Monday, March 27, 2023
Spice Market at Lalbaug
Monday, February 27, 2023
The Accidental Professor!
- by Deepa Krishnan
In 2015 October I took charge of Abhyudaya, an education NGO, and suddenly found myself also becoming part of the teaching faculty at SPJIMR, which is the chief sponsor of the NGO. It was, I confess, a challenging assignment.
Never having taught formally, I found myself attending training sessions and trying to develop a teaching style and curriculum of my own. I learnt the basics of academic research, wrote papers, became a columnist for strategy+business, and got empanelled on the editorial board of an academic journal (Emerald Emerging Markets case studies). Eventually I became good at delivering lectures and academic course design. Awards and recognitions came my way as well.But one of the nicest things in this academic journey are the student committees that I get to work with. The SPJIMR student committees are packed with hardworking and talented young people, who start out as strangers but end up coalescing into strong teams. Guiding their journey into a smoothly functioning unit is an exercise in mentoring and leadership. It has helped me grow as a teacher and as a person. Photo is from the Abhyudaya Committee dinner that we had last night. This is the fab team that organised all my events this year. Thank you AbCom for a wonderful year!
Sunday, June 19, 2022
In which Amma gets a smart phone
Yesterday Amma got her first smart phone. What a fun morning calling everyone!
The best call was to me, from one room to another! "Hello, who is speaking?" "Amma, it's me, Deepa." "Oh is that you?" And a long fake conversation after that in the Queen's English on useless topics! Just like kids playing "telephone-telephone".
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My sister Roopa clicked this pic |
But more seriously, it made me painfully aware that one day, I too will be tech-challenged. I too will be slow to push the right buttons or read a scrolling screen quickly enough. Already I am on the edge of that. Although, I must confess, starting a new online business has taught me new some skills! I can now make insta reels and what not. Still...the day when I get both outdated and slow is not far away.
The most painfully beautiful thing about being near an aging parent is one's acute awareness of one's own future. I have my mother's body structure and temperament. Will I also have her frailties?
- Deepa
Sunday, May 01, 2022
Visit to Pandharpur - March 2022
Visiting major pilgrimage sites is always an ordeal due to crowds and endless queues. But Pandharpur is an easy experience.
Our family in front of the temple, three generations |
For those on wheelchairs there are special arrangements for quick darshan. No photography allowed inside, so this is the exterior.
First sight of Namdev and Chokha Mela shrines |
Guava seller outside the temple |
Monday, October 04, 2021
The Magic Room
The Magic Room is a textiles and crafts store in Sion, which I opened this month.
This pic is from our Navratri Exhbition, when my mother and daughter were both present and we got a 3-generation photo. Of course, I had to put it here!The Magic Room is social enterprise that supports handmade products from India, with a focus on sourcing fairly from craftspersons, and supporting women entrepreneurs wherever possible. We also have a tailoring livelihood program for women (and men!) from low-income areas of Mumbai.
Do drop in at 331, Champaklal Estate, if you would like to see all the nice stuff we have on offer.
You can check us out on instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/magicroommumbai/
Our facebook page is here: https://www.facebook.com/TheMagicRoomMumbai
Saturday, May 08, 2021
Learning to Let Go
- by Deepa Krishnan
The government's handling of the pandemic has become a heated political debate. Today in three of my WhatsApp groups, I watched people leaving the group on account of differences in view points. A couple of them left without any explanation. A couple of them wrote a few lines and left without reading responses. I am sure all of you are familiar with such abrupt exits.
I used to be one of those abrupt exiters. Some years ago, you remember that time when all of us were having Modi-Wars and Trump-Wars and so on? In one such debate, I stormed out of a WhatsApp group, where there was a guy making me see red. At the time when I left, a couple of friends in the group reasoned with me, saying that I should learn to be more tolerant. I answered angrily that values mattered, and that such tolerance was in fact, cowardice. But eventually I went back to the group. And I learnt to tolerate the people who made me angry.
