Vekees and Thomas - a Food Chain with Novelty

Sometime back I had written about my fondness for continental food and how it leads me to try out new Euro food joints. Some three months ago, a new Euro restaurant came up in my office area, Veekes and Thomas. The restaurant has a very bare-bone setup occupying a small space with two tables and some cane-chairs around them. It is fronted by strips of white curtains made of cane. There are only two to three people on the staff, two manning the kitchen and one doubling up as cashier and waiter.


But funnily, instead of putting you off, the austere setting actually lends the place the look and feel of an authentic low-cost European food shop. My first visit was a disappointment. I had ordered for a veg sandwich and received one with the stuffing of an egg (!) and finely chopped deep fried onions. The stuffing kept drooping out on the plate as I bit my way through the poor thing. I wanted to scream but held back.

Last week I visited them for French Onion soup priced at Rs. 30 and was happy with what I got. It wasn’t anything to drool over, just a concoction of a thick sauce, some finely sliced onions and black pepper. But the taste was good. And guess how they served it: In a road-side tea glass. I asked for a bowl, and the cashier, now acting as waiter, returned from the kitchen with a mini bowl, but by then I had made peace with the glass.

You may get a little irritated by all this ordinarily, but at Veekes and Thomas, you have to read their mission statement - here two wooden frames adorning the wall next to me framed it - to put it all in perspective. Veekes and Thomas is a chain of food joints built around the idea of village economy and inclusive growth. Their mission statement suggests that they source their vegetables from village cooperatives to keep profiteering middlemen out and increase the profit margin of farmers.

They recruit their staff from NGOs. In the long run, they plan to open street side food counters and over time transfer their ownership to the workers. They also additionally incentivize their workers based on their work (which I don’t think other restaurants do; workers may earn additional revenue through tips but nothing comes from the management). They are allergic to using plastic (this found couple of mentions in the statement). Even when it doesn’t concern packing food for customers, they follow “green” methods: “If you find an exotic dish served on a leaf plate, don’t be surprised,” warned the statement.

I don’t know how many of the lofty ideas translate into actions, but the idea of helping the society and village economy through a food-business model sounded impressive and the methods felt practicable.

Nowadays in India the middle class, especially the IT types, are coming under heavy attack by left-style intellectuals who claim that the middle class, high on its new-found prosperity, has become insensitive to the suffering of the poor. Most don’t pay attention to the allegation. But allegation or otherwise, if you are someone with a social conscience (or similar pretension), you will feel nice by patronizing Veekes and Thomas.

As for the food, I also tried out the Cream of Mushroom soup, served in a glass. I liked it. And paid only Rs. 35.

Modern Science Writing by Richard Dawkins

I never took interest in science during my school years but as a result of promiscuous reading for many years now, I have developed interest in many subjects and science is one of them. This explains why I bought Modern Science Writing by Richard Dawkins, an anthology of articles, written by prominent scientists, on various aspects of science and scientists.

Despite being a science book (a subject many dread), it doesn’t put you off with pedagogies of school science textbooks. The book mayn’t be to science what William Dalrymple’s books are to history – converting pedagogy into page turner. But the articles are surely absorbing (expect some that are too data-oriented) and introduce you to scientific subjects in a manner that makes you want to read the next article, bursting the old belief that writing is not for scientists.

Each article starts with an introduction of the author scientist of the article. And, as Dawkins is a scientist himself, he knows (or knew) many of the author scientists personally, having interacted with them during student life and later, and writes about various facets of their personalities in his introductions bringing to life the men behind the articles. However, sometimes the introductions become too admiring of author scientists and Dawkins starts appearing like a child in their awe rather than a writer giving his observations.

The articles are of varied types: some full of dry details (a little off putting); some academic discussions with conflicting scientific thoughts and some human emotions. Here is an excerpt. The author, Oliver Sacks, discusses his uncle, Uncle Tungsten, and his obsession with tungsten wire, used as filaments of lightbulbs.

