Tag: postaday

The Le Café

I’m quite skeptical when it comes to government institutions, but even I was amazed when I visited the city of Pondicherry.

It’s an infamous French Colony, yes. But it doesn’t end with that. The great thing about the city is Le Cafe, a government-run coffee shop. As for the best part — it’s open 24 hours a day.  le cafe
I would have liked nothing more than to sit on one of the stone benches, stare at the raging sea and cross off the stuff on the menu one thing at a time. But my father woudn’t hear of it, and I had to retreat to our hotel.

Nevertheless, I heard the waves calling and sensed the caffeine luring me. I woke up at six the next morning and went out to the cafe — boy, what a sight.

Le Cafe stood like a rectangular block of mud cake, with another smaller block perched atop. The vintage-looking menu board, and its flowing handwriting, the accolades the cafe had received over the years, and age-old photos framed in clear wood all seemed to testify to one thing: this cafe is the best one out there that an Indian government manages.

It was just after the monsoon, so the weather was cool enough without being chilly, and warm without the heat. And there was plenty of flowers that accommodated the previous night’s dew, reflecting the early morning sun, while looking to the skies for some of the daily bread.

flowering pondy
The first time I had walked into the cafe had been the pervious night. It was half-way through to the full moon day and the entire sky seemed illuminated by the half-moon that only elevated the beach view. But I had missed the little ponds homing fish the size of half my finger and flowers almost as tall as my knee. Those I noticed the following morning.

stone bench
And then there were the stones themselves. I’ve never seen anything so solid, and so inviting at the same time. After the cold night of sea breeze, the benches jarred my teeth as I took my seat.

And all the while I walked around, pointing my camera in random directions, the waiters didn’t bother me at all. I went to one of them and wondered aloud of I could take photographs. He smiled wider than anyone else I had seen there and gestured his approval with wide open arms.

No matter what anyone says, for me, Le Cafe will always be the most important tourist attraction in Pondicherry. Because everything’s better with a good dose of caffeine.

Life Cycle

I get paid to write. But there’s a price to it too: I write not for myself. I write for a business that sells to other businesses. And because I make it my business to deal with all this business on a day-to-day basis, I have opinions about the way people do business.

And I realised this only last evening when I was busy being busy. After three years, I realised it on a Friday the 13th. I was writing a blog about the various businesses that people do nowadays, about how the nature of money-making has evolved from traditional ways, and how people find creative methods most of us haven’t even heard of.

Like that common saying — “there’s an app for that,” — it’s amazing that every “app” is a business in itself. If you can imagine it, you can earn out of it. It’s a part of human evolution, and now we’ve begun to see the monetary value in every thing around us.

Whether it’s a tree with roots extending to the pavement, a sloppy drinker who couldn’t contain his wine to the glass, or a woman too lazy to clean her own nails, there’s a business for that.

But the weirdest thing of them all is that these businesses aren’t monopolies. They have competition, and heavy ones too.

As we grow lazier, and long for an extra beanbag to prop our feet up while binge-watching the latest in House of Cards, there’s always a businessman (or a few) caressing fresh bills. The more we choose comfort, the more businesses opportunities pop up. We once managed with one pair of shoes. Now we need one for running, another for weight training, and yet another for indoor sports. After all, we earn it, and we can afford it.

The more we earn, the more we want. The more we want, the more choices and business opportunities come up. And that just means businesses fighting more to outperform competition.

And here I am, writing for one business, against another business, so I can earn more and want more.

A vicious cycle, if there ever was one.

Live, Learn, Pass It On

I’ve always loved to talk about formal education. Or the futility of it, rather. And I enjoy people who talk about it too. But Sir Ken Robinson isn’t just another person talking about how education ruins our lives.

He’s British. That matters, but only because the accent mesmerises me. There’s more to this TED talk than a flawless speaking style.

John Lennon said, “Learn to smile as you kill.” Perhaps, Sir Ken Robinson took this to heart. Because throughout the video, he never once stops smiling. He’s not angry; he’s not biting his tongue to keep himself from swearing — though I would’ve enjoyed it — at schools that forbids children to dance without thinking, making them memorise theorems instead.

His words are brilliant.

“The education system has mined our minds in the way we strip mined the earth.”

Defining the body: “It’s a way of getting their heads to meetings.”

Here’s a small request: Please spare 20 minutes of your day for this talk. It’s so good, you’d never regret it. And maybe some time, even we could influence a child to draw out of the dotted lines.

Homesick

I’ve heard people talking about being homesick for someplace you’ve never been to. And now I feel it.

After spending as little as five days away from my routine, I now crave more of it. I liked waking up at three am to watch the sunrise through bamboo trees, I enjoyed trekking up a mountain just so we could look down at the plains, I cherish every moment I spend on road shuffling about my seat as we drove through some of the less paved roads.sunriseAnd then I came back. To waking up early so I could get to the bathroom before my roommates woke up, to trudging along the pavement as cars, lorries, and honking autos rushed past me, and made my hair stand up. I came back to my life in the world of air-conditioned offices, where Ralph Lauren, Louis Vuitton, and Ray-Bans were the casual ensemble. I came back to the world I knew I don’t belong.

As I inhaled the carbon dioxide from the hundreds of vehicles that passed me, it took me back to the day I stood in the middle of a tea estate engulfed in the smell of unpicked tea leaves. I remember the fresh water rivers, so clean and so turquoise. I hadn’t seen (or known of) such pure water before. I was so close to the earth, among flowers that bore the morning dew, amidst frozen lakes, and mountains so rough yet so beautiful.

frozen

I long for that.

I’m homesick for that closeness to nature. I crave for the mountain tops, the warm grassy plains, the chilly winter breeze, and the freezing snow peaks. It’s the kind of view a twelve storey corporate building couldn’t offer.