It's not easy, the process of learning to tolerate someone who is the opposite of you, and whose very presence is constantly pushing your buttons. I really struggled a lot. I still struggle, but it is getting easier. What made it possible was my realisation that the group was a community in which I lived (albeit virtually). Communities are made up of all kinds of people, just like the real world around me. I deal with a lot of diverse people in the real world, without getting into fights. Then surely I could do the same in the virtual world? As soon as I realised this, my online life changed and I stopped heated verbal duels. Instead I started modelling my online behaviour in line with my real world behaviour. It's nowhere near perfect, because hey, my real world behaviour also is very immature and impetuous. I still cuss and swear, but everything is much more calm than it used to be.
As I get older, I am trying to accept that people have different kinds of viewpoints, different levels of awareness, and different levels of sensitivity to certain values that I take for granted. What we think, is largely a matter of our upbringing, and the company we keep. If someone has been blessed with parents or teachers who made them think a certain way, or has developed a reading habit that made them more aware, they'll be a different type of person. Sometimes it's crisis that changes us. A friend of mine changed completely after her husband's affair. Another changed completely after his daughter went through a medical crisis; and started frequenting temples. It's really a complex cocktail. That's why political and relgious debates have no easy resolutions. Each person has to navigate their way through it.
Then what to do? Nowadays when I meet people who don't think the way I do, I engage upto a point, and then try to politely leave them to their doings. Instead of trying to convince them, I focus on my own work. I tell myself that I am responsible for my own path and my own growth as a human being. Others can find their own paths.
Doing my work gives me meaning and direction. That is enough. I really feel no need to evangelise these days. I feel no need to get angry. There is no benefit in anger except to make oneself sick, anyway. Often my blood boils and I want to kill someone, but I have learnt to leave the arena when it gets unpleasant or acrimonious. I, who used to be the original debating champion, am learning to let go. Is it cowardly? Yes. But it is also very liberating.
Tuesday, July 07, 2020
Lessons from Mumbai's bubonic plague
It's a little long, but bear with me. If you want to know how epidemics actually play out in India, and how people react to it, you should listen to this story of the bubonic plague that hit Mumbai in 1896.
It has lots of similarities with how things are playing out with Covid. Lots of learnings, particularly in how people and governments behave in times of stress. And how epidemics behave in general.
In 1896, a strain of bubonic plague of Chinese origin, came to Mumbai. First it reached Hong Kong, and then came via ship from Hong Kong to Mumbai, carried by the rats in ships. As the plague spread among the rats, the rats died in large numbers. It turns out that the rats were carrying infected fleas on their bodies. When the rats died, the fleas on the rats jumped on to the nearby humans, looking for an alternative host. When the flea bit the human host, the human got the infection.
The plague hit Mumbai hard. The ground zero was a chawl in Mandvi (Masjid Bunder area) where Bania and Jain merchants had their warehouses on the ground floor, and workers lived in crowded conditions in the floors above, with common washrooms. When the plague was discovered, the grain merchants refused to kill rats citing religious reasons. In fact, they wouldn't let the British appointed rat catchers into the grain godowns. That ground zero area, as described in British record had leaking water, it was permanently dark and damp, with rotting grains and dead rats. And lots of people.
Naturally, more people started getting infected and dying in droves in south Mumbai. The main brunt was borne by the mill workers, mainly Hindu migrants from other parts of India.
The British were familiar with the plague, having seen The Black Death epidemic earlier. They cracked down fast on further spread by quarantining, strict isolation, disinfecting and washing streets, and insisting those who were infected get treatment (they put restrictions on what they felt were quack local medicinal practices). Fairs and pilgrimages were cancelled. House to house searches were made, and people forcibly evacuated and moved to camps. They had strict inspection in train compartments, with examination of both men and women to see if they were infected. Infected belongings were burnt to limit the epidemic. A huge outrage ensued among Hindus at these protective measures.
All containment measures were of no use. The British could not do anything about the panicked local junta, who fled the city. Some climbed up Malabar hill where they thought the plague could not reach them. Some fled across the Mahim Creek to Bandra, seeking protection there. Many crosses were built in Bandra at this time, some specifically to St Roch who is the patron saint of the plague.
