5 Things I Consumed Last Week (tried so hard but got no theme 🦹🏻♀️)
on wiser than me, enthu-cutlet, made in india, human nature and addiction
Hello Nello!
Apologies for dropping in late to your inboxes. At least I won over the lazy monkey in my head and made it here. This issue is a patchwork of inspiration, some ideas to ponder upon and a new podcast recommendations.
Wishing you a week full of learning, early weekend and ample out of sleep (those are the only three goals I am looking forward to).
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Wiser Than Me | Julia Louis-Dreyfus
If you have watched Seinfeld, you know who she is!
If you have not, don’t you worry, she carries the same spirit throughout this show as well. A feel-good show on talking to older people and getting some life lessons (old-school but I bet the questions are not).
It is more like a fun conversation with two inspiring women in a room, you will be entertained for sure. I heard the episode with Ruth Reichl who is a celebrated food writer and ended up feeling inspired on a Monday. I hope you feel the same way.
The Regionality of the Kitchen Fire | Enthucutlet
The gas flame brought some degree of convenience, and liberation for some women from the gendered space the Indian kitchen evolved into. But it cooled the embers, flattened out the flavour of char and smoke and distanced us from the sense of community and belonging that the cooking fire flickering in the hearth gave us.
I have been following Enthucutlet for a while after I heard about it in this podcast. It’s a surreal feeling to see food magazines in India with well-researched and well-written pieces on memories, stories around food and everything else that food has to offer.
This piece on kitchen fires (4th season) is about how kitchen fires vary as you traverse to different geographies and hence climatic conditions in India.
Certainly reminded me of Lennox Hastie’s episode in Chef’s Table BBQ.
Gurwinder Bhogal Examines Human Nature | The Seen And The Unseen
I was pleasantly surprised and excited to listen to this one, low key it is also unreal for me to imagine that Amit Varma also reads the same things as me (and many of you).
My first acquaintance to Gurwinder was through his piece on ‘Audience Capture’ which was then followed by digging the rabbit hole and ended up on these 40 mind-expanding concepts that he keeps posting every season.
I really admire him for his clarity of thought, his writing prowess and how lucidly (read logically) he explains human nature. In this podcast he talks about his journey, his work and some tidbits on human psychology and how social media exploits it. Listen to it yourself.
It is not the world that is the problem but the flawed ways in which we think about it.
Continued Use Despite Adverse Consequences | Deep Fix
I don’t know what it’s like to be a parent; I don’t remember what it’s like to be a baby; and obviously I’ve never, ever had so much to drink that I was a subpar lover—but I do know what it’s like to be the guy in a room with a friend on his phone and it doesn’t make for core memories or deep bonding; nor does it revivify the spirit, as a reunion with an old friend should.
Addiction (particularly phone addiction) explained in the most scathing yet eruditing way. If you find yourself looking at your phone while people talk to you, you might wanna take this as a primer to make some life changes.
Made in India : A Memoir | Milind Soman
Milind has made the stunning-and apparently seamless- transition from champion swimmer to supermodel to actor to extreme sportsperson to women's fitness activist, enabler and proselytiser, all in one lifetime.
I got this book in one of my book swap events and I was looking for something that’d inspire me to get back to running regularly. Turns out, it is not particularly like Murakami’s ‘What I Talk About When I Talk About Running’ but rather a memoir (duh!).
He talks about his transition from being a supermodel to this ultra-active-ultra-marathoner. It has lot of history and context of 90s Bombay, some philosophical sub-texts around running, his mantras in life and ambition.
Overall a breezy self-help/memoir. In the world of rating books, I’d rate it 3.28/5 :D
That’s all for this time folks! See you next week.
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The Hummingbird🌺