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Category: Features

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Can Spirituality Take Us Towards True Liberation?

Posted on by Penguin India

In his third book in the Spiritual Power series, author Gian Kumar delves deep into questions that bother us throughout our lives on the fundamental existence of God.  He unravels the complex issues that we remain entangled in till we become aware of the power of spiritual awakening. Gian Kumar writes, ‘To be spiritual is purely an internal relationship with oneself. It is how to make the mind consciously experience, realize and transform from one level to another.’

Spiritual Power: God and Beyond answers some of the most intricate and elusive questions known to man and in the process offers deeply meaningful life lessons that will enable you to unshackle your mind.

Read on for 5 lessons from the book that can change your perspective towards life:

Duality is the essence of life

An enlightened being has the power to rise above the eternal pursuit of desires and accept all that is good in life with the bad.

Can attitude alter our perception of life?

‘A positive attitude should be developed not by choice or selection in self-interest, but by an effortlessly balanced approach under awareness in any situation. A sense of appreciation settles, and you understand that the basic cause of all fears is nothing but your thoughts rising from your attachments and the means taken to attain those desires.’

Awareness is a weapon against negativity

The human mind is vulnerable to negative forces such as lust, greed, envy and jealousy that raise their ugly head in our relentless quest for more and better material pleasures.

Can these forces be vanquished?

‘Even strong efforts to think positively will only suppress those inner feelings of negativity, without eliminating them. Spirituality claims that you only need to become constantly aware and conscious of both positive and negative, and you shall effortlessly disengage from your negative urges.’

Life affirming choices lead us to success

The imminent transition of the world of commerce, from a wholly material dimension towards a spiritually enriched corporate culture, can create a thriving work force.

How can we create a more evolved work space?

‘It is not your machines, stock, or computers that are your real assets; it is the people behind them who are the prime resource to drive them. It is your investment in social and environmental responsibility that enriches your material life, helping you to evolve and transform into wholeness, which in turn reflects your superiority over competitors.’

Life is all about this moment  

Seeking happiness in the future creates a distance from the ‘witnessing-self’ that lives and breathes in the present moment as the experiential mind. Looking inward to meet this self is a firm step outside the boundaries of the physical body.

Can we govern the wayward thoughts that disrupt our present?

 ‘If you wish to know how to be devoid of unnecessary thoughts, first get to know more about your own thoughts, because there is no such thing as a thoughtless mind. Awareness and consciousness both require thoughts to interpret their presence. Both insist that the mind be more in the present, rather than in the past or future.’

Change is essential to evolution

Blindly following outdated traditions can create a divide between man and God and in order to awaken to the essence of this relationship, man must find God, guru and the self within.

Can we awaken to our own God?

‘Nothing is fixed in the world. Everything changes, expands and evolves. We too need to evolve from antiquated religious scriptures and traditions into a more fluid and dynamic spiritual humanism.’

Reflected in this deeply insightful and informative volume is author Gian Kumar’s approach to the inherent confusion and chaos underlying religion.  Spiritual Power: God and Beyond details a life defining move towards spirituality which not only offers a sanctuary of peace but also empowers the seeker to move away from the rigidity of archaic practices.

Read Spiritual Power: God and Beyond to tap into the hidden power source within you!

How Can We Unlock Growth?

Posted on by Penguin India

Today is an age of experimental and innovative entrepreneurship. Business strategy is changing fast, and so are customers’ expectations. It is more imperative than ever to keep up.

As the business-world becomes increasingly competitive (and creative), treating your customers is no longer enough. There are new rules that have emerged, including taking care of employees. Happy employees make happy customers, and happy customers tend to be loyal.

‘The New Rules of Business’ by Rajesh Srivastava presents insights and anecdotes to explore how businesses can grow in the new-age world. Find out how growth and success is an achievable milestone, even if you are new to the field, in an excerpt below.

**

Pivot to Unlock Growth

Business history is littered with examples of the initial strategy of an enterprise invariably failing. Successful enterprises don’t give up when their initial strategy proves ineffective. They pivot as many times as required, till they hit upon a successful strategy: either by chance, through superlative thinking or from a competitor’s mistake or by sheer luck. Once the successful strategy is discovered, the enterprise drops anchor.

