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Comfort TV can be a series, show, sport, or anything you like watching after a long day, looking to unwind before bed. I’ll go first. I like watching Nigella Lawson ’s cooking shows, adaptations of Agatha Christie’s short stories and documentaries about the Universe. Even in ancient times—that is before streaming services like Netflix and Amazon docked on Indian shores—I would record Nigella’s cookery shows and documentaries about the Universe on the DVR so I could play one when I got home after a work day which was sometimes chaotic, usually hectic and always noisy. Sitting back in your favourite chair, feet up on a footstool with something to eat while the sights and sounds of a relaxing show lull you into a state of restfulness is sometimes just the thing one needs. This was especially true for me when I worked in news media since I would often get back home after work around midnight. My brother would be fast asleep, given his early mornings and I would be too alert to fall asleep. COMFORT FOOD FOR THE EYES I don’t know if you’ve seen any of Nigella’s cooking shows (I recommend it, even if you don’t cook to impress).  She’s not the greatest chef (in fact, she isn’t even a trained cook by her own admission) but she cooks delicious food without turning up her nose at store-bought pastry, canned goods or poor knife skills. In other words, she’s like us—home cooks. Only with a gorgeous house, a walk-in pantry stocked with decadent goodies from around the world and a garden with twinkly lights that feels both lived-in and ever ready for an impromptu get-together. Photo Courtesy: Instagram The charm of Nigella Lawson’s shows lies not so much in what she cooks (yummy though it is) but the way she talks about food and her obvious delight in sumptuous meals. For the most part, the star of the show is her lifestyle and joie de vivre. With most other cookery shows, one wants to either be able to cook as well as the chef does or better still, eat what they cook. With Nigella, it’s the relaxed but decadent vibes of her lifestyle that one wants to emulate. Nigella World is a place where it is possible to entertain friends on work days without suffering a mental breakdown, eat home-made pancakes for breakfast while solving a crossword and look like a million bucks while making it all look effortless. That’s the magic of television but also, Nigella makes cooking seem like fun. COSY MYSTERIES BEFORE BED Photo Courtesy: ITV Speaking of great recipes, Agatha Christie’s mysteries are another favourite of mine. There is something to be said about murders committed by genteel folk who are kind enough to stick around for Hercule Poirot to solve the case! I love Poirot despite his pomposity, obsessive idiosyncrasies and penchant for keeping his partners in partial darkness. To be honest, I like his affectations. Agatha Christie is a master of weaving in enough clues to encourage you to make guesses as to the murderer’s identity but often, they’re best understood in hindsight. Watching Poirot solve a case with help from his 'little grey cells' leaves me with a soothing sense of resolution. Like all’s well with the world. That’s a good thing for an insomniac. It’s the mental equivalent of a warm bath, fresh bed linen and a cup of hot chocolate before retiring for the night. Nothing tops it! COSMIC COMFORT Did I just say nothing tops Christie’s mysteries and creature comforts like hot chocolate? Well, nothing on Earth, that is. Outer space is a different matter. Which brings me to the other constant on my Tata Sky DVR - documentaries about outer space and the evolution of the Universe . Watching stars form in star nurseries billions of years ago with the same elements we have in our own bodies and pondering the mysteries of blackholes, pulsars and dark matter, all narrated in dulcet tones, is akin to a meditative experience for me. These documentaries let me revel in the awe-inspiring expanse and beauty of the Universe, reminding me that the immediate is only momentary and will soon be irrelevant, even to me. And before I know it, the knot of the day’s troubles lies loosened by a calmness that extends beyond petty office politics, trivial annoyances, minor car accidents and the hustle-bustle of daily life. YOUR TURN Well, you know my favourites now. What are yours? Maybe it’s weekend viewing or the occasional indulgence instead of late-night staples. Be what it may, drop a comment and let me know.

Such a Fun Age is a light, witty yet piercing look at race, class and privilege. The novel's plot is woven around two women at different points on the affluence and privilege scale. One is a 25-year-old college-educated black woman, Emira Tucker, who works as a babysitter to a precocious toddler named Briar. The other is her employer, Alix Chamberlain, a white woman in her early thirties who furthered her penchant for writing letters — mostly asking for freebies — into a small women-centric business via the good offices of social media. Kiley Reid chooses the ideal inciting incident to open her novel. An unexpected incident at the Chamberlain household prompts Alix to call in Emira to babysit her daughter, outside her usual working hours. She takes the child, Briar to a nearby grocery store where Emira is apprehended for ‘kidnapping’. A heated argument ensues, cooling off only when the kid’s father arrives to clarify the situation. The entire fracas is recorded by a tall stranger on his phone. This scenario sets the ball rolling (for more than one character) but not quite in the way one would imagine. To be honest, I picked up this book because I was curious to see how a debut novel about a babysitter found itself on the longlist for the Booker Prize. Now I know. While it may be Reid’s first novel, the writing is self-assured and unpretentious. We see the story from two perspectives — Emira’s and Alix’s — allowing us a grounding in both worldviews. Ultimately, that’s what the book is about – the way we see the world given our own experiences, which themselves are constructed by factors such as race, gender and affluence. The same incident means different things to different people, resulting in varied reactions. Reid weaves in themes of race, privilege, class and money into the tapestry of her plot and characterisation with a light touch. Not once does it feel like a lecture. Instead, it’s a quick read that makes you ponder all of the above while you stand in the shoes of the characters and see where they’re coming from. There are no hard lines of right and wrong and each character has a degree of relatability. Apart from her job-related inertia, Emira deals with all the situations that most 20-somethings encounter — money worries, friend circle dynamics and the questions that position themselves just outside the rosy bubble of a new romantic relationship. In Emira’s case, it’s an inter-racial relationship prompting an imagined conversation with her boyfriend. “Are we really gonna do this? How are you gonna tell your parents?... Are you gonna take our son to get his hair done? Who’s gonna teach him that it doesn’t matter what his friends do, that he can’t stand too close to white women… that he should slowly and noticeably put his keys on the roof as soon as he gets pulled over?” By asking these questions, Reid makes the characters come alive as 'real' people who will live on, even after you flip the last page. The language is colloquial and conversational but it retains a searing quality that sizzles through, straight to the bone. Such a Fun Age deftly shines a light on the lazy liberalism of privilege. How folks who don’t have any skin in the game can often, even with the best intentions, indulge in tokenism and virtue-signalling that is of no benefit to the unprivileged. And yet, it leaves the privileged with the serotonin-infused air of having done their bit. The keen depiction of human foibles and pretentions, in my opinion, is the strongest element of Reid’s writing along with her ability to convey her character’s emotions with specificity. “The closer she got to Kelley Copeland’s locker, the more Alex felt as if she were being watched. She began to feel unnatural in all her movements, as if she were pretending to read a magazine when she was really trying to overhear a conversation.” Sentences like these make your skin prickle in recognition of the cringe-worthiness of the moment, transforming a mere description of fact into an immersive experience. Such a Fun Age is the kind of book that would be tremendously enjoyable to discuss in a book club because it kicks up so many ideas and interpretations but is tough to review if one is wary of giving away the plot. Do read it if you’re looking for a breezy read that will leave you with food for thought. I would love to read what you make of the book in the comments. That way I can talk about the book some more!

