A few thoughts from my recent trip to Italy

A few notes I jotted down while my memories of Italy are still fresh:

Fig: A shot of Pisa city captured on my iPhone X

Italy was an experience of a lifetime; it was so refreshing to see a proud, old people content in living their lives the way they want to. Italy is a small country; it certainly feels cramped and overcrowded and yet manages to retain a sense of classy elegance with its cobbled streets, dusty streetlights, blue skies, brackish rivers and grand houses. In many ways it reminded me of Kolkata, another old, proud and overcrowded place with its unique charm and appeal.

Idiosyncrasies define humanity. If we did not have our weird quirks, we might as well give up to the machines. I loved how obstinately the Italian cling to their cigarettes. The world has long moved past cigarettes and yet the Italians can’t seem to live without them. Every train journey would end with nicotine-starved, sophisticated Italians jumping off their carriages while lighting their smokes in mid-air. Is it foolish? Perhaps, but you have to admire the bravado. 

Religion is everywhere in Italy, but never in an oppressive way. Almost every town square seems to have an old church in it; often with frescoed walls that depict beautiful images from Christian gospel. The churches are also filled with invaluable paintings and sculptures by great and insignificant artists. Only a sustained support of the arts and genuine admiration for beauty could amass a vast wealth of art in such a small country; I am truly jealous of the Italian people for this cultural inheritance. 

The only institution that outnumbers churches in Italy would be its cafes. Italians love their coffee (what an endearing quality!). You can see Italians lining up in these coffee bars at all times of the day and night to sip from tiny cups of espresso and munch small cookie bits. The baristas clearly take pride in their work; I can never forget the dimpled barista in Florence who made me sip my cappuccino four times till I acknowledged the drink was hot enough for me. 

And lest I forget to praise the train service. I crisscrossed the country on the sleek, high-speed trains that whiz by at over 250 kmph. The trains depart by the dot and have sparking clean toilets. The ticketing system is efficient and fast. One of my trains was delayed by about thirty minutes but otherwise the trains ran faster than scheduled. Commuting within cities was a breeze as well with plenty of metro lines and buses. Italy’s success with public transport suggests that overcrowding cannot be an excuse for India in denying its citizens fast and efficient public transport. 

Public transport is not the only place where India can learn from Italy. I think the Italian experience holds great lessons on how a country can deal with the seemingly oppressive weight of a long and glorious history. Italy’s history is daunting - the country has witnessed the Roman civilization, the rise and rule of the Catholic Church, the Holy Roman Empire, the split and subsequent reunification of the country, the rise and fall of fascism and the recent European project to join arms with old foes. And yet this history doesn’t seem to tear this country apart. I didn’t see any Italians admonishing the church for trying to erode the pre-Christian wonders of the Roman age. Even the ugly past of fascism seems to find a place in its history; albeit scorned with charming disdain by my tour guide in Milan. Italy seems to embrace all aspects of its history and accept that some historical puzzles won’t align homogeneously — a lesson India can learn from during its present struggles with reconciling its Vedic and Islamic histories. History need not fit a simple narrative. 

There were a few things I didn’t like. I was not crazy about having to pay for drinking water everywhere. I also found the great necessity of cash for making payments surprising in a first world country. I was also shocked by the prevalence of poverty - almost every tourist spot was teeming with beggars asking for alms. I expected Europe to have a better social security net. Italian drivers are shockingly impatient and are often rude to pedestrians. Crossing big thoroughfares can be quite challenging. 

To summarize, I think Italy is a must-visit place and I can’t wait to go back and explore the country some more.

Past mistakes: my thoughts on Ian McEwan's Atonement

While I was paying for a musty copy of Ian McEwan's Atonement, the pretty girl behind the counter looked at my purchase and remarked wryly, 'It's for school, isn't it?'. I shook my head, beeped my Apple Watch against the payment machine and left, not trivially pleased at having been regarded as young enough for school 😉

Atonement is not an obscure novel. The book generated Booker buzz when it first came out and the 2007 film adaptation staring Kiera Knightley was nominated for several Oscars. And lastly, as my tattooed shopkeeper's remark would suggest – the book is part of humanities curriculums across the world. My own copy had clearly been through the hands of a very diligent student who'd scribbled copious notes on the margins, underlining (often with double strokes!) several passages dealing with the inner turmoils of female characters – fodder for a feminist essay perhaps? I love a book that has been inked by a pen or two; it takes a special book to invite such attention.