Implied in this approach is an axiom: it is unwise to put all resources—financial and non-financial—into the initial strategy. Enterprises should hold back sufficient resources for subsequent strategic pivots they might have to undertake along the way till the successful one is identified. An enterprise, therefore identifies and places a bet on the best initial strategy and invests sufficient resources to make it a success. But it also holds back enough resources in case the initial strategy does not work out and the enterprise has to pivot to arrive at another strategy.

Enterprises that ignore the pivot strategy could make mistakes at a great cost to themselves and their shareholders.

Are there examples of enterprises that have embraced the pivot strategy to lay the foundation for business success?

Wikipedia

Wikipedia1 leads the list. It ‘pivoted’ its way to becoming the world’s largest collaborative, free encyclopaedia. In March 2000, Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, launched an online encyclopaedia and called it ‘Nupedia’. As was the norm then, he assembled an advisory board of experts to mentor this project. They in turn developed an intensive acceptance and editing process that included multi-step peer review process to control the content of the articles.

After twelve months, merely twelve articles were written, despite many contributors evincing interest. The strategy of having experts to control and drive the project was clearly not working. Wales needed to pivot, and quickly.

In 2001, a second free online encyclopaedia was launched where anyone could contribute. It was called Wikipedia. It operated on the principles of software industry where a collaborative approach was followed. Work released at the earliest possible opportunity and refined subsequently. This process is called ‘beta testing’. Leading software companies are in a state of perpetual beta: they are striving for continuous improvements. A leading proponent of this strategy is Google.

80 per cent ready. And then based on user feedback, it keeps improving the software, live.

Wikipedia too released the earliest possible version of an article, letting several people work simultaneously to rapidly refine it. The new pivot got traction and Wikipedia, as we know it, was born. Nupedia, which decided to remain rigid and not pivot, shut shop in 2003.

**

Author Rajesh Srivastsava brings to this book three decades of corporate experience to present advice that is both accessible and actionable.

Feed your entrepreneurial spirit by getting a copy of the book today!

Meet J. Krishnamurti- The Teacher Who Showed Us the Way Within

Posted on by Penguin India

In a world teeming with ordinary men there is sometimes an extraordinary soul that streaks across the horizon like a shooting star. J. Krishnamurti was a man who stood tall at the other end of the spectrum. While wars raged across the world over religious differences, he spoke about renouncing all religion. When people were frantically pushing forward in the race towards their aspirations, Krishnamurti made them pause and look within. Drawing young listeners towards his perspective as well as inspiring the elderly, he travelled the world and connected with many through his talks and books. In 1961, Aldous Huxley- one of his many renowned admirers- wrote that listening to Mr. Krishnamurti was ”like listening to the discourse of a Buddha.”

Read on the know 10 things about the man who changed the way we look at life-

  1. Jiddu Krishnamurti was born on May 22, 1895 in Madanapalle, a small town west of Chennai, to devout Brahmin parents. His father, Jiddu Narayania, was a Theosophist associated with the Madras office of the Theosophist Society.

 

  1. In 1909, at the age of fourteen, J. Krishnamurti became the protege of Annie Besant, a political and social reformer who also served as the president of the Theosophist Society. This development changed the course of Krishnamurti’s life as Besant proclaimed him a saviour or World Teacher and took the young protege to England where he was educated privately and groomed for the role of World Teacher.

 

  1. Krishnamurti experienced life in different ways while receiving his education in England and at the Sorbonne in Paris as he travelled in Europe and the United States with Annie Besant.

 

  1. In 1911, Mrs. Besant founded the World Order of the Star of the East with Mr. Krishnamurti at its helm. His early visits to New York in the 1920’s sparked controversy as the city’s tabloids created sensational stories about the ‘saviour’ and his zealous followers.

 

  1. It was in 1929 that J. Krishnamurti broke away from the order and awakened to his mission to set human beings ”absolutely, unconditionally free.” He rejected the notion that a cult leader could take people towards salvation and in light of this belief, decided to disband the organization.

 

  1. In another life-altering move, Krishnamurti renounced all organized religions and ideologies based on the belief that prescribed teachings obstructed self-awareness and consequently took people away from self- knowledge.

