D.é.j.à. v.u

A well-designed poster at Café Costa informs that the word Cappuccino derived its origin because of its resemblance to the brown coloured robes of capuchin monks in Italy. A bit of digging ( God bless google, no wait, google is god!) threw up a few interesting stories.

+++

Cappucino as we all know is a combination of espresso, steamed milk, along with milk foam.

Espresso is an Italian means “pressed out.” Hot water is forced through fresh coffee to produce espresso. Then, steamed milk foam is beaten into the espresso and the froth at the top of the steaming milk is floated on to the top of the coffee to make a delicious beverage - a cappuccino.

Cappuccino literally means  ‘little hood’ or ‘little monk’s cowl.’ Capucchio is ‘hood’ and –ino is a common Italian diminutive ending, hence ‘little hood.’ Capucchio is from Late Latin cappa ‘cap, cape, hooded cloak, small head gear,’ possibly shortened from the Late Latin noun capitulare ‘head-dress,’ ultimately from Latin caput ‘head.’ Remember Rome being called caput mundi?

Cappuccino was the Italian term for a Capuchin friar. Apparently, the colour of the coffee reminded Italians of the brown robes of the Roman Catholic orders of monks, namely the Capuchins. They wore brown robes with pointed hoods. The first cappuccino coffee served had little peaks of milky foam that looked like these pointed hoods.

So the next time you have a cappuccino, don’t tell anyone that you are modern enough to have nothing to do with religion.

+++

Another interesting word is Croissant. This has all sorts of stories surrounding it. One of the commonest being that the first croissant was baked after the Turks were defeated during the siege of Vienna in 1683.

 Crescent shaped Croissant

An online extract:

In 1683, Vienna (the capital of Austria) was under siege by over a hundred thousand Ottoman Turks. After several months of trying to starve the city into submission, the Turks attempted to tunnel underneath the walls of the city. Fortunately for the entire city, some bakers hard at work in the middle of the night heard the sounds of the Turks digging and alerted the city’s defenders. This advance warning gave the defenders enough time to do something about the tunnel before it was completed. Soon, King John III of Poland arrived at the head of an army that defeated the Turks and forced them to retreat.

To celebrate the end of the siege and the part they had played in lifting it, several bakers in Vienna made a pastry in the shape of the crescents they had seen on the battle standards of the enemy. They called this new pastry the “Kipfel” which is the German word for “crescent” and continued baking if for many years to commemorate the Austrian victory over the Turks in 1683. It was not until 1770 that the pastry came to be known as the croissant.

And Here’s  Jenifer Harney Lang writing  about it in larousse gastronomique :

Croissant…This delicious pastry originated in Budapest in 1686, when the Turks were besieging the city. To reach the centre of the town, they dug underground passages. Bakers, working during the night, heard the noise made by the Turks and gave the alarm. The assailants were repulsed and the bakers who had saved the city were granted the privilege of making a special pastry which had to take the form of a crescent in memory of the emblem on the Ottoman flag.

Ottomon Flag with Crescent

Seems interesting, but is heavily disputed. The other story, arguably a more credible one is  about an Austrian artillery officer named August Zang. He founded a Viennese Bakery (”Boulangerie Viennoise”) in Paris. This bakery, served Viennese specialties including the kipfel and the Vienna loaf, quickly became popular and inspired French imitators (and the concept, if not the term, viennoiserie, a 20th century term for supposedly Vienna-style pastries). The French version of the kipfel was named for its crescent (croissant) shape.

I guess the first croissant story is more interesting. Specially as, one doesnt find a lot many cresecent shaped dishes/eateries in the Muslim world.  In Turkey, as far as I know, the only bread that comes close to a croissant in shape is simit , but it doesn’t taste anything like a normal French butter croissant. Curiously most of the times it’s not exactly crescent shaped.

A pair of Simit

+++

Final word of the post is Teetotaller. 

Again two stories , the first one is from England.  It is about an artisan from Lancaster, England (Well some say Preston, I’ll go and find out one of these days) whose tombstone is engraved:

Beneath this stone are deposited the remains of Richard Turner, author of the word Teetotal as applied to abstinence from all intoxicating liquors, who departed this life on the 27th day of October. Legend has it that Turner stuttered when he first tried to say it.

Here’s the related wiki entry:

One anecdote attributes the origin of the word to a meeting of the Preston Temperance Society in 1832 or 1833. This society was founded by Joseph Livesey, who was to become a leader of the temperance movement and the author of The Pledge: “We agree to abstain from all liquors of an intoxicating quality whether ale, porter, wine or ardent spirits, except as medicine.” The story attributes the word to Dicky Turner, a member of the society, who had a stammer, and in a speech said that nothing would do but “tee-tee-total abstinence”.

But the more likely explanation arose around the same time in America when the New York Temperance Society got members to sign a pledge of O.P. if they swore off distilled liquor only and T for total abstinence. Therefore, T for Total, or T-Total eventually became teetotaller.

Aside: Their concerted movement eventually led to abolition of distilled alcohol. Remember Eighteenth Amendment or The Untouchables?

Kevin Costner as Eliott Ness in The Untouchables.

+++

So long.

Well, A sent an email about today being Doctor’s Day in India. So here’s to all my favourite doctors on screen. After of course Sherlock Holmes, who can tell that you had been China by looking at your fingernails and the incorrigible Hannibal Lecter, who can not only tell you if you had been to China but also eat your liver while doing so. But then, everyone lies!

Standing L-R
well, not exactly standing, limping..lurking, It’s not Lupus Gregeory awesome House
The thorough gentleman until it comes to the weddings Preston Burke
the lovely Rat-a-Tat-a-Tat mouth Any other day I’d say no, but today I’m gonna go ahead and just say no..Dr Cox
and the rocket fuel lets get any patient on the OR table Cristina Yang.

Coffee brewing.

Earth after rain.

Stirring tea in circles.

Smelling a dish just when it is about to be done cooking.

Water after a long early morning run.

Wet Ink Drying.

Emptying one’s own thoughts into absolute mind-silence.

Light breaking out into a dawn.

Hearing the sea with your eyes closed.

Cricket ball running in spurts towards the boundary line.

Whiskey trickling down the palate.

Tongue feeling a tongue.

Grass under bare feet.

Strangers Smiling to you.

Music with which you suddenly feel in harmony

and

many

many

more.

Picture: http://bluemooncandles.wordpress.com/

  And I’m on twitter here.

Lots of things on the mind, hence the irregularity.

+++

I lived in stoke for a brief time . A time, when I  was  curious, yet long way away from being discerning. It was a period when I was fed up of London ; I was sick and tired of the tubes and giving directions to Japanese and American tourists.  So stoke was a welcome break. But I could hardly distinguish a culture or life in a small unremarkable non-cosmopolitan city. 

But in a sense, Stoke was wonderful, it gave me the much needed solitude; but I also remember how depressing the city and the people were, though I must say I did not realise it at that time. I recall these wonderfully, brave middle-aged people who used to come to the clinics;  they were absolutely lovely, polite, prompt men and women who were so visibly depressed and yet made every effort to carry on with their lives. The potteries had been closed and had made many of them redundant.  They were too old to learn any new modern skills, and too set in their patterns to innovate.  It was heart-breaking  just to see them, there was nothing substantial one could do for them.

I think of all this because I was called to visit Stoke for a day for work. It was 10 minute court proceeding which was fairly straightforward. It gave me a chance to revisit some of my old mental states.  Driving through Stoke , I could clearly see how decadent it was. The streets were narrow lined by rows of decrepit terraced houses, the roads were dug open unattended, people hovered around sad and unremarkable.  The shops were unimpressive, the attendants were fumbly and forlorn,  even the city centre of which I had many memories appeared very ordinary. It was all so charmless, so painfully ordinary. 