Atonement begins in 1930s at the idyllic English home of the Tallises that is preparing to entertain family and friends for a special dinner. It is a muggy summer day and the simmering heat induces a general sense of lethargy in the household, but fate is at play. Thirteen-year-old Briony, an aspiring writer, is struggling with the debut production of her play -- Arabella -- to mark her elder brother Leon's homecoming. The play's cast,  the three Quincey cousins -- 15-year-old Lola and the 9-year-old twins, Jackson and Pierrot -- are threatening to ruin the show. Briony's elder sister Cecilia is having her fair share of frustrations as she confronts a newfound love for Robbie Turner, her childhood friend and the cook's son. The romance between Cecilia and Robbie doesn't bloom, it erupts. Briony stumbles upon these confusing scenes and mistakes Robbie to be a sexual fiend from whom her family must be rescued. Her naïveté and charged imagination color her judgement later that evening when she rescues Lola from being raped by a man in the dark. Briony is clear, it had to be Robbie.  The remaining sections of the book deal with the repercussions of this lie.

Part II is a gripping war novella about the 1940 Allied retreat from Dunkirk described from the point of view of Robbie, who had been released early in return for joining the military. This is easily the best part of the book. Adrenaline-charged scenes of Luftwaffe bombing of the fleeing British forces are juxtaposed with chilling descriptions of a war-torn people clinging to a sense of normalcy. This section of the book, in my humble opinion, puts Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk to shame. The film may capture the corporeal splendors of war, but McEwan's writings captures its human elements. The third part features Briony's stint as a trainee nurse during the 1940-41 London Blitz. She has realized her role in ruining Robbie's life and seeks atonement. The theme is how the present is held hostage by the past and sometimes, there is nothing that can be done about it. The last part is set in the year 1999; the surviving characters, frail and aged, come together for the long-delayed opening of the Arabella.

Ian McEwan's mastery of his craft is evident in this book. His portrayal of misguided innocence is as heartbreaking as it is infuriating. He breathes uniqueness into every character and blends a love story, a war story and a redemption story into a sumptuous read that will keep you hooked from the first page.

Patriotism through parody - my review of Shashi Tharoor's The Great Indian Novel

I consider Shashi Tharoor to be one of India's finest contemporary minds. His genius shines through in his every enterprise - be it oratory, writing or political commentary. I recently discovered another arrow in his intellectual quiver, comedy. The Great Indian Novel is a work of comedic genius - a grafting of the Woodhousian tradition of wry, hyperbolic humor over loud and noisy 20th century India. For fodder, Tharoor takes two of India's grandest stories, the Mahabharata and the Indian Freedom Struggle and fuses them into an irreverent comedic masterpiece. The idea to merge these two drastically different stories is a spark of pure magic. In retrospect, these tales possess remarkable synergy that makes this fusion very natural and spontaneous.

In the grandest sense, both these stories ponder the 'Idea of India'. The Mahabharata asks the question whether Bharat is the land of the usurping Kauravas or the Dharmic Pandavas. The Freedom Struggle asks whether India can aspire to be more than a grubby gem on Imperial Britain's greedy crown. And yet, neither of these tales is black-and-white. They are filled with morally compromised characters and possibly adharmic actions that stain every victory with a whiff of scandal. Far too often 21st century India is tempted to ignore these complexities and impose a binary cleanliness to these multifaceted stories. Tharoor picks out these gray undertones like a blood hound and lays them out to dry.

Tharoor's characters are surprisingly well-etched for a work of comedy. Prominent characters from the Mahabharata are paired with ones from the freedom struggle. Bhisma is Mahaguru Gangaji, the enema-loving sage on the hunt for absolute Truth. Dhritrastra is the favored Fabian Socialist disciple of the Mahaguru. Pandu is the Mahaguru's spurned disciple who flirts with fascists out of love for his country. Priya Duryodhani is Dhritrastra's daughter whose political philosophy takes from the proverbial iron hand in a velvet glove, sometimes discarding the glove altogether. Karna is the aristocratic, scotch-loving lawyer who convinces the Mullahs of his religious pedigree and carves out the Islamic state of Karnistan out of India. The five Pandavas reflect different aspects of the Indian story. Yudhistir is India's obsession with the notion of Dharma. Bhim is India's kludgy, but immensely powerful army. Arjun is the blessed, but perennially conflicted Indian media. Nakul is India's bureaucracy for whom life begins and ends on quintupled forms. Sahadev is the consummate Indian diplomat, capable of examining every aspect of a problem without ever coming close to solving it. Tharoor manages to make fun of all these characters while simultaneously bringing out their best traits. This book deserves to be read and re-read for the complexity Tharoor imbues into these characters.