This website, Tamed by the Fox , completed a year last week. It’s been both harder and easier than I thought it would be. Harder because I’d thought it would involve only writing posts and uploading them. How naïve was I! Had someone told me, a year ago, that I’d need to learn about SEO, create sitemaps, design promos and generally be solely responsible for all the little things that fall under the umbrella of site upkeep in addition to writing, I would’ve taken off for the hills. Learning on the job and applying my new-found knowledge challenged me and yet it was easier than I imagined. Easier because I’m doing something that I previously believed myself to be incapable of. Could I do better? Of course, but the fact that I’m still here, after what has been a steep learning curve, is a personal victory against procrastination, self-doubt and indiscipline. It hasn’t been a breeze though. I suffer from imposter syndrome, believing myself to be less capable than others consider me. Imposter syndrome is a strange thing. It makes you feel like a fake in spite of genuine achievements and abilities.  In my case, these feelings tend to cluster around writing but I know that it can show up in several different contexts for other people such as work, relationships, fitness, etc. It's natural to lack absolute objectivity regarding your own skill sets. Imposter syndrome, however, robs one of confidence in what one has already achieved, attributing it to luck, a lack of competition or some other external factor. I think of it as a kind of confidence dysmorphia. It clouds the perception of your own abilities, gnawing away at the thread between your hard work and the resulting accomplishment.  Imposter syndrome is currently considered undiagnosable in medical circles. I realised that I suffered from it during a conversation with a friend a few years ago. This friend of mine is a poet amongst other things and is also extremely well-read. He told me about how he felt that his poetry was merely ornamental and not ‘good enough’ even though other people liked it. And that he felt like an imposter. For me, it was like looking in a mirror. For days, I thought about that conversation and my own realisation. I concluded that imposter syndrome is a story we tell ourselves, falsely presuming our unworthiness. The way I see it, imposter syndrome is the mirror image of the ‘fake it till you make it’ credo, because it has you thinking that even though you’ve made it, you’re still faking it. IS IMPOSTER SYNDROME DIFFERENT FROM SELF-DOUBT? Self-doubt usually occurs before or during a task. Imposter syndrome hits us after achieving a target or even though we’re considered ‘good’ at something. Think of it as Self Doubt attending the after-party of your achievement and making snarky comments about how undeserving you are. It may seem counter-intuitive and frankly, like something that would be easy to dismiss. Yet, it persists. Left unchecked, imposter syndrome can turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy if it is allowed to turn you away from goals you wish to pursue. OVERCOMING IMPOSTER SYNDROME Look, I’m no psychologist, (this is a verifiable fact, not just my self-doubt talking!) so you don’t need to trust me. But here’s how I deal with imposter syndrome. THE LEARNER MINDSET I cast aside all thoughts of being good at writing. I think of myself as someone who wants to learn and is willing to do the work. Having the mindset of a learner takes away the pressure of having to always get things right while allowing you to grow. TALK IT OUT Speaking to my poet friend allowed me to recognise my own problem. In advising him, I helped myself.  The things I told him were what I too, needed to hear.   I asked him not to compare the first draft of his first work to Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov . This is the trouble with being well-read! It raises your expectations from yourself to unrealistic levels. It’s like expecting an amateur to play like Roger Federer on song at Wimbledon. Just not gonna happen! LOOK BEYOND THE SPOTLIGHT Remember that we see other people’s achievements but not the work that goes into them. The bad days when all of their ideas are miserable fails, the reworking, the research and the piles of thankless, monotonous work – we don’t see that. If we did, perhaps we would see that we aren’t dumb if we don’t just ‘get it’ in the first attempt. I remind myself that hard work is a symbol of drive and discipline, not a cancellation of all claims to talent. Ability is a buildable trait and self-confidence certainly helps. 1% INSPIRATION, 99% PERSPIRATION Oscar Wilde personifies my idea of effortless genius. I imagine him writing plays, short stories and essays while indulging in witty repartee all day long with the effortless effervescence of a butterfly. And yet, the truth is, he was fastidious about punctuation and grammar. Proofreading is not a task for butterflies, not matter how gifted. It requires the kind of painstaking checking and rechecking unsuited to the impatient. I recall an anecdote about Wilde being asked how he spent his day. He is reported to have said, “I was working on the proof of one of my poems all morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon, I put it back again.” This gives me hope each time I find myself stuck in a gyre of self-doubt. If you have similar feelings, tell yourself that just because you’re not as good as you would like to be, it doesn’t mean that you’re no good. And if you prefer to take advice only from artistic geniuses, then let me quote Vincent van Gogh. He said, “If I am worth anything later, I am worth something now. For wheat is wheat, even if people think it is grass in the beginning.”

