It was a hard day although it was a Friday which started at
5.30 am and ravaged by multiple meetings and (I must say this) relatively low
Bangalore traffic I reached home by 7 and the only thing I had in mind was to
curl up in my bed and go to sleep.
It’s only when I went to say Hi! To
Baba and saw the twinkle in his eyes
that I realized that today is Shankranti and he was all set for the peetha (Bengali sweet will not do justice to it.).
He is 76 got operated for lung cancer exactly a year back and still recovering
from multiple sessions of chemo and radio therapy.
Keeping the tradition alive: He grew up in a place surrounded
by paddy fields, kicking a football made of rags, walking a few kilometers to
go to school, having rice 3 times a day, catching fish and of course
celebrating Shankranti by making peetha the previous night which would be
savored the next day. We are in 2017 and since 50 years this tradition has been
followed in our house every single year.
I moved out of my house in 19 87,
many a years I will receive a parcel (from Assam / Delhi) which has some kind
of peetha in them. And when he is around like now – it will be night out for me
and him. The beauty in the whole thing is that it is not at all about having
the sweets (he is diabetic), but it is about the family or my office bong colleagues
who miss the peethe which they used to have at home before they got uprooted.
With the new generation starting to
live on – Swiggy delivered meals, the joy and tradition of making the peethe
and enjoying the togetherness may just remain a Facebook post which all of us
will like and feel nostalgic about.
Passion & Focus creates energy: It’s amazing to see this
enthusiasm in him – it’s almost like a drug for him. He will buy all
ingredients in advance, plan everything meticulously so that nothing falls
short on this day. A body ravaged by chemo get’s abundant energy on these days
which is difficult to explain scientifically but I have seen it with me and many
of my friends when you just sleep for 3 hrs but get up full of energy to reach
the set and start shooting (just joking) and start working on something you
left incomplete at night. It’s simple – when heart is passionate & mind is
focused energy is created.
Perfection: Maybe it’s virtue or a code we all live with. Making
peethe is not an easy task. All the bongs who tried making them can sympathize
with me (as I tried and failed miserably) rest of you have to take my word for
it. The sweet has to taste right, it has to be of certain texture, color, it
has to balloon right. He will keep on trying till he gets the perfect shape and
size. Till then I have to console him that it’s going to be ok. Maybe some
leadership lesson in being second in command when you cheer your leader from
ringside before he gets into the board meeting. I am experiencing too many of
them in recent times so I will leave it at that.
Innovation / Experimentation/
Kaizen: Even after making peethe for 50 years, this year he tried 2 new dishes
which he saw in TV, discussed with his family in Assam on the key ingredients
and possible problem areas. It’s an inspiration to see him in kitchen – there
are some tips he picked up from TV, some from bangla cook books he read and
few from his aunts back home in Assam – all of them has to come together
to make the perfect peethe.
Maybe I am just over reacting to create a blog
post, but with the internet, you tube, TV (I know it’s dead now) you are
inundated with information, articles, philosophy – but we all go back to our
desk and do the same thing day in day out after a momentary A-Ha. I loved seeing
the TED Talks till I asked myself ‘Why I am seeing this’? What next.
Things will change if we put what
we all see, observe, learn every day in a the broth and stir it to solve a
problem with a bit of objectivity. I know Ayan Rand will be turning in her
grave but I feel it’s easy to shrug off this feeling of too much is happening around me but if you want to change things -
Get up & Go now.
Thanks Baba.
No comments:
Post a Comment