 

  1. A revered teacher and philosopher, J. Krishnamurti maintained physical discipline with a vegetarian diet and regular practice of yoga. A teetotaller and non-smoker, he dressed in Western suits or traditional Indian wear according to his surroundings as he travelled the world giving talks and inspiring renowned leaders and thinkers.

 

  1. Krishnamurti established the principal Krishnamurti Foundation in 1969 in Ojai, a resort town in California, and took on the responsibility of being chairman of the board. The foundation also operated the Oak Grove School where students received training in regular academic subjects while being encouraged to think independently.

 

  1. Krishnamurti’s message to the world was based on an emphatic pursuit of unflinching self-knowledge. He believed that people must take up the challenge of exploring within themselves to understand their own psyche. It was this self- knowledge, unadulterated with external influences of religion, society and politics that, he believed, would change society for the better.

 

  1. Despite his failing health, J. Krishnamurti continued to share his philosophy with the world till the age of 90 when he lost his battle against cancer and breathed his last at his residence at the Krishnamurti Foundation in Ojai on 17th February 1986.

In his books, J. Krishnamurti delved deep into the tangled net of ideas, organizational beliefs and psychological mindsets in which humanity is caught. In his three-volume series on Commentaries on Living with over fifty essays in each volume, Krishnamurti explores topics as diverse as knowledge, truth, fulfillment, meditation, love, effort, seeking life and death and education.

 

About Rethinking India: Why the Series is Relevant for Today’s India

Posted on by Penguin India

India is a richly diverse country. To celebrate diversity, it has become important to accommodate equally diverse ideas and visions of what India means as a nation.

Editors Ashis Nandy and Aakash Singh Rathore have taken a step towards this through a fourteen-volume series titled Rethinking India. The series is a highly relevant narrative in today’s times to revisit our idea of a ‘nation’.

The series is a byproduct of numerous working groups coming together to critically rethink social, economic and political spaces to encourage a transformative spirit. Over 400 of India’s foremost academics, activists, professionals and policymakers have come together to constructively engage in this process.

What are some of the challenges that the series brings to light? We take a look:

Government pays lip service to values our Constitution was founded upon

Our Constitution, as the preamble so eloquently attests, was founded upon the fundamental values of the dignity of the individual and the unity of the nation, envisioned in relation to a radically egalitarian justice.

The government policy however, merely pays lip service to egalitarian considerations, while the actual administration of ‘justice’ and implementation of laws are in fact perpetuating the opposite: illegality, criminality, corruption, bias, nepotism and injustice of every conceivable stripe. The rapid rise of social intolerance and manifold exclusions (along the lines of gender, caste, religion, etc.) whittle down and even sabotage an inclusive conception of citizenship, polity and nation.

Most basic constitutional principles under attack

All the public institutions that were originally created in order to fight against dominance and subservience are in the process of subversion, creating new hierarchies instead of dismantling them, generating inequities instead of ameliorating them.

The uprising against those who merely pay lip service

There are in fact new sites for sociopolitical assertion re-emerging. There are new calls arising for the reinstatement of the letter and spirit of our Constitution, not just normatively (where we battle things out ideologically) but also practically (the battle at the level of policy articulation and implementation). They witness the wide participation of youth, women, the historically disadvantaged in the process of finding a new voice, minorities, members of majority communities, and progressive individuals all joining hands in solidarity.

A series like Rethinking India not only brings such structural problems to light, but also propose disruptive solutions to each of the pressing challenges that we collectively face.

Inputs have been organized and assembled from jan sunwais (public hearings) and jan manches (public platforms) that have been conducted across several states. These ideas have also been discussed and debated with leaders of fourteen progressive political parties, in an effort to set benchmarks for a future common minimum program.

The series begins a conversation that we’d want each and every civilian of this country to be a part of.

The inaugural volume of the series is titled Vision for a Nation: Paths and Perspectives, and champions the idea of a plural, diverse, inclusive and prosperous India.

 

Lambton’s Cartographical Adventure- An Excerpt from ‘Mapping The Great Game’

Posted on by Penguin India

While ‘the game for power’ between Imperial Russia and Great Britain was being played out in the 19th century, a self-educated cartographer named William Lambton began mapping the Great Arc, attempting to measure the actual shape of the Indian subcontinent. It was completed four decades later by a fellow officer working for the Survey of India, George Everest, who would have a special mountain named in his honor.