In January 2013, I visited Chennai on a professional assignment with a few team members. One day, we had the morning to ourselves. A colleague asked me to accompany him to buy a saree for his wife. Amongst the ones we saw was a muted gold silk saree with a rhomboid weave of golden and silver thread. My colleague considered purchasing it but eventually preferred another. That night, I spoke to a friend who told me about a dream he had the preceding night. He lived in the US and so his night was my day. He’d dreamt of walls covered in wallpaper made of silk. And it was the colour of muted gold, covered in rhombi. Taken aback, I told him about having seen a saree that morning, very similar to what he described. We laughed it off but the incident has stayed with me. Over the years, I wondered if it had been a synchronicit y Even prior to that incident, I’d often wondered about the kinds of happenstance that, in my case, revolved around pieces of information, books and people. Sometimes, I’d be thinking about an idea and would find a book about the same concept the next time I popped into a bookstore. Or would meet and get to know people who engaged my curiosity in a particular direction. To me, these signs were answers to questions I wasn’t asking aloud. In fact, sometimes, I wasn’t even asking them. At least, not consciously. Most of these instances don’t stand out and could be brushed aside as coincidences. Though in hindsight, their meaning is easier to spot because the paths they opened up and the places they led to become apparent. I refer to this as Synchronicity now because Signs from the Universe (which is what I called such occurrences earlier) makes me sound flakier than a croissant and paints the Universe in a most unflattering light - as if it doesn’t have better things to do than to send me signals! Also, I learnt that this wasn’t something that I alone, had noticed. THE THEORY OF SYNCHRONICITY Synchronicity as a theory was propounded by Carl Gustav Jung , a pioneer of analytical psychology. He expanded the scope of his theory by working with physicist and Nobel Laureate Wolfgang Pauli . They described synchronicity as circumstances that appear meaningfully related yet lack a causal connection. In other words,  synchronicity states that some events are meaningfully related not by cause and effect, but by some other principle. Quite often, external events in our lives resonate with our internal psychological and emotional states. Which does not happen in case of simple coincidences. Also, synchronicities often appear in times of emotional intensity or when we are faced with a choice. There are times when ideas or people cross our path as if the Universe put them there – in a response to our need. THE STORY OF THE GOLDEN SCARAB One of the most famous instances of a synchronicity is the story of the golden scarab. Jung wrote about it in his book Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle . His patient was a well-educated young woman whose concept of reality was strictly rational and geometrical. As a result, Jung had found her psychologically inaccessible. He wrote, “ Well, I was sitting opposite her one day with my back to the window, listening to her flow of rhetoric. She’d had an impressive dream the night before in which someone had given her a golden scarab – a costly piece of jewellery. While she was telling me this dream, I heard something behind me gently tapping on the window. I turned around and saw that it was a fairly large flying insect that was knocking against the window pane from outside in the effort to get into the dark room. This seemed to me very strange. I opened the window immediately and caught the insect in the air as it flew in. It was a scarabaeoid beetle whose gold green colour resembles that of a golden scarab. I handed the beetle to my patient with the words, ‘There is your scarab’. This experience punctuated the desired hole in her rationalism and broke the ice of her intellectual resistance.” Sometimes, the breakthrough or synchronicity is stunningly memorable as in this case. At other times, it could be gentler. And the significance of those signs is also deeply personal because each of us carries in our minds, entire galaxies of meaning. For instance, curls of pencil shavings may be a core memory from your childhood. And so, only you would appreciate the significance of unexplained pencil shavings scattered on a window sill in an otherwise pristine house shown to you by a realtor. BEYOND CAUSALITY In explaining his theory, Jung didn’t hold back from using the language of Physics (with help from Pauli, of course), though he did stop shy of using the term “Big Bang”. Carl Jung spoke about how “under certain conditions, space and time can be reduced to almost zero, causality disappears along with them because causality is bound up with the existence of space and time and physical changes, and consists essentially in the succession of cause and effect. For this reason, synchronistic phenomena cannot in principle be associated with any conceptions of causality.” STRANGER THAN FICTION While researching this post, I came across another astounding tale of synchronicity. In the early 1970s, the actor, Anthony Hopkins was starting out in the movies and was cast in The Girl from Petrovka , a film based on a novel (with the same name) by George Feifer. As preparation for his role, Hopkins decided to read the novel. He walked around London checking every bookstore. Unfortunately, not a single copy was available. Disappointed, he took the subway back home. On the train, he spotted an object left behind by someone. It was a copy of The Girl from Petrovka. Even up to this point, it's a pretty amazing story but it gets better. At some point during the making of the movie, George Feifer, the author of the book, came to the set. While chatting with Hopkins, Feifer mentioned that he’d lent his copy of The Girl from Petrovka  to a friend who had left it on a train. Utterly surprised, Hopkins pulled out his book and showed it to the author. Feifer exclaimed, “That’s my copy.” That’s synchronicity for you. A coincidence so striking, meaningful and utterly impossible to orchestrate that it exceeds all possible explanations. Perhaps what comes to us as new information in this lifetime has been explored in another lifetime. Is it possible that synchronicities are nodes on the branches of lifetimes on the tree of destiny? FORMS OF SYNCHRONICITY A synchronicity may appear in the form of dreams, symbols, numbers, conversations, spontaneous encounters and ‘trickster’ events. Trickster events are those which initially, have a negative effect but reveal a positive impact in the long run. Like missing a flight only to meet someone on the next flight who works at a company you’re applying to for a job. Or walking into a music store because the friend you are meeting for a drink is delayed. And you end up enrolling in piano lessons every Thursday, and realise after a few months of lessons that music comes naturally to you. In the words of J Mike Fields, “Synchronicities are the doors to the wisdom of a thousand lifetimes waiting for integration.” I know all of this may sound a bit unbelievable. I’ll understand if you think I’ve lost my marbles. That’s fine. I do have a suggestion though. Just to strengthen your assertion, look back upon your life. Who knows? You might spot a synchronicity hiding in plain sight in the guise of the merely coincidental. Or perhaps, you’ll uncover a curiosity for coincidence and its serendipitous sibling, synchronicity. You may choose to explore it further to learn the various types of synchronicities and their links to quantum physics, the concept of karma and past lives. Would this blog post then count as a sign for you from the Universe?