As the deaths continued, more people fled into the interiors, taking the infections still further with them. Within the first 4 years of its arrival, the plague had killed 8 million people, say some accounts. Others say it was 6 million over a decade. Either way, it was a very high number. The deaths peaked in 1907, although the plague started in 1896. The deaths were mainly in Western India, but also in Punjab and MP, where people had gone carrying the infection. Rich or poor, it spared no one. The mortality rate, by the way, was less than 2%. Malaria and TB killed twice as many people in the same time. Similarly cholera and smallpox caused far more deaths. But it was only the plague which caused crazy panic.
Once people started fleeing everywhere, the British realised the futlility of their containment efforts. They switched to vaccination as a method to treat it; which by then had been developed at Parel by a clever guy named Dr. Haffkine. The bharatwasi public had no understanding of vaccination. Conspiracy theories sprang up, that the British were "giving injections to poison us". Quarantine and forceful evictions from houses continued, in the interests of public health. People beat up health workers. Tilak wrote long reams of protest in Kesari about how brutal the plague handling was. One British guy called Rand was appointed in Pune as Plague Commissioner. The Chapekar Brothers shot and killed Rand and his assistant as "revenge" for the insult to the "honour" of the city's women. This scared the British into thinking whether another Mutiny was now on the cards. So they backed off a bit, and authorised native vaids to implement the vaccine, hoping for more acceptance.
Did the vaccinations mean the plague ended soon? Hell no. The bubonic plague continued to kill people for 30 years. But the numbers were only high in the initial outbreak locations for the first 3-4 years. After that, people got smarter in keeping track of dead rats and outbreaks. Haffkine institute continued to do testing and control. There was no crazy panic. Vaccinations grew. They finally recorded 12.7 million deaths from 1896 to 1957. This strain of the bubonic plague was active till 1960. In that year, the worldwide casualty had dropped to about 200 people, and WHO classified the pandemic as over. So that's what it took. 60 years, for the plague to go away.
But we are not in an exactly similar situation now. Our medicine has advanced a lot. We have also taken containment steps. Long distance transport has been locked down. People believe in teeka (vaccination) and we have implemented many large scale such vaccinations so we know how to go about it. Our count of hospitals and facilities is much better than at that time. I do not believe the current epidemic will play out like the 1896 plague. I think soon the cure will be in place and available. Meanwhile please support government efforts at quarantine and keep social distance. Stay at home. Wear masks. Don't spread it to your friends and those around you.
Photo: Bombay plague epidemic, 1896-1897: interior of a temporary hospital for plague victims.
Reference number: b1539282x
Persistent URL: https://wellcomelibrary.org/item/b1539282x
Catalogue record: https://search.wellcomelibrary.org/iii/encore/record/C__Rb1539282
A good article for data: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2555600/pdf/bullwho00328-0149.pdf
Saturday, January 04, 2020
Pickled peppercorn
This is the simplest of pickles, but packs such a punch! Green pepper, marinated in salt and lemon juice, with a little bit of turmeric powder. Over time it acquires that crinkly salt-and-lemon soaked perfection. The photo on the left is from my last year's batch. The brine is even tastier than the peppercorn!
And in my south Indian household, this is the perfect accompaniment to thayir-saadam.
#indianpickles #picklespreservesandchutneys
Thursday, October 24, 2019
Coral Jasmine - a carpet of flowers
In my mother's apartment there is a coral jasmine plant; and every morning, the night watchman gathers up the flowers and gives them to my mother. Some of them go into the kitchen temple, but the others are used like this, as a beautiful carpet for her plants.
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Coral jasmine, offered to the Tulsi, and to other plants |
This flower is also identified as parijat, a legendary flowering tree that is mentioned in the Puranas. As is common in Indian legends, there are multiple candidates claiming to be parijat :) In Tamilnadu, the parijat of legend is a much larger, all-white flower, with a very intense fragrance.
Saturday, October 19, 2019
Walking through Dharavi
A couple of pics from today's walk below: