And your mask shall reveal your personality!

This is a blog about a serious topic written in a lighter vein…

Please note that we are not talking about those millions of people who are so poor that they cannot afford buying a mask. Theirs is a struggle for survival right now. Let us spare them from the rest of this discussion.  For all others, who do afford a mask or at least a hankie covering their noses and mouths, the world stands divided in four categories.

 

Category 1 – Co-vidiots: They don’t wear a mask (not even a hankie)

Covid danger score:  10 out of 10 

Personality: There are 3 types of Co-vidiots.

1.    Those who think “kuch nahi hota yaar!” (nothing will happen to me. I am invincible since this disease is not for my age group)

2.    Those who say with a profound conviction “koi phayda nahi pahenke, sabko honey wala hai” (it’s no use wearing one since everyone is going to get it anyway…)

3.    It’s OK to not wear a mask on my apartment floor, walking downstairs just as long as I am in my lane, inside my gated community since all of us are practically quarantined anyway…

Co-vidiots are aware of their behaviour. If confronted, they blurt out as per the agreed standard rude etiquette of their city e.g. Delhi – “Jaanta hai tu kisse baat kar raha hai?” (Do you know who you are talking to?)

 

Category 2 – Co-mplacents: Sporting a mask resting on their chest/throat/chin as they talk into their mobile on a very important phone call while walking in public

Covid danger score: 9 out of 10

Personality: These are the same people, who, during the pre-Covid era used to break traffic rules. They believe, that as long as you break a traffic rule very slowly – such as driving slowly on the wrong side of the road or jumping a red signal slowly it’s somehow OK. They don’t hesitate to jump queues or walk their dogs in posh apartment complexes without collecting their dog’s poo.

They are well educated and well to do people who are always in a hurry, but never on time. They generally have an inferiority complex which they hide by arguing, haggling, fuming, fretting or all of the above.

They think they are “jugaadu” (translation: innovative and street-smart). I know a person in our neighbourhood, who ran out of liquor. His friend had enough stock and invited him over. There was a strict lock-down in their area. So this person tied a spare Gas cylinder to his bike and rode to his friend’s home, so if the Police stopped him along the way, he was out to buy “essential supplies.” Surprisingly, people of this category also criticise others for not having a good “civic sense”!

 

Category 3 – InCo-mpetent: Wearing a disposable mask that wasn’t disposed, probably never washed, and now so dirty, it guarantees at least a secondary bacterial infection if not a viral (or your money back!)

Covid danger score: 8 out of 10

Personality: These are the despicable ones. They are in-disciplined and generally insensitive people, blissfully unaware of just how messy they are. They treat their maids and drivers badly to assert their authority.

They leave their mark – and I mean quite literally – everywhere. Their life is a collection of bad habits from speaking loudly, to blaring loud music from their cars windows down, to standing too close invading others’ personal space, to spitting in public places and littering streets as they travel.

If they sit idle, they bite their nails. If they read a book or count cash, they moisten their fingers with saliva, thus making sure that their full “microbial footprint” is effectively transferred to their community as a gift.

 

Category 4 – Astro-nots: Wearing a surgical N95 mask along with protective zero power phantom safety glasses, hand gloves, carrying a hand sanitizer with them while suspiciously inspecting their surroundings with suspecting eyes while surreptitiously walking maintaining a great social distance! (They would gladly wear a portable oxygen cylinder and a ventilator if one was available)

Covid danger score: 4 out of 10

Personality: These are paranoids. From the pre-Covid era, many of them have at least some form of OCD. They are highly intelligent, analytical, logical but generally pessimistic and cynical people. They live with fear, a carefully cultivated anxiety and a deep routed habit of worrying. The famous Mark Twain quote, “I have spent most of my life worrying about things that never happened” aptly describes these people.

They are the ones who hoard a year-long supply of everything at their homes and wish they had a fully equipped underground bunker they could escape to, with their families (and some actually do!). In later years of their life, they suffer from hypertension and constipation.

In the current situation, they are the most harmless category, in that they do not physically spread the disease. However, they do have a relatively modest score of 4 because they have the nasty habit of talking eloquently on webinars, blogging on social media, and writing articles in mainstream media that are scarier than all of Cassandra’s announcements in ancient Greece put together!

Their doomsday predictions start with something like this. “Even if only 60% of the 8 billion population get it and even at a 3% mortality rate staring at the scenario of a no vaccine due to this thing constantly mutating over the next 3 years, the riots and civil wars that will ensue…”  You start losing your will to live, if you ever had the misfortune of tuning into their predictions, interspersed with facts extrapolated via generally sound logic. While physically harmless, their nervous mannerism and incessant blogging completely freaks out everyone and creates widespread panic.

 

So anyway… What category are you? Do you think there is a fifth category not listed above? Would love to hear your thoughts.

The Grounded “Global Citizen”

Corona has already taught me a lot. A frugal lifestyle and living with what is truly essential, finally being forced to put environmental priorities over my family’s by reducing my carbon footprint to – well, about zero. Forced to put my family’s priorities over my personal ones. Achieving new levels of personal hygiene. Getting into a more predictable daily exercise and meditation routine, a lifestyle that is generally better organized balancing house-work, spending quality time with my family, and working from home as an executive in a global organization. And emotional resilience to withstand all the negative news coming at me from all directions via TV, e-Newspapers and various WhatsApp groups, my wife constantly worrying about her mother living alone in a different city, the anxiety of my parents unable to visit hospital for their regular health check-ups, my teenage daughter and I struggling with our unreliable internet connection and bandwidth issues schooling and working from home respectively.

 

It hit me like a rock to be grounded after my maiden trip to New York city this year. After forty-five consecutive days of lock-down, my body is finally in the same time-zone for several weeks in a row – and so much better for it. Last year, I traveled twenty-six times on business, on average a week at a time, to ten countries across different continents. My body clock was always set to the last country I was in, as my sleep deprived eyes beamed with the triumph of deals won in foreign lands even as my masochistic lifestyle traded continued abuse of my body for yet another professionally successful quarter. To wake up every day from the comfort of my own bed and not having to orient myself to my hotel room. To not book plane tickets, hotels and taxi rides, to not iron and pack and unpack the suitcase every week, to not worry about international SIM cards and forex, or for that matter, a window seat or isle. To not feel that constant rush of adrenaline thinking about today’s client presentation as I pick the right tie to go with my pin-stripe charcoal black suit and the cuff-links.

 

My otherwise stiff “corporate” lower back – as stiff as the plastic of my frequent flyer Platinum cards from all those countless hours of flights and the airline lounge waits before getting on them – is now free of pain, after bending down gently for thirty minutes everyday mopping down half of my apartment, my fifty percent share I volunteered for, despite my wife’s serious doubts over my ability to do housework without domestic help and sticking with it for any longer than a week.

 

There is no proven vaccine in sight. The IMF warns this could be the worst recession in over three hundred years. Dark voices in Europe are predicting an end to the Euro zone as we know it. Migrant workers are dying of heatstroke on the streets of India or being mowed down on railway tracks, in the chaos that ensued from lost jobs during lock-downs and the grim reality of what is already the largest urban to rural migration in the history of India. More people can die of economic starvation as the global economy sputters, than of the disease.

 

Yet, the skies are clear. Animals are claiming their space on our planet. The air quality index has improved dramatically. With twenty one of the thirty most polluted cities in the world being in India, a staggering hundred and twenty-five thousand Indians die, every year, due to air pollution. Those deaths are predicted to be dramatically low this year. Most of the twenty thousand road deaths per month are being avoided. Everyone living in crowded metros have anywhere from two to four hours of saved daily commute added to their work-life balance. That is in addition to the reduced stress and fatigue of having to navigate a chaotic and unruly traffic in the middle of dusty intense Indian summer heat. I live in Pune, so can’t quite see the Himalayas (yet) and have to be content with WhatsApp news of how Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh woke up to panoramic views of the majestic Himalayan range including snow-clad Gangotri some two hundred kilometers to the north.