Featuring forgotten, enthralling episodes of derring-do and the most sincere efforts to map India’s boundaries, Mapping the Great Game is the thrilling story of espionage and cartography.

Read an excerpt from the book below:

—–

Now, nothing stood in Lambton’s way: he could embark on his cartographical adventure, and attempt to solve a key question of geodesy he had pondered for many years. It originated from a knotty problem known as ‘spherical excess’, which arises because the earth is essentially a sphere. In effect this means the angles of a triangle, rather than adding up to 180 degrees as they would on a flat surface, actually exceed this figure, albeit ever so slightly. If the triangles being marked out are relatively small, then this impact is minor and can be ignored, as Mackenzie was doing in his Topographical Survey. Conversely, as the land area being surveyed becomes larger than 10 square miles, the mathematics of trigonometry must be adjusted for this effect. Thus, a survey across the whole peninsula would obviously need to take spherical excess into account. But this was only the first part of the conundrum, and actually the simpler of two problems concerning the earth’s shape.

The second and more complex problem arises from the well-understood fact that the earth isn’t a true sphere, but is flatter at the poles as it spins on this axis. Isaac Newton had postulated this in the late seventeenth century, as a natural consequence to his theory of gravitation. It had been proven in the 1730s, by two separate expeditions sent out from France—at great expense—to measure one degree of latitude at two different points on the earth’s surface. This exercise, which took a number of years to complete and involved much hardship, determined a degree to equal 68.7 miles close to the equator, whereas near the Arctic Circle it measured 69.6 miles. This difference proved beyond doubt that the effect was significant, and must be corrected for if a large-scale survey was to be credible.

The geodetic problem for Lambton boiled down to a similar question: what was the length of one degree of latitude around the tropics where Madras lay? If he knew this, he would have the information needed to determine the extent of spherical excess in this part of the world. Such a discovery would not only improve the accuracy of his own survey, but also, as he put it, ‘determine by actual measurement the magnitude and figure of the earth’. It wouldn’t be just an academic exercise either, as ascertaining this dimension would have immense practical value: for example, it would improve the compilation of navigation tables and sea charts. Moreover, by measuring the actual shape of the earth on the subcontinent, the true positions and heights of all its places, including its towering mountains, could be fixed.

Once he had acquired his precious instruments and measured out the base-line, this question was finally answered in 1802, although it would require a year of painstaking work. First, he triangulated a short arc* just over 100 miles long, equivalent to almost 1½ degrees of latitude. Working down the south coast from Madras, this exercise gave him the arc’s precise ground distance, measured in miles. Next, he determined the latitude of both its extremities through astronomical observations and, by subtracting one from the other, determined the arc’s span in degrees. Since these two values were determined independently of each other, by dividing the length of the arc in miles by its span in degrees, he was able to deduce the precise length of one degree of latitude. In this way, he was able to finally determine the spherical excess figure that had eluded him for so long.

Grab your copy of  Mapping The Great Game  and discover forgotten and enthralling episodes of the most sincere efforts to map India’s boundaries!

Can the Stillness Of Your Mind Dispel the Discord that Threatens the World?

Posted on by Penguin India

The three-volume series of Commentaries on Living records revered philosopher and teacher J. Krishnamurti’s meetings with individual seekers of truth from all walks of life. While exploring topics as diverse as knowledge, truth, fulfillment, meditation, love and education, these dialogues offer an insight into the struggles and issues common to those who strive to break the boundaries of personality and self-limitation. The essence of Krishnamurti’s teaching is that only through a complete change of heart in the individual can there come about a change in society and so peace to the world.

In his exploration of the conditioning of the mind and its freedom, Krishnamurti raises questions that challenge accepted ways of thinking.

Read on for 6 thought-provoking questions and life lessons from the Commentaries on Living-

Outward simplicity may be an expression of intention but can this take us towards the peace and bliss we seek?

‘Simplicity of the heart is of far greater importance and significance than simplicity of possessions. To be content with few things is a comparatively easy matter. To renounce comfort, or to give up smoking and other habits, does not indicate simplicity of heart. To put on a loin-cloth in a world that is taken up with clothes, comforts and distractions, does not indicate a free being.’

With man becoming a slave of the state, can we find the freedom to awaken our highest intelligence?