To me it was a contradiction of emotions. On one hand I wanted to get away from the insignificance before me and on the other I desparately wanted to see the places I  had known - early morning running route, an old restaurant, the old cornershop,  the regular chippy,  tip of the nearby hill  etc.  As I got to think, I realised how much I had changed and yet was changing. I had become more discerning to have a clear judgment, yet was nostalgic of a place to which I had no belonging in any sense.  It was an emotion, I had never  known as an immigrant.

I drove back musing  upon these things, breaking for lunch in a Costa somewhere in Cheshire and suddenly while ordering a Panini I felt at home. I ordered all I wanted in one go and the chap skilfully arranged it in no time. It felt familiar, but then I know some day I would look back at it differently, but not quite knowing how exactly.

+++

Rewatched  sex, lies and videotape this weekend. I remember accidentally watching it on zee cinema almost ten years back and being completely blown away by it. I must have watched almost every repeat of the movie on the channel. And watching it now again was no less mesmerizing. I could easily see why it had such a powerful impression on a teenage mind. 

Even today it gives me goosebumps. The greatness of the movie is in its simplicity and in its ambition. At times I think of it just as a prolonged photo-shoot.  All it has done is the basics - to have a great script and to capture the emotions on a face with a camera.  No wonder Spader walked away with the best actor at Cannes. At times his acting makes you feel as if he was in the room with you. This is all what movie making is about. I am very glad to know that they have  added it to the United States Library of Congress’s National Film Registry as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

Yeah yeah, all that.

+++

Speaking of other impressive pieces – I found this song from a Tamil movie very well crafted. Just notice the talent in the editing and the choreography. I reckon it was something which evolved and was innovated during the backroom cutting, because to me, to imagine they conceived the pace, the music, the dance steps and the entire editing before shooting is almost impossible. Anyway great work.

+++

Also rewatched Cinema Paradiso at a friend’s place . There is one particular shot which struck me this time but had escaped before. When the old Toto comes back to his house, his mom is shown to be knitting and as soon as she hears the door bell ring she jumps up to the door and the camera loses her, while the viewer just gets to see a close shot of the knitting being undone. If it was just that , it would have been quite plain and ordinary.   But then the camera pans across and then arcs over the first floor window to show a top down shot of the front semiportico – mom hugging the son. No faces no facial expressions. It is an odd and interesting technique to emphasise the emotion of the shot. Brilliant. Looked for it on youtube, but couldn’t find it, so may be I’ll upload myself when time permits.

+++

Among other things had the misfortune of following T20 fixtures of India on telly. It was a long ttime I had watched a non test cricket match. It was also my first live T20 telecast. It was rather bland and unimaginative. Indians appeared out of sorts , struggling against short balls very much reminding me of Indian Test Team under Sachin in South Africa in the nineties. The way they were playing it appeared as though a lot of politics has been hushed and brushed under the carpet. The very purpose of T20 match is to provide the thrill of a one dayer in a shorter period of time. So I didnt  quite grasp what Dhoni was thinking while deliberately nudging for ones and twos – simply because in a T20 game it doesn’t matter if you lose by 3 runs or 30 runs, especially so when you are at the risk of being knocked out. Anyway I cant be persuaded again to watch a live T20.

+++

etym: word of the week would be Round-Robin. I guess we all have grown up with it , but this time around listening to it on Radio 4 made me look for the origin, which is rather interesting.

Apparently it originated in France , as a method of signing petitions of grievances on ribbons that were later attached to the documents in a circular form. The idea was to prevent the authorities to know who signed the petition first and therefore presumably initiated it.  The round ribbons were ruban ronds in french, which later became round-robin in English navy. Here, instead of the ribbons the signatures were in the form of a circle – radiating from a centre, like spokes in a wheel. The intent was the same.

+++

And happy bloomsday to you all. Remember never do it as a task, just pick it up and read randomly.

And here’s a link for a cartoon Ulysses.