As much as I enjoyed the book for its humor, I was forced to ask myself whether this book will get published without controversy in 2016 India? I doubt it. Superficially this book mocks too many of India's vaunted religious and political figures. Tharoor's subtextual or contextual praise for these characters will not be appreciated by many. There is a high chance of the saffron brigade using this book to hammer another dent on the Constitution's 'inconvenient' freedom of speech guarantees. And in the current political climate, I wonder whether the pillars of Indian democracy will do the right thing and protect this work. There is too much political mileage to be obtained from letting a prominent opposition MP get roasted by 'righteous' offended masses. Perhaps it's a good thing that this book is less well known than it deserves to be.

To get back to the book, Tharoor sprinkles it with ruminating passages that ask moral and philosophical questions, primarily through the book's orator V.Vji. I found the last few pages to be its most introspective moments. Yudhistir is about to die on top of a mountain and gets repeatedly tested by his cosmic father, Dharma. Yudhistir successfully clears each test but is left empty-handed at the end. He then wonders on the whole point of these dharmic tests. What is the point of Dharma if it's sole purpose is testing for its existence in every deed? Tharoor leaves this question unanswered to some degree. I think it's the right question to be raised. India and Indians love raising the specter of Dharma in everything. Dharma is almost a kitchen-sink for our every action and inaction; remember the doctrine of strategic restraint? I consider questioning the usefulness of dharma to be a most dharmic rite.

To summarize, I learned more about my country from this work of comedy than from all my school history textbooks combined. I urge every Indian to grab a copy at the earliest.

My review of Papillon

Papillon -- the semi-autobiographical account of Henri Charriere's escape from a French penal colony -- was a rage when it first released in 1969. It had a little something for everyone; a swashbuckling hero's escape from a corrupt regime's clutches, set in exotic tropical locales. True to his name, Papillon rises above his inner demons like a delicate butterfly, seeking redemption. 

Fitness goals

Since it's been a while since I wrote anything on this blog, I thought I might share my current fitness goals with all of you. I am a strong believer in expressing your goals to as many people as you can -- your friends can be a great source of motivation and they will be a lot more accommodating of your efforts to achieve them.

As some of you might know, last year I struggled with severe cubital tunnel syndrome on both hands for close to 5 months, during which I had to completely stop all resistance training and cardio. Apart from the occasional stint on the elliptic trainer, I had a mostly sedentary life. I tried to keep my diet in check, but my weight slowly rose from ~170lb in November '15 to 181 lb in May '16. 

With my cubital issues resolved, I restarted weight training and cardio in mid-May. The key was to start slow. My strength had decreased by roughly 50% on all major lifts and my endurance had dropped by roughly 40%. I began with three days of full-body training and 2 hours of medium-intensity cardio a week. After a few weeks, I changed to a Push-Pull-Legs-Rest cycle, with 3-4 hours of medium/high intensity cardio a week. Even though my initial goal was to simply get active again; about two weeks back, I decided to start a gradual cut. I estimate my initial body fat % to be around 15-16%, I plan to drop to 10% by end of August '16, while trying to retain my strength as much as I can. A highlight is that my strength rose rapidly within the first few weeks and I'm currently at 0.8x of my peak on most movements. My endurance is still pretty poor, but I am making forward progress, which is the important thing.

The primary determinant of a cut's success is your diet. You can always out-eat any workout. My TDEE is around 2785 Cal, so I started my cut at 2450 Cal a day, with a macro split of roughly 50% carbs, 30% protein and 20% fat. I was able to actually gain strength on this diet, but my weight loss was too slow, less than a pound a week -- very disappointing indeed. It is my hypothesis that I was retaining too much water, possibly due to dehydration (it's a very hot summer in Madison) or excessive carbs. Since last week, I have reduced my budget to 2250 Cal, with the reduction primarily coming from carbs. I'm seeing good progress with my body composition, though the weight scale is still a bit stubborn. I plan to stick to this budget for two more weeks and then cut another 100 Cal if need be.

I'm a relatively big guy and for my fitness goals, I try to eat 0.8-1g of protein per lb of bodyweight, which means trying to cram 145-180g of protein each day. This is becoming a huge challenge with my vegetarian lifestyle. Apart from eggs, all other vegetarian protein sources are calorie-rich, which blows apart my calorie budget. Hence, my reliance on eggs and natural whey powder has gone up drastically during this cut. I'm starting to believe that a vegetarian diet is not ideal for a cut, though it works fine for a clean bulk.

Outside of losing body fat, my cardio goal is to run 12 miles a week consistently by August '16, with a lot of focus on stretching and recovery. I am recovering from a mild case of shin splints, but my new running shoes from New Balance are working wonders with my running form. I hope to run a lot more this summer, coz the heart is the most important muscle of them all!

That's a quick summary of my current fitness goals, I will keep you updated on my progress.