‘To be a good citizen is to function efficiently within the pattern of a given society. Efficiency and conformity are demanded of the citizen, as they toughen him, make him ruthless; and then he is capable of sacrificing the man to the citizen. A good citizen is not necessarily a good man; but a good man is bound to be a right citizen, not of any particular society or country.’

Identification with something external offers an escape from one’s emptiness; in this endless cycle of substitution of attachments, can we ever face the unwillingness of our mind to be still and free of thought?

‘Attachment to your work is your escape. There are escapes at all the levels of our being. You escape through work, another through drink, another through religious ceremonies, another through knowledge, another through God, and still another is addicted to amusement. All escapes are the same, there is no superior or inferior escape. God and drink are on the same level as long as they are escapes from what we are.’

If ideas are inherently divisive, then can a revolution based on ideology bring about equality?

‘Revolution based on an idea, however logical and in accordance with historical evidence, cannot bring about equality. The very function of idea is to separate people. Belief, religious or political, sets man against man. So-called religions have divided people, and still do. Organized belief, which is called religion, is, like any other ideology, a thing of the mind and therefore separative.’

By lulling man into a state of temporary contentment, do reforms actually impede total transformation?

‘Reform, however necessary, only breeds the need for further reform, and there is no end to it. What is essential is a revolution in man’s thinking, not patchwork reform. Without a fundamental change in the mind and heart of man, reform merely puts him to sleep by helping him to be further satisfied.’

With the acceptance of authority ingrained within us we tend to get influenced by charismatic leaders but does their calm assumption of knowing what’s good for the people really work to our advantage?

‘Every party knows, or thinks it knows, what’s good for the people. But what is truly good will not create antagonism, either at home or abroad; it will bring about unity between man and man; what is truly good will be concerned with the totality of man, and not with some superficial benefit that may lead only to greater calamity and misery; it will put an end to the division and the enmity that nationalism and organized religions have created.’

 

Proclaimed as a saviour at the age of fourteen, J. Krishnamurti travelled the world sharing his wisdom with people and inspiring the likes of Jawaharlal Nehru, Aldous Huxley, George Bernard Shaw and the Dalai Lama. In Commentaries on Living, he helps us to see ourselves as we really are, for it is in seeing with absolute clarity that the inward revolution takes place.

 

To explore the depths within you, read Commentaries on Living series!

The Game of Business: Excerpt from Simon Sinek’s ‘The Infinite Game’

Posted on by Penguin India

In today’s world lead by young entrepreneurs, what does competition in businesses actually mean?

An optimist, motivator and author, Simon Sinek lays out a clear framework to help us navigate the world of business – which he presents as an ‘infinite game’, with no clear finish lines, losers or winners.

Read on for an excerpt that introduces this idea.

The Infinite Game of Business

The game of business fits the very definition of an infinite game. We may not know all of the other players and new ones can join the game at any time. All the players determine their own strategies and tactics and there is no set of fixed rules to which everyone has agreed, other than the law (and even that can vary from country to country). Unlike a finite game, there is no predetermined beginning, middle or end to business. Although many of us agree to certain time frames for evaluating our own performance relative to that of other players – the financial year, for example – those time frames represent markers within the course of the game; none marks the end of the game itself. The game of business has no finish line.

Despite the fact that companies are playing in a game that cannot be won, too many business leaders keep playing as if they can. They continue to make claims that they are the “best” or that they are “number one.” Such claims have become so commonplace that we rarely, if ever, stop to actually think about how ridiculous some of them are. Whenever I see a company claim that it is number one or the best, I always like to look at the fine print to see how they cherry-picked the metrics. For years, British Airways, for example, claimed in their advertising that they were “the world’s favourite airline.” Richard Branson’s airline, Virgin Atlantic, filed a dispute with Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority that such a claim could not be true based on recent passenger surveys. The ASA allowed the claim to stand, however, on the basis that British Airways carried more international passengers than any other airline. “Favourite,” as they used the word, meant that their operation was expansive, not necessarily preferred.

To one company, being number one may be based on the number of customers they serve. To another, it could be about revenues, stock performance, the number of employees or the number of offices they have around the globe. The companies making the claims even get to decide the time frames in which they are making their calculations. Sometimes it’s a quarter. Or eight months. Sometimes a year. Or five years. Or a dozen. But did everyone else in their industry agree to those same time frames for comparison? In finite games, there’s a single, agreed-upon metric that separates the winner from the loser, things like goals scored, speed or strength. In infinite games, there are multiple metrics, which is why we can never declare a winner.