Award-winning author, Andrew Taylor sets this historical crime novel,  The Scent of Death , in the year 1778 in British-controlled New York during the American War of Independence. His protagonist, Edward Savill is an English clerk from the American Department in London arriving in New York to aid Americans loyal to the Crown. However, America is a country at war and there are many who are settling personal scores in the midst of civil unrest and strife. On his first day in New York, Savill is taken to the murder site of a Mr Pickett. His murder raises some intriguing questions which are temporarily and conveniently answered when the testimony of an informer concludes in a black man being hanged for the murder. Yet, there are some loose ends.   Thanks to the connections of his superior at the Department, Edward Savill lodges in New York with the Wintours, a family of American aristocrats with their fortunes in decline. The patriarch of the Wintours is a former judge. His wife suffers from ill-health and has all but withdrawn from public life. Their only son Captain Wintour is missing, presumed dead. Their daughter-in-law, Arabella hails from old money and possesses the kind of enigmatic beauty that enchants all that come in contact with it. The majority of the characters we encounter are British loyalists and cling to the notion of an eventual victory for King George III. In the kind of unwritten dramatic irony possible only in historical fiction, the reader is well aware that this is not how the cookie will crumble, giving the plot an underlying tension. The New York of 1778 depicted in The Scent of Death is a melting pot for loyalists, rebels, slaves, financial and moral decay. It is a place rife with murder, persecution, betrayal, looting, shadowy attackers and buried secrets. It’s tough to know what or whom to trust. Taylor’s The Scent of Death  is a slow burner yet keeps one riveted with plot twists and a sense of foreboding. The writing is atmospheric and makes the scenes come alive. Andrew Taylor injects enough historical detail to illuminate the stage but not so much as to distract from his story or slow down the pace. The landscape of the novel is populated with grey characters – not the kind that are likely to have you rooting for them. Most of the characters aren’t what they appear to be. Their motivations are complex and layered and it’s not easy to figure them out. Arabella is a prime example. Savill and through him, the reader, hardly knows anything about her. What little we know is what she chooses to reveal. It’s like seeing a mirage in the desert. And yet she holds sway over the narrator and the novel. Both her presence and absence are note-worthy. This air of hidden motivations and stealthy machinations permeates every chapter of the book. Taylor emphasises the unsteadiness of the ground his protagonist stands on by using the first person narrative. Savill, the narrator doesn’t have access to the thoughts and feelings of anyone other than himself. Neither does the reader. As a result, the sense of unease, shifting loyalties and other characters’ personal agendas feel more visceral. In contrast, using a third person omniscient or even a third person limited point of view would have provided a more distant perspective. Savill’s first person narration adds to the sense of the reader meandering alongside the protagonist in a maze of hidden truths and misdirection. The themes of race, justice, revenge and loyalty are woven into the plot along with the imagery of light and dark. Taylor writes, “For some people, loyalty is a commodity.” This applies to the ties of loyalty between American subjects and their British rulers across the ocean and to the loyalty that the rebels feel towards their countrymen and their revolution to throw off the yoke of British rule. The plotline of family members having divided loyalties, on the basis of their political moorings or perhaps more practical considerations, also plays out. Taylor slips in a historical reference of just such a split between Benjamin Franklin, a founding father of the American Revolution and his son, William Franklin, a British loyalist who was the Royal Governor of New Jersey. The Scent of Death opens with the lines, “This is the story of a woman and a city. I saw the city first.” Perhaps Taylor meant for them to be metaphors for each other with their mirroring states of ruin, ripped loyalties and multiple suitors. Ultimately, the novel paints a convincing portrait of the ravages of war and how, in the midst of a conflict, there are no heroes. Each side partakes in its share of cruelty, plunder and terror. Historical fiction like The Scent of Death strips back the patina of one-sided history that most of us take for granted – one that is painted in the colours of the victors and viewed with a false sense of inevitability that hindsight engenders. I enjoyed this novel enough to add Andrew Taylor’s much-acclaimed novel, The American Boy  to my reading list.

Walking on a trail along the fields near my home, I clicked some pictures of the reeds and wild flowers that sprout in the winter months. Nature’s variety seems boundless. Who knows how many kinds of flowers and plants there are in the world. How Nature creates such bounty, beauty and functionality while eschewing superfluousness is an absolute wonder. Of course, none of it happened all at once. It usually takes thousands of years for evolution to erode the pointless and perpetuate the essential. But then, Nature is never in a hurry. After all, it has a lot of time and space. (Yes, this is my idea of a Physics joke!) Simplicity has a ring of truth about it, an elegance and resilience that beats trends and momentary peaks and troughs. If you’ve ever seen a belt of sand dunes, you know what I mean. Functionally, it’s just piles of sand shaped into crescents by the wind and yet, one can keep looking at them, mesmerised. The same is true for sitting on a beach and watching the waves roll in and recede, and then do more of the same. Perhaps, this applies to our lives as well. Yes, we live in consumerist times and there are unending mounds of stuff everywhere we look. And yet, the call of the classic and understated is eternal and cuts through the clutter. I’m reminded of two photographs that were in the news a few years ago. One was a picture of a meeting between the Emperor of Japan and the Saudi Crown Prince in September of 2016 while the other was from the Saudi King’s visit to Japan a few months later. The coverage of the Saudi King’s visit was overrun by headlines of golden escalators, silk carpets and luxury cars. In contrast, the Japanese Emperor met with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia in a room with screen walls, two wooden chairs and a small table with a flower arrangement. Even though the visits took place months apart, my mind has collated them into a single conversation of ideals and highlighted the distinctly Japanese trait of winning an argument by speaking the softest. Wherein lies the appeal of simplicity? Is it only functionality and lack of embellishment that win us over? Or does simplicity strum a chord within us that longs to live unpretentiously with adequate belongings to make our lives easier but not smother our surroundings with everything ever invented. Clutter stresses us out, on a sub-conscious level. Which is why it feels good to live with less. Not everyone needs to or can be Marie Kondo , arguably the world’s most famous tidy-upper, but it’s helpful to recognise that acquiring possessions must have a cut-off point. After all, there are only so many mugs, rugs, clothes or vases that a person needs. This is something I like to remind myself as well. A few years ago, when I moved out of Delhi to our farm in Belgaum, I packed one large trunk of clothes I had never worn. Most still had their tags peeping out of the bags they came in. It shocked me and I was ashamed of my hoarding ways . I’m working on correcting that by cutting down my purchases and discarding before I buy. Which is why I find the story about the Zen monk who welcomed a traveller into his dwelling is so impactful. The Zen monk had only a sleeping mat and a few wooden pots in his room. His visitor asked why he didn’t have any furniture. To which the monk said, “Where is your furniture?” Taken aback, his guest responded, “I don’t have any furniture. I’m only passing through.” The monk smiled and said, “So am I.” Travel light – that’s the message. And that doesn’t mean giving up on aesthetics. Instead, one can focus more on quality if the pressure to collect quantity is deducted from the equation. The one and only Leonardo da Vinci said, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” He absolutely hit the nail on the head with that. Except that he too had trunkfuls of clothes, given his dandy ways. Aah well… so da Vinci wasn’t perfect, but at least he was working on it! So can we.

