The Power of “Me Too” - A writer asked Cheryl Strayed how writers can have an impact on the world around them. Cheryl in response shares the myriad ways in which writing and reading connect us to the countless souls who have lived before us who have felt what we are feeling. We are never alone. Our pain ties us inseparably, rather than isolating us. Read her beautiful response.
++ A Social healing playlist put together with love by the On Being team.
Toward a Racially Just Workplace
Toward a Racially Just Workplace
When It Comes to Dalit and Tribal Rights, the Judiciary in India Just Does Not Get It.
To Control Your Life, Control What You Pay Attention To - "Attention management is the ability to recognize when your attention is being stolen (or has the potential to be stolen) and to instead keep it focused on the activities you choose. Rather than allowing distractions to derail you, you choose where you direct your attention at any given moment, based on an understanding of your priorities and goals."
In A Turkish Village, A Conversation With Whistles, Not Words.
To Control Your Life, Control What You Pay Attention To - "Attention management is the ability to recognize when your attention is being stolen (or has the potential to be stolen) and to instead keep it focused on the activities you choose. Rather than allowing distractions to derail you, you choose where you direct your attention at any given moment, based on an understanding of your priorities and goals."
In A Turkish Village, A Conversation With Whistles, Not Words.
PODCASTS
Lettering Artist Lauren Hom on Clever - On taking the leap from advertising to lettering, being risk averse and ways of keeping yourself creatively challenged. Check out Lauren's incredible work.
Steven Heller on Design Matters - He discusses his new book, "The Swastika," which traces the evolution of the mark from symbol of good fortune to embodiment of hatred and fascism. Its journey will surprise you.
Stephen Batchelor on Finding Ease in Aloneness - One of the great challenges of life is to learn to be alone peaceably, at home in oneself. And now, by way of a virus, we have been sent inside physically and emotionally, even if we’re not home on our own. Stephen Batchelor teaches how to approach solitude as a graceful and life-giving practice.
++ Bessel van der Kolk on How Trauma Lodges in the Body - He talks about how talk therapy isn't enough to deal with trauma and developments in state-of-the-art therapeutic treatments including body work like yoga and eye movement therapy.
++ Jacqueline Novogratz - Towards a Moral Revolution - Novogratz is an innovator in creative, human-centered capitalism. She talks about her new book Manifesto for a Moral Revolution.
The Infinite Monkey Cage - Black Holes - This was funnier than I expected.
Researching Jenna, Discovering Myself with Hasan Minhaj on Modern Love - Hasan reads Brian Goedde's essay “Researching Jenna, Discovering Myself” about a breakup, heartbreak and finding oneself in the midst of loss.
The future of the Library on Akimbo by Seth Godin.
VIDEOS
The urgency of intersectionality by Kimberlé Crenshaw - "If we can't see a problem we can't solve a problem."
++ How to transform sinking cities into landscapes that fight floods - harness the water that collects in our concretized cities unable to percolate and feed nature. We must fix our relationship with water now.
++ My year reading a book from every country in the world - the speaker realised nearly all the books in her shelf were written by British and North American writers. This led her to 'read the world' by reading at least one translated book from each country in the world. Here is her blog with her entire list of books. I want to try this too. Is anyone with me?
BOOKS
I read these books this month -
The Silent Patient - an interesting psychological thriller if you're into the genre. I am a thriller novice and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Why Loiter? An interesting take on urban spaces, women and our right to reclaim space. My favourite parts of the book were - using enjoyment instead of violence as a lens to look at how women use spaces and the research on how women of different communities and income groups in different localities use space differently.
Writers and Lovers - I enjoyed this book. It had a satisfying end. This is the story of a writer in her 30s who is pondering if it was perhaps more prudent to give up her dream for a better job like most of her peers in college had done. She struggles with money, health, and writing as the rug is pulled from beneath her feet when her. mother passed away on a trip to South America. This book is packed with emotion without being maudlin. There is humour in places that aren't obvious and above all there is hope.
ART
In 1900, activist W. E. B. Du Bois used infographics to challenge white supremacy
'We Have Been in a Lockdown for Three Decades’ - a harrowing account of life in Kashmir by graphic novelist by Malik Sajad.
Meander Maps for Imaginary Rivers
++ The Marvelous Mississippi River Meander Maps.
I hope you had a good month, whatever good means anymore. I hope you find something interesting here. Be conscious of what you feed your mind. Stay safe, stay hydrated, eat healthy and hate other people less.
Best,
Sachi
May your ventures in the kitchen be joyful.
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