March 23 2024

It is as if I have to hit restart to a routine that I had established for more than a year. I havent excercised nor have I penned down anything for well over a month. My last entry was dated Feb 17th: I have been unwell fpr a very prolonged period. Needless to say this has taken a toll mentally as well. Which creates a negative spiral. I hadn't been regular at all in taking medications. I have been eating normally- which I should not have been doing. all in all some vitals went off- particularly blood sugar and my own view is that it had something to do with my seeming precipitous drop in immunity against viral infections. Today in a hotel room in delhi I am trying to get back to diarying- a goal for this year- and the reason I am doing so today is that I have some empty time to myself and feel somewhat unfettered. But more than this, I feel somewhat healthy. No fever, no sore throat, no coughing up mucus , no voice loss, no daytime lethargy or sleepiness. This is good enough - and am increasingly beginning to value a jejune day where I feel fine more than a day replete with the usual markers of excitement but where I feel like crap. In a bit, after having penned this entry down, I will plan to hit the gym- and then maybe also the pool. I have access and time and opportunity today- carpe diem! And may be it will usher in another stretch- hopefully a very long one- wherein I manage myself as per my own plan. Aside of writing and excercise- I will plan to consume some ayurvedic stuff to keep the virus away. When I was young, there used to adverts on the television of products like “chyawanprash”-by Dabur. An ayurvedic health tonic that improved immunity. But I dont recall anyone in my own family, or indeed in other bengali families known to me with some intimacy, actually using the product. This is our indian traditonal medicine- completely organic and herbal- and corroborated by allopathy as well- it is not snake oil by any stretch of the imagination. For example, a key ingredient in this tonic is “aamla” or a kind of Indian gooseberry. This fruit is decidedly not delicious- somewhat sour, bitter and not easy to consume casually. But one berry has 20 times the amount of vitamin C as one orange.  The seemingly utter disregard for traditional medicine in our social circle was yet another suggestive pointer to larger narrative that is now pervasive in India. Which is the notion that we as members of hindu society, and particularly bengali hindu society have been somehow transformed into neo-liberal automatons who view or own heritage with suspicion if not utter disdain. This is ofcourse a topic that bears much more discussion- but I wanted to get this observation in. In any case I will consume, observe and take stock in 3 months to see if the ayurvedic tonic has been working for me or not. A business trip to India and some me-time has been welcome. I needed to hit restart this year- it hasn’t started all that well. There is not a lot of excitement anymore about coming to India as I do it often. But I always travel to the eastern part of India which has always traditonally been a laggard in terms of development compared to the western states. Well this time I visited Ahmedabad and before descending into New Delhi for the weekend. And I must admit I was not all that impressed with this part of the country. It did not visually seem to be much different than the familiar eastern part of India. Ofcourse I am still reeling from my trip to China last August- where I visited Hangzhou- which in equivalent terms as a city was much less significant than Ahmedabad or Jaipur. Except that I had not seen a prettier, cleaner and more pristinely developed city than Hangzhou in recent years- even as compared to famous global metros like london, paris and the like. I don’t for a moment think we can reach the level of China- I think we have to accept that will always look shabbier on the whole- but that we would have more positive energy. There are various other journalistic reports that are also doing the rounds stating that the Indian growth rate will never come close to that of China. There is another Shapiro ( not Ben) that is ambivalent on India, even when recently the Modi buzz has truly painted an positive investment picture for the country. There is a budding narrative amongst foreign (particularly western) investors that India could be a good place to put one’s money for the next decade. The resto f the world is busy fighting wars but India is positioning itself as neutral, multi-aligned and basically the largest cushion, or dare I say “hedge” in the planet against global geo-political misadventures. It is from this perspective considered rather stable. On the other hand, this Shapiro guy is not sold on the India story at all. He said India has been the best growth story in world for the last 70 years. The potential has never come close to being realized, in his view. And the reasons are structural, and it will take much more than a Modi to get there. He admits Modi has done a few things- but given the power and mandate he enjoys, Shapiro thinks he has still flattered to deceive. He singles out caving against the farm protests as an example to illustrate how reforms just cannot be predictably implemented in what is a completely chaotic democratic set up which is steeped in a mélange of millions of narrow financial and power-wielding interests buttressed mainly by emotional hyperbole.   He actually did not say the last part, I made that up, but I am reading between his lines with  a more particular articulation. And in summary he says – if Modi, currently envied the world over as being the most popular political leader in the world, with a massive mandate for his Bharatiya Janata Party and his well-documented action bias can only move 3 steps forward and 2 steps behind- then what hope does any alternative have? I think it is a fair question.