The barista called out the name scrawled on the venti cup, “Cappuccino for Aditya.” I smiled, a gentle wave of satisfaction washing over me. That was close enough, I thought to myself. My guess had been Abhishek, Abhimanyu or some other common male name starting with the letter A. Sorry for the abrupt   opening. Let me start at the beginning. I was nursing a frappe at the Starbucks outlet at the Mumbai airport, killing time before checking in for a flight to Delhi. I was travelling alone and, as always, carrying a book. I settled into a cushioned cane chair, placed the book next to my drink but chose to watch people instead. While I wouldn’t describe myself as a Peeping Tom or an eavesdropper, I admit that I enjoy trying to guess the details of strangers’ lives from what I can observe. I’m no Sherlock Holmes but it is fun to try. Starbucks is especially helpful with regard to an added element of my pastime - guessing the names of strangers. Unlike most other coffee chains in India, Starbucks doesn’t bring their customers’ orders to their tables. Instead, they prefer to call out the customer’s name along with their drink order. Which works out perfectly fine for me, the name-guessing people-watcher! My little game rests on the theory that certain people suit their names to a T and studying their appearance and body language can sometimes help one intuit this stuff. At other times, it’s just fun to watch people in public spaces and imagine what they’re like. So, this Aditya from paragraph one was tall, fair, with a lankiness to his frame, and a certain affability to his body language. There was a casualness about him that made me think of parents who want their child to have a roll number in class that comes somewhere near the top. I’ve known parents who believe that a single-digit roll number will somehow turn their lackadaisical offspring into a competitive merit-lister. Anyway, a name beginning with an A usually lands a spot in the top ten. At least, alphabetically! If you’ve persisted with this post till this point, I commend your patience. Or perhaps, you too are a people-watcher. If yes, do leave a comment on what you consider the best places to watch people. I'm partial to coffee shops. I like my creature comforts, you see. Comfortable couches, the fragrance of coffee brewing, the trickle and spurts of moody coffee machines spewing hot and bitter liquids, the hissing of the milk steamer, punctuated by the bings of the cash register and the hum of conversation. This is my preferred setting with its soothing symphony of sounds. There’s something about the informality of a cafe that allows for people’s personalities to step out. Also, there is an element of waiting or solitude involved. Unlike restaurants, where people usually arrive together for a meal, a coffee shop is a place with many purposes. One could walk in there to work, to catch up with friends, for first meetings – whether dates or interviews, to savour a beverage while reading a book or to buy a drink on the go. To watch a person while they wait is a whole different ball game. Touching up their make-up or glancing at the door every few minutes, clicking a selfie (at times, a whole portfolio), making phone calls, texting or scrolling through social media or glancing through the week-old newspapers lying around. And then, there are also those who come prepared with a book. Like yours truly! Airports and railway stations are considered by many to be great places for people-watching. I differ on that front. The anxiety and rushing about of travel can cause most people to depart from their true nature. Almost nobody rushes to a café in a state of urgency. Apart from me, that is! And that’s what makes watching folks, as they settle in with a drink or a muffin, so entertaining. That is, until you catch someone’s eye who is doing exactly what you are. In a moment of shared confidences, you smile sheepishly, look down and open that book lying next to your coffee.

We’re well into the second month of the year and if you’re like me, you have a reading target for the year. And if you’re really like me, you’re lagging behind so miserably that the whole idea is beginning to look impossible. But I’m an optimist. I usually wake up looking to turn into a new leaf almost every other day. Some people call that delusional. I call it Tuesday! My usual reading target is 24 books in a year. I have achieved that target only once in the last five or six years which is when I began keeping a count of the books I read. Mostly, I end up reading 17-18 books in a year. Therefore, with a renewed spurt of afore-mentioned optimism with real-life data shaking its head in disbelief, my target for this calendar year is 36 books. For the mathematically-oriented, this translates to 3 books a month. It's the 9th of February and I’ve read one book. So clearly, something’s got to change. I need to get out of my reading slump. And from my extensive experience of such slumps, I know that one of the important elements of achieving the requisite momentum to get out of a reading slump is to pick the right book . Something that is fast-paced or soothing (depending on what you need) but mostly, something that reads like a letter from an old friend… easy-going, fun and with bits that make you chuckle or sit up in surprise. I hope to stumble upon such a book recommendation but for you, dear reader, I bring a list of books I’ve read in the recent past that should help jumpstart your reading battery. THE ART OF RACING IN THE RAIN by GARTH STEIN The Art of Racing in the Rain  is the story of the Swift family narrated by the half Labrador and half either Shepherd, Poodle or Terrier protagonist, Enzo. At the centre of Enzo’s life and the story, is Denny Swift, an aspiring professional race car driver dealing with family and financial issues. Enzo’s perspective as narrator is what makes this novel shine. If you’re looking for a heart-warming book about family, loss, resilience and hope, this may be just what you’re looking for. THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY by MATT HAIG Have you ever wondered how your life would’ve turned out if you’d done a few things differently? The Midnight Library  by Matt Haig is a novel about the decisions we make and how every choice we are offered is both a fruit of previous choices but also a seed for future possibilities. The Midnight Library is a charming little book to curl up with. It reminds us to value our small victories and joys in a world that glorifies the flashy. THE READING LIST by SARA NISHA ADAMS Between the pages of a library book lies the List – a handwritten catalogue of eight novels with no obvious similarities- written out for no one in particular just in case they need it. For reasons of their own, the protagonists, Aleisha, a teenage librarian and