The Zen Art of Peeling an Orange

Some people might think I am getting over-ambitious running a humble tea shop from a keet-roofed structure. I might suddenly be perceived as a potential political threat:  a future aspirant  for the coveted post of prime ministership, following in the footsteps of the success story of PM Modi himself. Even the simple name 'Orange Peel' of the tea shop could don on strategic implications. The suspicion of such speculators  is bound to grow deeper, as everything, by a sudden sequence of logic,  would start falling in place. 'Orange Peel', hmmm... it does ring of patriotism, and of  Hindutva.

But, seriously... Orange, ochre, saffron... perhaps, it's all the same to those for whom  the subtleties of life remain elusive.  For, while ochre is a natural clay-earth pigment, brownish yellow in colour, saffron is a flower-based, yellowish orange. While orange is orange, bright like the rising sun. And so is the logo of the tea shop. Now, there you are, your very first lesson in colours. As in art, so in life, a tad variance in shades can make all the difference.

Jokes and politics aside, the good news is there is now a brand new tea  shop  in the neighborhood, and everyone should rejoice, for the cooler, wetter spell is just around the corner. And there is nothing better than to wrap one's hands around a beautiful cup, sip some hot tea, crunch on munchies, while watching the sunset, through a pall of light rain. For, that's exactly what happened on the opening day of Orange Peel.  Later on, everyone, mainly friends and family who had come to support our venture, trooped up to the next level to watch the rainbow, arched across the sky. "This place is perfect," my friend Sofie exclaimed from the hammock, adding, "I think I am going to come here every day".

 It did not matter that because of some nervous, chaotic confusion in the kitchen, inherent in almost every first-day situation, I had hardly heard the rain tapping on the roof, had missed the rainbow, and had not even tasted my first brew of hibiscus orange tea, which turned out to be an all time favourite of most present...I was happy and relieved that we had finally made it through the evening.

"Come along inside. We will see if tea and buns can make the world a better place".

Developed or developing: does it matter?

According to American President Donald Trump, countries like India and China should be barred from the privileges endowed upon them under the banner of 'developing nations' . He said this to reiterate his belief that the two countries were taking advantage of the tag from the WTO. Calling India a 'tariff king', he criticized the country's trade policies for levying unrealistically high duties on U.S. products.

While this rather bizarre statement by Trump is doing the rounds in some WhatsApp circles, and people are ecstatic over the fact that India has finally emerged from the stigma of a third world country, one wonders why we are so preoccupied with such labels. Why some other nation's perception of us mattes more  than how we perceive ourselves. 

The notion of 'developed' and 'developing' countries, based on higher/lower GDP, are traps set by the western world, to turn  us also into unsuspecting prey to a failing model of capitalism. It is worth remembering, that whatever the west ever rejected, it was sly enough to repackage it and send it rolling our way. Right from DDT, and petroleum-based harmful pesticides and fertilizers, to plastic, genetically modified foods, high fructose corn syrup, techno, and now, this frenzy of a market economy!

In a country, where coercing people into shouting 'Bharat Mata ki jai' is the modern expression of patriotism;  lynching people on suspicion of eating beef, an attestation of religious righteousness; calling those who oppose the onslaught on the freedom of expression, 'bloody intellects', we need to pause and ask ourselves, not whether we are developed or developing, but are we, as a society, evolving or devolving. 

There's no gainsaying the fact that we produce the best software engineers, our space program is one of the most progressive in the world, and our military is regarded as elitist. But, we have failed in reaching out to the poor, the down-trodden, the outcast. We have one of the worst human rights records. In our country, little children still die of encephalitis, and the poor of starvation. Both, proper garbage disposal facilities and basic sanitation, are still in their nascent stage. Cast wars and communal clashes continue to divide the country and weaken the warp-and-weft of its multiculturalism.Women are regarded as goddesses, and yet, India continues to be the rape capital of the world.  A survey by the Thomson Reuters Foundation named India the most dangerous country in the world for women.

We can bask in the glory of the successful launch of Chandrayana 1 and 2, congratulate ourselves on  Indian professionals occupying top positions in multinational companies, feel proud that our PM travels in a state-of-the-art Airforce 1 style plane, while we still plough the overcrowded roads, along with buffaloes, street dogs, and cows! So, it doesn't matter if Trump calls us 'developed', even though to the rest of the world, we are still 'developing'. The need of the hour demands deep introspection, in terms of where we want to go from here, and what  we are prepared to sacrifice to reach there.