 

However, at dawn, birds are chirpier as if to celebrate mother earth’s temporary victory over human insanity. The Sunrise from the terrace of my seventh-floor apartment is glorious than ever, every morning. The white clouds look like freshly combed and carded gently floating balls of cotton, as opposed to the ugly hazy grey things full of industrial suit. Even in high summer, the evening breeze is a couple of degrees cooler and fresher as the super moon rises in an imperial blue sky.

 

I have always longed for a sabbatical after having worked for a straight twenty-seven years. Longed to do simple things I have always wanted to do and finally getting some guilt free time to do them. Like neatly organizing and archiving thousands of my family and friends’ photos and videos scattered across various devices and clouds. Like creating the catalogue of my collection of a thousand books so carefully handpicked on my world travels and some even more cherished ones my friends and colleagues gifted me over the years. Like watching our favorite movies with my wife. Finally getting back to writing this next blog. Finally doing the only smart thing which is to switch off the smartphone and listen to my daughter and watch her fingers dance playing Chopin and Beethoven. Finally thinking about the kind of job I want, having grown roots and then having uprooted myself and my family through eleven international relocations, being honest with myself and deciding to leave that addictive, adrenaline pumping, exhilarating but nomadic life and actually having a job that grounds me in the city where I live with a local team to lead, mentor and guide.

Now that would be a welcome a change, even for a “global citizen” wouldn’t it?

Sachin Kulkarni

The Thousand Islands

The Thousand Islands

A thick blanket of fog, a thousand tiny little lush green islands shrouded in mist, running through them an international border of world’s two powerful countries, the unobstructed panorama of Lake Ontario, draining into the historic river of St. Lawrence, a culinary mystery and a heart wrenching love story about a castle! The Thousand Islands have it all.

Some places are magical. Some are mystical. Some are mesmerizing. Thousand Islands is all three combined! If you haven’t visited the Thousand Islands, you must add it to your “bucket list” (as in the movie).

A few years ago, we used to live in Buffalo, upstate New York and decided to visit the Thousand Islands. It was a four hour drive, initially to the East on I90 towards the city of Syracuse, and then due North on I81 towards Alexandria bay. We had rented a lovely wooden cottage on a hill. The cottage had a wooden terrace with a private barbeque area overlooking the St. Lawrence river. We were less than five minutes drive from the pier from where we would board the famous cruise boat to roam around the stunningly beautiful islands.

The Islands: Technically, there are way more than a thousand islands in the area. It’s an archipelago of 1,836 islands in St. Lawrence on the border of USA and Canada. A definition of an island in this area is that it must be above water all 365 days, must be at least one square foot in size and must support at least one tree or a house. Several of the islands are so tiny, that they don't qualify.

The area between the towns of Clayton and Alexandria bay marks the Stateside and on the Canadian side is marked by the towns of Gananoque, Rockport and the city of Kingston. Incidentally, Kingston was the first capital of Canada before Ottawa. But that’s another story.

The River: The St. Lawrence River originates from Lake Ontario and flows East over three thousand kilometers via Montreal all the way to Quebec City before draining into the Gulf of St Lawrence. First Europeans arrived here from Spain, during the 16^th century in pursuit of whales and traded with native Americans. The French got here in the early 17^th century, naming the river “Rivière du Canada”. Control of the river was crucial to British strategy to capture New France. In 1759, the British sailed up to Quebec thanks to charts drawn up by James Cook, attacked and won the city. In 1959, a system of canals and locks called the St. Lawrence Seaway was opened by Queen Elizabeth II representing Canada and President Eisenhower representing the United States. This Seaway now allows ocean going vessels to pass all the way to Lake Superior. During the 2^nd world war, the Battle of St. Lawrence involved submarine action and Germans sank several merchant ships and three Canadian warships.

The love story: One of the major attractions on the Thousand Islands cruise, is the Boldt Castle on the Heart Island. You can explore the Castle grounds and buildings on this heart shaped island for a small fee. If you own a boat, you can also dock at Heart Island for free. There is a US customs office on the island for Canadian visitors, since going to this island is considered entering the US border.