Mukesh, an elderly widower who has until now kept his distance from books, start reading the novels on the list, forming an unexpected bond with books and each other. A MAN CALLED OVE by FREDRIK BACKMAN The protagonist of A Man called Ove  is a grumpy and rigid old man. He decides to end his life, seeing no point in carrying on. Ove has a plan and the tools to achieve it. That’s when a couple moving into the neighbourhood ruin his design. This book will warm the cockles of your heart while reaffirming the inescapable truth that few things are more essential than the belief that one is loved and needed. MORE BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS AHEAD If mysteries and thrillers are more your speed, here are a few more recommendations that will keep you engaged without getting too complicated. Remember, easy-peasy is the vibe we’re going for. THE PLOT by JEAN HANFF KORELITZ The Plot  is a novel about Jacob Finch Bonner, a struggling writer who steals a riveting plot narrated to him by a student who dies before completing his novel based on the same plot. Jacob’s book ends up becoming a blockbuster and he, a celebrated author. There is, however, one tiny fly in the ointment - someone knows his secret and is threatening to reveal it to the world.  The writing is engaging and the narrator’s turn of phrase and ironic tone elevates the story, injecting it with humour and insight while keeping you turning pages to discover the identity of the murderer in Jacob’s novel and the blackmailer in his own life. A DEATH IN THE HIMALAYAS by UDAYAN MUKHERJEE Set in the hilly environs of an idyllic little village in the Himalayas, this novel sets the stage early when an English activist found murdered in the nearby forest. Clare Watson is a victim with many supporters, quite a few enemies and a secret or two. Neville Wadia, a suave, former policeman is the primary but unofficial investigator of the case. He carries the baggage of his past as do most of the suspects. THE TRUTH ABOUT THE HARRY QUEBERT AFFAIR by JOEL DICKER The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair  is a cold case whodunnit delivered with a literary flair. It’s a novel about two authors – Harry Quebert, a celebrated senior writer who is arrested for murder, 33 years after a fifteen-year-old girl that he loved goes missing; and Marcus Goldman his protégé who, struggling with writer’s block after his successful first novel, resolves to clear his mentor’s name. With a host of suspects, fading memories and looming deadlines, Marcus is up against many challenges in this twisty page-turner. Joel Dicker’s style and narrative technique make it even better by imbuing a thriller plot with literary allusions, three-dimensional characters and social commentary without letting up on the pace. Happy reading, folks!

Every now and then, burrowed into the prosaic paths of the commonplace is nestled something whimsical. Amazing and amusing in its quaintness and imagination, it makes us smile and adds a sparkle to the humdrumness of everyday life. I’m very easily charmed by whimsy – a quaint café, an interesting bookmark or a delightful hobby or trait is all it takes. A few months ago, a friend, Shruti sent me a link to something called a literature clock . It’s a website that operates as a clock, telling you the time. It updates every minute without the user refreshing the page. Before you judge me as particularly simple-minded with a roll of your eyes, let me clarify that while I am easily amused, it is not quite that  easy. This online clock’s beauty lies in its revealing the time as part of a quote from a piece of literature.   Which means that someone searched for quotes from thousands of works of literature that would represent every minute of a day. To me, watching it change from one timely quote to another is gratifying. Is it strictly necessary? Of course not. But then, neither is dancing. To the best of my knowledge, nobody dances to cover the distance from point A to point B! Speaking of going from A to B reminds me of a company that goes from A to Z, Amazon (check out the logo and you’ll see that the arrow travels from A to Z). It’s a multi-billion-dollar corporation with a dismal reputation for profit-gouging and fostering a toxic work environment for a majority of its employees. I’m certainly not a fan. Even so, I came across a page on its site quite by accident which managed to humanise this global profit-squeezing, mega-corporation. The humanising effect didn’t last long but given my opinion of Amazon, even that ounce of goodwill generated was no small achievement. The page in question is an Error 404 page which basically pops up only when Amazon can’t find whatever you’re searching for. Except that this page has a picture of an employee’s dog and a little write-up about it. Apparently, Amazon has a Dogs at Work program allowing employees to bring their dogs to work. The whimsical charm of this webpage was enough to make me forget for a while what I was searching for in the first place. That is the power of whimsy. It fires up our imagination, emotions and turns the run-of-the-mill into something memorable. And sometimes, it can also turn into a lifestyle and a business. Like it did for Zack MacLeod Pinsent , a 29-year-old British man who, at the ripe old age of 14 ditched his denims for bespoke 18-Century clothing. He chooses to dress like a Regency gentleman every day, regardless of quizzical looks from strangers and the effort required to tailor his own clothes in a fashion that has been out of fashion for a couple of centuries. But it’s obvious that it makes him happy. And frankly, he cuts quite a figure. More power to him. We can all sprinkle some whimsy into our lives in whatever manner we like. Most of us already do, I’m sure. It could be a playful pair of spectacles, reading Wuthering Heights or Harry Potter every winter or gifting hand-made dreamcatchers to friends and family. It’s quirks like these that spark joy even if nobody else understands the point of them. Carry on regardless. As did Edwin Hubble, the brilliant American astronomer who is often credited with having revolutionized mankind’s understanding of the Universe. He has the rare distinction of having an asteroid, a crater on the Moon and a space telescope named in his honour. Here on Earth, the planet of his birth, a planetarium, a stretch of highway and a school were named after him. His was an exceptional mind. However, by most accounts, he was also quite eccentric. After a stint at Oxford University in England, he adopted a fake British accent and began to go about dressed in a cape and carrying a cane. I suppose you could call it an affectation but I find it both droll and delightful! To me, whimsy is like stardust. Even a dash of it catches the light, making everything shimmer.