Are you playing an inifinite game or finite game? Read The Infinite Game to find out!

Who is an Indian and Whose India Is It? Shashi Tharoor’s Quest into the Idea of a Nation

Posted on by Penguin India

Inundated with a barrage of politically charged agendas, citizens of the world no longer have the luxury of being ignorant aboutin the dynamics of the state. In a nation as diverse and fluid as India, one’s very identity gets threatened by the discourse on nationalism.. Taking us right into the crux of the issues that affect each one of us are the intelligentsia of this vibrant nation, who have come together in Vision for a Nation: Paths and Perspectives to champion a plural, inclusive, just, equitable and prosperous India.

To put in perspective the sheer range and depth of this discussion, Shashi Tharoor writes: ‘Just thinking about India makes clear the immensity of the challenge of defining what the idea of India means. How can one approach this land of snow peaks and tropical jungles, with twenty three major languages and 22,000 distinct ‘dialects’…, inhabited in the second decade of the twenty-first century by more than a billion individuals of every ethnic extraction known to humanity?’

 

Read on to get a glimpse of the five Visions of India presented by Shashi Tharoor in his essay ‘A Land of Belonging’:

 

The Plurality of India

The pulsating energy that abounds in every corner of this vast land is the result of a unique convergence of diverse communities that are united in the fact of their nationality yet distinct in their culture. Tharoor points out the anomaly of looking at India in the singular-

‘There are, as the hackneyed phrase goes, many Indias. Everything exists in countless variants. There is no single standard, no fixed stereotype, no one way. This pluralism is acknowledged in the way India arranges its own affairs: all groups, faiths, tastes and ideologies survive and contend for their place in the sun.’

*

The Unity of India

Symbolic of the heritage of this great civilisation are the epics that demonstrate the impulse of unity, woven into the fabric of India despite the many episodes in Indian history of fractures that render this belief suspect:  

‘The epics have acted as strong, yet sophisticated, threads of Indian culture that have woven together tribes, languages and peoples across the subcontinent, uniting them in their celebration of the same larger-than-life heroes and heroines whose stories were told in dozens of translations and variations, but always in the same spirit and meaning.’

*

The Duality of India

The preamble of the Constitution encapsulates the vision of India’s founding fathers who believed in a glorious future where the Indian Republic would stand strong on the pillars of justice, liberty, equality and fraternity. And yet, the dichotomy of modern India is evident:

‘Caste, which Nehru and his ilk abhorred and believed would disappear from the social matrix of modern India, has not merely survived and thrived, but has become an instrument for highly effective political mobilization.’

*

The Complexity of India

With pluralism and diversity being the foundation of this nation, India is unique in that the only commonality in its inhabitants is the awareness of their many differences. The identity of an Indian cannot be contained within descriptions of language, ethnicity, religion or geography-

‘It is the idea of an ever-ever land—emerging from an ancient civilization, united by a shared history, sustained by pluralist democracy. India’s democracy imposes no narrow conformities on its citizens.

*

The Secularism of India

The notion of majority and minority in a nation that celebrates diversity can create a dangerous discourse which has the potential to incite violence in the name of religious identifications. Reiterating the essence of Indian Secularism, Tharoor writes:

‘Western dictionaries defined secularism as the absence of religion, but Indian secularism meant a profusion of religions; the state engaged with all of them but privileged none.’

 

At a time in history when the world is rife with conflict, India’s foremost intellectuals, academics, activists, technocrats, professionals and policymakers open a discourse on nation and identity. First in a fourteen-volume series titled Rethinking India, Vision for a Nation initiates a discussion on some key issues of our time.

To delve deeper into a subject that is both relevant and challenging, read Vision for a Nation.

5 Indian Ingredients You Can Use in Baking

Posted on by Penguin India

 

Uparwali Chai is a beautifully curated set of recipes full of nostalgic flavours and stories, this is a book every home cook will be referring to for generations to come.