George Boldt, who was the general manager of the famous Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York city, owned the Heart Island. In 1900, George launched an ambitious construction to build one of the largest private homes in America, a six-story castle. He also built an equally distinctive yacht house on the neighboring Wellesley Island where the Boldts had another summer home and a vast estate, with farms, canals, a golf course, tennis courts, stables, and a polo field.

However, Boldt's wife, Louise Kehrer Boldt died suddenly in 1904. George was so grief stricken that he abandoned the construction abruptly and never returned to the island. The love story of the Boldts, of the Castle, the weird Alster tower, the grim Power house, the grotto, the Yacht house with boats docking through the basement – it's a perfect setting of a chilling Hitchcock movie waiting for a thick murder mystery to unfold! In 1969 Anne Colver wrote a famous children's novel about the story called "Secret Castle".

For 73 years after Louise’s death, the castle was left exposed to the harsh winters. Thousand Islands bridge authority acquired Heart Island and the yacht house in 1977 for a dollar, but with the agreement that tourist revenue would be put into their restoration. So far, the authority has spent fifteen million dollars for improvements with a stained glass dome, marble floor and grand staircase for the castle.

There are a lot of exhibits in the castle rooms and hallways showing pictures and artifacts of the Thousand Islands region during the era in which the Boldts lived. An interesting building on the island is the Power House, built to hold a generator to supply the island. Yet another building is the Alster Tower, purposely constructed with slanting and uneven walls, ceilings, and roofs.

From the Heart Island, our river cruise took us near the Zavikon Island, featuring the world's shortest international bridge. One half of this island is in USA and the other in Canada with the world’s shortest international bridge connecting the two parts. Our tourist guide told us that if the lady of the house had a domestic argument with her husband, say for instance about ‘who should do the dishes that evening’, she can literally walk out across the international border and retire abroad for the night!

The culinary mystery: Thousand Islands are also famous for a pink to orange coloured salad dressing, which by the way is called “Thousand Island” without the “s”. Legend has it that a fishing guide's wife, Sophia LaLonde living in the Thousand Islands, made the condiment as part of her husband George's shore dinner. Actress May Irwin requested the recipe after enjoying it. Irwin in turn gave it to George Boldt who was building the Castle in the area. Boldt was the general manager of the famous Waldarf Astoria hotel. So he instructed the hotel's chef to put the dressing on the menu. Its a salad dressing based on mayonnaise, olive oil, lemon juice, orange juice, paprika, Worcester sauce, mustard, vinegar, cream, chili sauce, tomato puree, ketchup or Tabasco sauce. It may also contain finely chopped pickles, onions, bell peppers, green olives, hard-boiled egg, parsley, pimento, chives, garlic, and chopped walnuts. 

I must admit that before our trip to Thousand Islands, our family was not a great fan of this salad dressing. We had previously bought the processed food store version of the dressing and were less than inspired with its taste. But the locally made salad dressing tastes very different and it is amazing!

There are at least three competing stories around the origin of the salad dressing. A couple of New Yorkers are filming a documentary in the hope to untangle this culinary mystery. One of the film makers, Eric Roberts grew up in Syracuse hating condiments. “I hated ketchup. I hated mayo,” he says. “I didn’t put anything on anything. But my mom made this dressing one day, it was pink, it was pretty good and I loved it.”  They’re incorporating a “blind taste test,” in which they film people trying unmarked versions of the dressing associated with each of the three competing stories.

Allen Benas, who owns the “Thousand Islands inn” in Clayton with his wife, Susan, believes the story in which Sophie LaLonde, invented the dressing during a shore dinner for their fishing clients. That’s the property Allen and Susan bought in 1972 and turned into the Thousand Islands Inn. He says he found LaLonde’s original recipe in the inn’s safe when he took over. “We have proof. We have the recipe.” He doesn’t give it out of course, in part because the Thousand Islands Inn bottles its own!

by Sachin Kulkarni, 26^th May 2014, London.