The image of a single person following their dream with no help from anyone has a fantastic quality to it. It’s the kind of stuff that drums up the iconic Eye of the Tiger soundtrack from Rocky in our imagination. The solitary nature of the pursuit makes the accomplishment seem all the more creditable. But is that how great things come to be? Take Apple. Most people think of Apple as being the brainchild of one man, Steve Jobs. That’s branding for you. Even in that now-legendary garage in Los Altos, California which was the birthplace of Apple Inc, there was a team of two, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Decades later, there was a team of designers and engineers who worked on the Macintosh computers, iPods, iPads and iPhone models that rocked the world. The same holds true for almost every organisation and invention. Even some works of art. Artists are often portrayed as solitary beings in a whirlwind of dreamy ideas, toiling away in solitude to create works of art that astound and enthral the masses. But that’s not usually the case. Many artists benefit from exchanging ideas with other artists and even people from fields far removed from their own. Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man Take for instance, Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. I propose Vitruvian Man as an example because it appears simple enough to be a one-person job, but that’s far from the truth. Leonardo learnt about geometry from Andrea del Verrocchio, with whom he apprenticed as a young man. Cosimo de’ Medici’s tomb (which was completed in 1467, a year after Leonardo became Verrocchio’s apprentice) was adorned with geometrical patterns dominated by a circle inside a square instead of the usual religious imagery. This pattern of a circle inside a square would be used by Leonardo for the Vitruvian Man decades later. Vinci collaborated with Francesco di Giorgio, an architect in conceiving the Vitruvian Man . The drawing itself was Leonardo’s homage to the concepts of Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, who lived and died almost a millennium and a half before Leonardo was born. Pollio served in the Roman Army and specialized in the design and construction of artillery machines. His most important work was De Architectura, known today as The Ten Books on Architecture. In this work, he described the proportions of the human body. Though Leonardo, ever the perfectionist, relied on his own meticulous measurements for the drawing. At the heart of the Vitruvian Man is an analogy that goes all the way back to Plato and the thinkers of the ancient world – man as a microcosm of the universe which is the macrocosm. The Vitruvian Man embodies a moment when art and science combined to allow mortal minds to ask eternal questions about who we are and how we fit into the grand order of the universe. It also symbolises an ideal of humanism that celebrates the dignity and value of humans as individuals. Great ideas are often sparked by individual brilliance. Sometimes they require a singular vision. But executing that vision often calls for working with others. Innovation is a team sport. Just like creativity can be a collaborative endeavour. While we are welcome to get our ideas from books or the works of those who preceded us, it is worthwhile to meet our collaborators in person when we can. Having studied the lives and processes of some of the brightest minds, the best-selling biographer, Walter Isaacson writes, “Ideas are often generated in physical gathering places where people with diverse interests encounter one another serendipitously. That is why Steve Jobs liked his buildings to have a central atrium and why the young Benjamin Franklin founded a club where the most interesting people of Philadelphia would gather every Friday. At the court of Ludovico Sforza, Leonardo found friends who could spark new ideas by rubbing together their diverse passions.” We can all benefit from collaboration whether it is at our workplaces or for our personal projects because, regardless of how bright we believe ourselves to be, we are seldom smarter than five or six brains put together. And most importantly, the varied interests, knowledge bases and unique perspectives of our collaborators can spout answers we may never imagine and pose questions that lead us down new paths of discovery. Like it did for Spencer Silver, the scientist partially-credited for the creation of the Post-It. This is how it came to be. Silver was trying to develop a very strong adhesive. He failed. What he ended up making was an extremely weak adhesive. Though this new glue didn’t serve his purpose, Silver shared his unintentional invention with his colleagues at 3M. A few years later, Art Fry, another scientist at 3M, was at his church choir practice, becoming increasingly frustrated. His bookmark kept falling off the page, off the music stand and onto the floor. That’s when he remembered Silver’s weak adhesive and figured he could use it to make the ideal bookmark. Thus, was born one of the most recognizable brands today – the Post-It. That’s the power of collaboration. Some of us scoff at the idea of meeting our colleagues or hashing out ideas in conferences considering them a waste of time but these meet-ups do have some merit. The benefit of these exchanges lies not in formal settings, long presentations or meetings that should have been emails but in quick chats, focussed discussions and the tossing together of ideas. That’s the reason why communities of like-minded individuals flourish even online. Speaking of online forums, I was on Reddit just the other day. Someone had posted a question requesting suggestions for a character nickname/name. I responded to it in the hope that my response might, in some way, be helpful to this anonymous person. Call me a romantic but there is something so intensely human about reaching out to others for help or suggestions and to want to contribute toward someone else’s project with no thought to reward or credit. Therein lies the seed of collaboration.