Baking ingredients are now widely available in major cities but for most of these recipes, local markets and kirana shops will provide everything you need. Here we list down 5 such Indian ingredients and how they can be used in baking:

Yoghurt

It is mostly used as a mixing and a holding agent. It is used to make muffins and cakes in addition to other desserts. Pamela Timms uses it to make Lemon and Cardamom Yoghurt Cake, Refrigerator Bran Muffins and even a Labneh Cheesecake using hung yoghurt!

Saffron

This adds an aroma, flavour and colour  to any food item it is added to. Just a pinch is enough to turn a simple dish into an exotic one! Use it to make Daulat ki Chaat, Saffron and Chocolate Macaroons and many delicious desserts. (All these recipes can be found in the book!)

 

Mawa

Mawa or khoya is a milk-based ingredient and is often used in cakes, muffins or even biscuits. Delight your family and friends this festive season with Mawa Madeleines.

 

Mango

The king of fruits! It is not only eaten in abundance in India during the summer but it is also used as an ingredient in many desserts and baked items,  You can make a Mango and Old Monk Trifle if you’d like your dessert to have a kick! Or try out Pamela’s Mango and Gondhoraj Lime No-Bake Cheesecake.

 

Salted Butter (Amul)

When it comes to using butter, Indian baking mostly makes use of salted butter which is very readily available at every neighborhood grocery store. Add a slight savoury touch to your tea with the Banana Loaf Cake with Chai-spiced Icing or try something new like Mango and Marmalade Flapjacks.

Is your mouth watering already? Use these ingredients to make some of these delightful items and more with Uparwali Chai.

 

 

Fear of Transience: Excerpt from Shaheen Bhatt’s ‘I’ve Never Been (Un)Happier’

Posted on by Penguin India

‘I don’t write about my experiences with depression to defend the legitimacy of my pain. My pain is real; it does not come to me because of my lifestyle, and it is not taken away by my lifestyle,’ says Shaheen Bhatt in her multidimensional philosophical tell-all book, I’ve Never Been (Un)Happier.

A poignant illustration of her day-to-day struggles with depression, Shaheen Bhatt’s memoir is crucial in starting a conversation that has been hushed for too long.

Read on to find an excerpt to begin a dialogue around mental health in India.

**

Perpetual bliss does not exist and anyone who peddles the belief that it does, or tries to convince you that there is a secret path through the woods that leads to an oasis of unending peace and happiness is either deluded, or a liar.

For too long we’ve been convinced that the emotional fairy tale—the perfect state of emotional well-being— exists, and that it’s tantalizingly close but just out of reach. We’ve been convinced that it exists and we’ve been convinced that there’s something fundamentally wrong with us for not being able to attain it.

It’s high time that we realize that there’s nothing wrong with us.

There’s something wrong with the fairy tale. Perpetual bliss does not exist, and saying that does not make me a nihilist.

I sit on the same see-saw that we all do and it continuously goes up and down, shifting between darkness and light—it’s the same for us all. Some of us simply stay down a little longer in a dark that’s just a little darker.

Transience is something we’re all so afraid of, and we live in perpetual fear of a new, different reality.

But thank God for transience because even though it means that happiness doesn’t last it also means that pain eventually passes.

It means that neither heaven nor hell are permanent.

There is nothing glorious or freeing or romantic or lovely about depression. Depression is a monster, a villain and thief, but even the worst of experiences teach you something. Depression has taken a lot from me and it has also given me a lot, but only because I eventually demanded it. I demanded my lessons and I took them head on.

‘You must not allow your pain to be wasted, Shaheen,’ my father said to me. I chant that quietly to myself—‘My pain must not be wasted,’ I say—and I try to learn, I try to do. I grieve and cry and hurt but I also take my medication and go to therapy. I watch my soul being bent and twisted into painful, unnatural shapes and marvel at how I’ve never seen it from those angles before. There are still days and weeks and months when I am also consumed by depression, when I forget all my lessons, when I forget everything but the pain. And that’s also when I turn to the very idea I’m afraid of: transience.

I remind myself if happiness is fleeting, then so is sadness.

I remind myself depression is the weather, and I’m a weather-worn tree.

I remind myself even the worst storms pass.

I remind myself I’ve survived them all.

 

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A topic of massive interest to anyone with mental health disorders, I’ve Never Been (Un)Happier stretches out a hand to gently provide solace and solidarity. Go get your copy today!

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