Exploring Food Joints

 I found one called Claytopia (somebody had recommended it earlier) close to my Koramangala office yesterday. I had Bhutanese Rice with Chicken keema, that turned out very good. Right amount of spice, and a good combo, well-presented too, as you can see below- an incentive for people to visit me! 

Also, a few wisecracks come free!

GNH from Bhutan- A Primer

That is Gross National Happiness. We had a first hand account that it really is measured in Bhutan. Dr. Saamdu Chetri, who heads the Centre for GNH in Bhutan, was on campus for a guest lecture. He explained in simple terms that we are measuring the wrong things in the conventional GDP or GNP measures.

For instance, if a two-parent family hires a maid and both parents go to work, the GDP grows. Happiness may decrease, because the child may not be reared properly, compared to one of the parents staying home to do the job (at the cost of GDP growth). Or, if a married woman goes through a depression, medical (or marital) problems, and consults lot of doctors and psychiatrists (or lawyers), GDP goes up. If she is happily married, and does none of the above, on the other hand, GDP goes down!

Burning fossil fuels is not sustainable, as it contributes to carbon emissions, and therefore, global warming that may result in dire consequences. Energy can be renewable, if research is adequate. Meanwhile, public transport should play a greater role. We need to be a little calmer, and reflective about wasting earth's resources. We consume too much, be it clothes, food or anythng else, raising unnecessary demands on earth. Human values like sharing and collaboration should predominate.

Happiness is actually measured on several parameters, and the website explains how.
(link http://www.grossnationalhappiness.com/articles/). I was happy to learn of an alternative measure of what we are and ought to be, from one of the smallest countries of the world.

Coincidentally, also read a review of a book about how GDP came to be the main measure of well-being of a nation after the Great Depression in the U.S.

My Comments on the Headline News

There have been, in the past three days, around three or four stories doing the rounds of the news channels on Indian TV. Uncannily, all channels have the same stories. Makes you wonder, in a country of about 1.2 billion, if that is all that is happening. As I speak, a new story, on onion prices, has started doing the rounds. Instead of investigating who is planting the stories (not onions), I will concentrate on the learnings from these news stories.

1. PM goes to Bhutan. This is a masterpiece, because firstly, it improves everyone's general knowlegde. Not many people in the world know where Bhutan is. Heck, many in South Carolina (US) did not know where Florida is. You can imagine what educating India must feel like. TV journos too-educating them, I mean.

2. Preity Zinta, actress, filed a case for harassment and verbal abuse against ex-boyfriend and current business partner, businessman Ness Wadia. Moral of the story seems to be- if you are pretty, don't mess with Ness. Or is it Ness, you don't mess with pretty women? We'll find out.

3. There are murders and rapes happening at the rate of two per day in U.P. Having tried to set up records in many different things, the state has at last established a clear lead in these unsavoury stats - a sad 'state' of affairs. Badayun, made famous by the lyricist Shakeel Badayuni, is at the rough end of the stick.

4. The Kedarnath tragedy (landslide in the mountains) is still producing random bodies, among charges of inadequate rescue and search operations. Moral- venture out there when all your worldly affairs have been settled, because you never know if you'll make it back.

Bliss et al

The pursuit of bliss has driven mankind into a variety of activities- from praying to making money, and several others. But a journalist has actually gone to various countries to study how happy people there are. The result is a book, The Geography of Bliss. Written in a very engaging style, it starts with Netherlands, where happiness is a subject of university researchers, to Bhutan, which measures Gross National Happiness rather than Gross National Product, to Switzerland, Qatar, India, and a few other countries in between.

What happens everywhere is quite educational. The Himalayan country of Bhutan itself is a calming influence on visitors and residents alike. They look at life differently, not only materialistically. The residents want monarchy to continue, whereas the king wants to bring in democracy.

Happiness is linked to living in the present, paying attention to what we do, being nice to people, having some money (though not as much as we think), having unpredictability in life (even good things get monotonous after some time?), and above all, feeling you are linked to something or things beyond yourself- the cosmos, or ancestors, or future generations, other animate (or inanimate) beings, etc...

Switzerland is boring, Qatar has no culture (?), India is chaotic but has its fans who feel at home here (I am one), are some of the findings. I am yet to complete the book, but these nuggets of wisdom were endearing.

Happiness also may have something to do with age and marital status (this is my own theory)-children seem to be happy most of the time- the cribbing increases as we age..married people seem happy in spite of cribbing..a paradox?