Celeste Ng’s much-feted debut novel, Everything I never told you was published in 2014. As is apparent from the title, the novel is about secrets. The kind of stuff we keep to ourselves, hoping to hold on to the people we love and the price we end up paying for our silence. But that’s not all it’s about. I’ll tell you the rest later. For now, let’s start at the beginning. The plot of the novel revolves around the lives of a mixed-race family of five, the Lees. They live in Middlewood, a small All-American college town. The book opens on the day of their older daughter, Lydia’s disappearance and death. Using an omniscient third person narrator, Ng unfurls the story from the alternating perspectives of all five family members allowing us to witness poignant moments in their lives, present and past, and making us privy to their emotions, secrets and motivations. The narration is also peppered with several political and socio-cultural references such as the ‘the summer of the Son of Sam’, Elvis’ death and launch of NASA’s Gemini 9, grounding the story in a real-world timeline. Everything I never told you is not a whodunnit where the police or a detective solves the case. It’s a mystery that delves not so much into Lydia’s disappearance and death but the layers of her life. And this is not easy given the double life Lydia leads. This is a character who had maintained an annual diary for 12 years and never wrote a single word in them. Not one word. The reader is led by the narrator into an almost languid study of events from the parents’ childhood and youth to the children’s early years that made Lydia, the person she was and her life, what it was. There’s no rushing about but the pace of the story doesn’t slacken. Academic excellence as a path to acceptance, racism, alienation, sexism and secrets are some of the themes in Everything I never told you. One of the ideas explored is how a parent’s dreams for their child can rob the child of the opportunity of finding their own way and end up stunting their growth. And that’s not to say that the parent’s choices for their child, per se, are necessarily wrong but just that being pushed, no matter how subtly, is what makes them problematic. This novel reminded me of a quote by the Swiss psychotherapist Carl Jung: “The greatest tragedy of the family is the unlived lives of the parents.” Ng paints a moving portrait of the inherently human longing to be seen for who one is and how precariously the pile of small sacrifices, made in service of those we love, teeters as the years go by. By the end of Everything I never told you , one is left with a pit in one’s stomach wishing it had turned out differently and goes down the rabbit holes of thinking how a few small changes or a honest chat or two could’ve made all the difference. To me, that is the power of this book - that you're left with a tinge of regret and sadness at the waste of it all. Alas, what is done, is done and nothing alters the cold fact that Lydia is no more. Speaking of Lydia brings me back to the opening lines of the novel, “Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet.” This opening is so good that the publishers couldn’t resist putting it in the blurb at the back of the book. One can’t fault that decision because it gives the story impetus from the word go. What makes the introductory sentences truly brilliant is that they imbue a mundane family breakfast, which is the opening scene of Everything I never told you, with gravitas because of what the reader knows but the Lees don't. For a first-time novelist, Ng is masterful with this bit of dramatic irony for without these lines, the reader would probably have skimmed over the details or worse, shut the book and picked up another. Instead, it turns us, the readers, into keen-eyed sleuths on the lookout for clues amidst soggy cornflakes and physics problems. Celeste Ng’s characterization is another positive in Everything I never told you . The characters are relatable. Their hopes, complexes, motivations and coping mechanisms feel real whether it is Lydia’s father, James’ cloying desire for his children to be popular, Marilyn’s ‘tiger mom’ tactics to make up for the missed chances in her own life or Nathan’s tangled ties of loyalty and resentment to his sister. And then there is Hannah, the baby of the family, stuck, literally and metaphorically, in the attic. She who misses nothing from her hiding places and craves the sunshine of affection from her family. There is also a passing reference to William Faulkner’s classic The Sound and the Fury, a novel about the breakdown of a Southern, formerly aristocratic family. I saw certain parallels between the characters in Faulkner’s book and Ng’s novel. Perhaps, I’m wrong. Read Everything I never told you and let me know what you think.

The Art of Racing in the Rain is the story of a family on the verge of being torn apart by the rigours of life and a confluence of cruel circumstances. Denny Swift, one of the protagonists of the novel, aspires to be a professional race car driver even as he deals with family and financial issues. He is portrayed with much care and admiration by his fellow protagonist and the narrator of this story, Enzo. Half Labrador and half either Shepherd, Poodle or Terrier, Enzo is Denny’s greatest champion and loyal friend. Cola keeping me company while I read Enzo’s role as the narrator is what sets The Art of Racing in the Rain apart from any other novel with similar good-people-in-tough-situations storylines. Enzo is old and unwell when the book opens and he narrates the story of his human family right from the day he met Denny as a puppy, through all the highs and lows faced by the Swift family up until the present day. Even for those who aren’t dog-lovers, Enzo’s love for racing, thirst for knowledge, perceptive discernment of human behaviour and his obsession with the power of opposable thumbs is charming. But that’s not it. Enzo desperately wants to be born as a human being in his next life. Though it’s ironic because he could teach the world a lesson or two in how to be human. The American journalist, Andy Rooney made a similar point when he said, “The average dog is a nicer person than the average person.” Garth Stein creates Enzo - a character who is a sponge for trivia, history, weather updates, spiritual truths and everything in between. He prefers the Godfather series to Scarface (don’t we all?), has strong opinions on dining table etiquette and is a keen observer of human nature and storytelling. Enzo knows that a hero, in order to be loved, must have at least one flaw, making him or her relatable. And yet Stein upends the idea by making Enzo as close to perfect by making him a dog. But then, that’s the nature of dogs. The title, The Art of Racing in the Rain pays homage to the legendary Formula 1 driver, Ayrton Senna’s tremendous feat of driving through the rain at the European Grand Prix in 1993. Enzo repeatedly tells us that Senna is his favourite driver. Racing in the rain also acts as a metaphor for tough times and how they can be travelled through with grace, courage and fortitude. Garth Stein uses the conversations between Denny and Enzo as channels to set up the themes of his novel. The power of manifestation is one such idea. “The car goes where the eyes go.” In other words, what we focus on is what we will find before us. In terms of characterization, this is a book with two protagonists and a handful of secondary characters. We, as readers, are rooting for both protagonists and even more so, their bond and friendship. And yet, there are some perks set aside only for four-legged narrators. And one of those benefits is the benefit of no doubt. Usually with first-person narrators, one is expecting them to gloss over their own flaws and indulge in some self-aggrandisement. These are the pitfalls of first-person narration. Not so with Enzo. Sure, he is well-spoken, wise and worldly but then you must understand that he is a documentary-watching dog with a philosophical bent of mind. For Enzo, there is no better human being than Denny and because Enzo is telling us his story, I’m more willing to believe that Denny’s character could perhaps be exaggerated by Enzo’s adoration than I’m willing to entertain the idea that Enzo could be less than truthful about himself. The Art of Racing in the Rain lets us live out the fantasy of imagining what our pets would say if they could speak and illustrates what we, as pet-lovers, sometimes forget. That while, our pets might be only one part of our days and lives, we are the entirety of their days and lives. If each of them could write a book or make a movie, we’d all have starring roles in them. Enzo spends his entire life wishing to be human and yet, it is us who would benefit from being more like him: in the way that he listens without interrupting, turns learnings into practice and loves with his whole heart. The scenes depicting his interactions with the Swifts’ little daughter, Zoë are especially touching. Some of Enzo’s weather channel watching ways seem to have rubbed off on me as well. And so, I’d like to say that in case you’re looking for a heart-warming book about family, loyalty, loss, hope and resilience as the weather gets colder (at least here in the northern hemisphere), The Art of Racing in the Rain may be just the novel you’re looking for. A breezy read, it’s the kind of book that is bound to keep you engaged till the end, at which point, I assure you, it'll leave you with a lump in your throat. Consider yourself warned.