“We had called him Uncle Tungsten for as long as I remember, because he manufactured lightbulbs with filament of fine tungsten wire. His firm was called Tungstalite, and I often visited him in his old factory in Farringdon. During my visits to the factory, Uncle Dave would teach me about metals with little experiments. I knew that mercury, that strange liquid metal, was incredibly heavy and dense. Even lead floated on it, as my uncle showed me by floating a lead metal in a bowl of quicksilver. But then he pulled out a small grey bar from his pocket, and to my amazement, this sank immediately to the bottom.”

Tale of Mangoes

This is mango session and I indulge myself with the fruit every now and then. I don’t know all their varieties and can’t tell one variety from another but like most of them once their colour turns from green to bright yellow. The green ones taste mischievous with sprinkling of salt but they leave your teeth numb.

I buy mangoes from the hawker who parks his cart near my house with ripe mangoes heaped on it. I had long wondered what happens to the mangoes that don’t sell. Mangoes tend to perish faster than other fruits and the ones that are yellow today develop black stains tomorrow.

Are they returned to the wholesale vendor from whom they were bought? Are they resold to some other vendor looking for cheaper deal? Do small fruit juice shops buy them at throwaway prices? Two days back, when I was there buying my mango, curiosity got the better of me. And I asked the hawker what happens to the hapless mangoes that don’t find patrons.

He dropped his voice to convey his self-pity and avoiding eye contact, said: “There is nothing in this business.” Then he explained why.

In Bangalore mangoes mainly come from Andra Pradesh. (Few varieties also come from Kerala, but they aren’t popular.)There are a few places in Bangalore where mangoes are sold on a large scale but the one in Hebbal, which is very far from most parts of the city, is the largest depot which attracts hawkers from across the city to buy mangoes.

Wooden boxes containing mangoes are auctioned. You have to indicate the box you will buy by placing a fistful of grass on it. Once you place the bunch of grass, the box is yours with its defects (underweight of mangoes with newspapers at the bottom of the crate, spoilt mangoes, etc.) or otherwise becoming your responsibility.

If you buy multiple boxes, you have to make sure they don’t go missing in the mundi; stolen boxes will not be indemnified by the seller. As Hebbal is very far, you need to buy good number of boxes to economize the transportation cost.

“But what happens to the unsold mangoes?” I asked.

“In old days you could return the unsold mangoes to the one you bought them from, but now they are your loss,” the hawker answered. The same goes for other fruits.

“Fruit business me pehle jaisa maza nehi raha,” he concluded twitching the corner of mouth, indicating resignation. (There is no meaning in fruit business any more.)

The Science of Optimism by Tali Sharot, Time Magazine

Despite no dearth of disappointments in and around our lives, we keep our sanity and face the future. How? Because we are programmed to be hopeful.

The Time magazine has carried an interesting piece on our tendency to be optimistic as its cover story this time – The Science of Optimism. The article analyzes how optimism or hope shapes our relationships, professional lives, outlook, etc. It says optimism has helped us evolve into what we are today, an advanced race.

But what makes us optimistic? A memory that tends to recollect inaccurately.

Our memory, Tali Sharot, the author suggests, quoting scientists, tends to recall inaccurately partly because the neural system responsible for memory might have not evolved for memory alone. Its evolution, in fact, could have been for the opposite reason: to help us imagine a positive future.

The author interviewed some witnesses of the 9/11 attack asking them to recollect their experience and found that only a little above 60 per cent could recall details accurately.

But, as part of a study, when the author asked people to imagine their future, they imagined such that “Even the most banal life events seemed to take a dramatic turn for the better.”

By citing studies conducted by her and her peers, the author shows how our mind predicts the future with a glow of optimism subtracting adverse possibilities that can lead to an alternate future. However, when it foresees adversities in the future, it helps us to prepare for it by saving money, storing food, carrying an umbrella while leaving home, etc.

The hopeful tilt of mind recalls disappointing experiences, like professional failures, romantic heartbreaks, etc., as things that helped us evolve and become more experienced human beings, instead of wasteful experiences that only hurt.

A neural mechanism, located in the frontal part of our brain, is responsible for this optimistic bent of mind which helps us imagine an optimistic future or promotes slightly irrational thinking. People in whom this neural system is not active suffer from depression. And so when a depressed person predicts the future, he does it without the additional glow of optimism (or irrationalism) – and predicts more accurately than a normal person.
The article has much more than this.

The mind is complex, intriguing and scary.

Neighbour Uncle

Sometimes you come to know a person when you are parting ways with him/her. I had never known Uncle quite as well as I came to know when I found him outside my door one day. He was standing in our common passage and cleaning something. He said he had bought a new flat and would shift there in a few days’ time. Uncle and his family were my next-door neighbors since my first day in the building close to three years back. I used to share basic pleasantries with Uncle but our interactions never went beyond them.

That day he seemed in a mood to talk and he started asking about me. After I was done with my part, he started talking about himself. He grew up in Bangalore staying around Koramangla all his life. He liked old Bangalore as it was calm and peaceful. With the advent of IT industry and migrants from various parts of India, Bangalore lost its quiet charm, he said. He did his engineering in Bangalore.

He worked with Otis, which makes elevators, for 45 years, and the company sent him to Madras (now Chennai) for training. He stayed there for sometime and liked the place but never thought of settling down there as Bangalore was the place for him.

He had two daughters and both of them were engineers. Although an engineer, the elder daughter started working as an HR consultant with a small company and did well there. Her employer knew a person working at Accenture in HR who used to often drop in on him. The Accenture person was quite impressed with how Uncle’s daughter handled everything herself, as the firm was only a few people strong.

He offered her a trainee’s role at Accenture and said the company would sponsor an HR MBA course for her. She joined Accenture HR and it’s been a few years she has been working there.

I had noticed Uncle used to return home late night some days but didn’t know where he came from. One day I spotted him at the club I sometimes visit with my friend who is a member. It was cricket world cup final and the club was full house that day as it had made arrangements for live telecast of the match on giant screens.

I was surprised to see Uncle collecting drinks from the bar. "Being a Muslim how could he do that - drinking is not what a 'good' Muslim is supposed to do, after all?" I thought. Later I concluded that Uncle's drinking squared up well with the fact that his daughters and wife never wore traditional Muslim attire (the daughters were mostly in jeans or normal salwar kamiz and the wife in saree). They were a liberal Muslim family.

I told Uncle I would miss a good neighbour and he said so would he. On a philosophical note, he said, “You will meet people and part with them. Detachment will help to get on in life; attachment will only cause pain.”

It reminded me of Kenny Roger’s Gambler song, which says the key to everything is to know when to walk off.

Voyages of Christopher Columbus: In Pursuit of Gold and Global Supremacy

Picture taken from Google

Colonizing foreign lands under grand pretexts, like democracy and civilization, but actually to exploit them economically was always in practice and will never go out of it. In fact, powerful countries colonizing lands in pursuit of wealth is so recent that the biggest story of this month – Osama’s killing – can be traced back to it: Osama’s main battle cry against the US has always been essentially one, “Free the Muslim lands you occupy.”

And it’s so old that every invasion in history, no matter how long back in time, can be traced back to this motive upon careful examination. This week I finished a book on Christopher Columbus’s four voyages to the Indies, in the 14^th century, in pursuit of gold, to take Christianity to new shores and civilize native ‘savages’.

At the age of 20, Columbus planned to sail to the Indies. Columbus went to many royal courts to find funding for his voyages and finally the king of Spain, a country keen on establishing its global supremacy in Europe, accepted his plan and funded his voyages.

The book details the voyages through daily notes taken by people who were part of Columbus’s entourage and also uses biographical accounts written by Columbus’s son on his father. Columbus comes across as a good leader concerned as much about the goal of the voyages as about the wellbeing of its crew.

The voyages were tough affairs. They could put patience, endurance and courage to severe tests - as you could look for a land for days and not sight any, run out of food and add to that the vagaries of the seas. Despite these challenges, Columbus kept the morale of his team up. His good leadership notwithstanding, however, there were many who defected, took up independent voyages and turned against Columbus.

The flora and fauna and the strange practices and customs of the natives of the lands Columbus visited (some of whom were cannibals) are interesting to read. The lands had an untouched beauty and innocence about them and the details bring them out vividly.

Columbus’s voyages met with moderate success. He failed to find gold in most places and people he left behind in the places he discovered either started feuding among themselves or were attacked by natives, bringing very less value to the royal coffers of Spain.

Towards the end of his life, Columbus fell prey to conspiracies, betrayals and broken promises. He also lost his official authority in Spain and died a heart-broken man.

It is perhaps wrong to call Columbus a colonialist because although the basic purpose of his voyages was same as later-day colonialists – discovery of wealth in foreign land and bringing it home – he was mainly a seaman.  However, his voyages are historically important because they took place not long before the big colonialists of later day - France, Portugal and England - would set out towards the East and take the concept of colonies nearer to how it’s today.

By the way, read my blog on Mind Blog

 

What People of Bengal Think as Bengal Goes through Elections

On my way home from Calcutta airport by taxi, I asked the driver who, he thought, would form the next government in Bengal. “Didi,” he replied. “Does the Left not have any chance of returning this time?” I pursued, trying to provoke him.

“In their 35 years they have not done much. People are leaving the state for economic opportunities. People are fed up with them.” “But will Didi be able to maintain peace?” I continued. “Leftists are also guilty of destroying peace.”

After a while the taxi made a rattling sound and the driver drew it up at the corner of the road. I boarded another taxi and asked the driver who would win the elections this time. He got a little startled by my asking and hesitantly said, “Didi."

West Bengal is going through a historic election where Left, a coalition of left parties which came to power in 1977, might see its 35 years of unbroken stint in power brought to an end by TMC (whose leader is popularly known as Didi), which together with the Congress is the Left’s opposition in Bengal. The election has a global significance as Bengal is among the very few places where you still have a Left government.

Neither of the sides (govt and opposition) is leaving anything to chance. The TMC claims the Left hasn’t done anything expect oppressing people and pushing the State back. So there is a yearning for paribartan (change) among the people.

On the other hand, the Left is going to the people on a note of apology admitting that it has made some mistakes and if given a chance would like to rectify them. The Left alleges that, if brought to power, the TMC would create chaos and confusion in the state.

Verbal exchanges taking place between the government and opposition are adding to the atmosphere. There is nothing new to verbal exhanges between two contesting parties, but here every attack and counter attack flying back and forth seems to be springing from a deep well of loathing for each other.

The fight also has a cultural aspect. The Left in Bengal represents a high-brow cultural space long monopolised by culture snobs who see TMC as challenging it and trying to gatecrash into it, diluting its exclusivity. Budhadeb (Bengal CM) and the leftists in general belong to this hallowed zone and Mamta (TMC chief also known as Didi), being from a lower-middle class background, doesn't.

The Left’s barbs are mostly aimed at the TMC’s low-browism. To counter the Left’s culture attacks, the TMC is claiming to have support of culture-elites (writers, directors, etc) whose views often shape public opinion in Bengal.

But what do ordinary voters think?

There are two kinds of Left enthusiasts: one is the card-holding members and another is the culture-loving snobs. Both types claim the Left will come back again but their self-righteous anger also give away their doubt about their prophesy.  Among them are mainly state government employees.

People with less cultural pretentions, however, display little doubt that the TMC would form the government but they also admit that no one knows what would follow once the TMC comes to power.  They say at least Left for all its flaws is a party of educated ideologues while the TMC is a party patched together with street rag tags. These are mainly ones working in private companies.

There is another stream of thought being given by people with leftist leanings but a rational bent of mind. They suggest if you really want to destroy the TMC, you should give them an exposure to power for sometime. And at the same time, it will not harm the Left to be in opposition so that after being in power for 35 long years, they get an opportunity to introspect and probably come back stronger.

For the uninitiated, it can all become very confusing.