So L did this brilliant post on Orwell openings, many of which I haven’t read, and the ones I have, were read long back to even remember now. But it got me thinking on the opening scene of the movies. The ones that had a splash- of- cold -water on the face effect when I first watched them. Top of the list would be this absolutely brilliant one by Scorsese for Casino. It still shakes the timbers. It has brilliant opening lines, in your face colours and a great shock to cap it all. Imagine going into a movie theatre, with the weight of the expectations of Scorsese and De Niro and suddenly finding De Niro blown to pieces in the first 10 seconds. As far as cinema is concerned it is like being grabbed in the throat to command attention. Priceless!

+++

This is interesting. The word decussate originates from Latin noun aes. or as.

‘As’ was a copper coin and asses were copper coins. (Don’t ask me, but what did you expect of Romans?) Since copper was the least valued denomination, rest of the coins were valued against copper. A gold coin was worth 400 copper coins and a silver coin was worth 16 copper coins etc.So by daily use 10 asses became standard unit by use. Like how in our times, £ 4.99 has become a standard unit of use , thanks to Burger king.

And ten in roman is written as X ergo dec-as- became decussate verb X which means to cross.Classical examples would be decussate leaves arrangement in plants or decussating nerve fibres in brain, reason why left eye is controlled by right brain and right arm is controlled by left brain etc.

+++

Staying in etym, much of the credit why American spelling is different from British goes to Noah Webster who waged a transatlantic war against Samuel Johnson by changing all the re in english language to er and all erasing all the u he could get hold of.

+++

Among other jokes here’s Nandan Nilekani speaking total gibberish and not even knowing he is an embarrassment. It is like listening to a 8th grade civics student from India who enlists all the problems of India. The only two reasons I can think of why he was tolerated at TED are 1. He is from India. 2. He speaks English. seriously does he even know the meaning of the word idea. Yeah it’s cool to go and talk at TED, but please someone post him a card what a utter disgrace he is. Not in a mood else Would have written my mind on the blabber talk.Now Man U V Barca.

Dissimulation , was the word featured on wordsmith earlier this week. I think it is one of the interesting words which doesnt often get used, though its meaning is expressed frequently in social interactions. So thought of putting it up here as part of word adoption and promotion. There is also a curious essay around it, written by Francis Bacon.

Perhaps would be helpful to read this before.

What is it to know a person? What do we mean when we claim to know a person? I suppose it goes beyond the superficial – the idea of acquaintance or the initial comfort of familiarity.

Imagine that you are introduced to a person in a party, what is that you gauge in that person? I’d imagine after all the social nuances, after all the appropriateness, we end up carrying within us, a sense, a feeling that could be best described by the word impression. But then what constitutes an impression?

The physical form, shape, build, attire, attributes- say smile for instance or the tone of the voice, perhaps the content of their views? But of course that is not all.

There is something more, that ultimately makes the impression, that decides for us if the impression is neutral, favourable or unfavourable.

In plain terms these can be classified into three- experiences, values and choices. Whether we are meeting a person for the first time, or we are friends with them or we are living with them, the fundamental factors we measure in a person are, irrespective of whether we are aware of it or not, the experiences they had, the choices they have made and the values they represent.

Think of this. These factors are never exclusive, they feed onto each other – an experience is defined by a choice which in turn is governed by a value. And it is the experience which creates a value and thereby a choice in a first place. It is a self serving, self perpetuating subsystem of its own, which starts when we are born and continues until our last breath. This is a person.

In the world known to us, as humans, this triad is what constitutes a person. When you think of it all on those lines, suddenly, the person in the party we sought to know or the boyfriend you have lived with for years somehow becomes less of a person. He seems different, more deconstructible. He seems to be more of part of a member of a species with a defined principle, boundary and limit, outside which he can’t find a place of his own. However much he tries. Say, just like how a fish cant climb a tree. Don’t you find that amazing? But wait, here comes the most important aspect of the whole process. In knowing or attempting to know a person you have never tried to measure his experiences, his values or his choices. But your very own. He was only a witness to your evaluation as much as you were to his. This is because an experience in itself has no value, a choice in itself has no experience and value in itself has no choice. All of these gain meaning when seen by a different experience, different choice and a different value.

Therefore ‘a person’ is a basic indivisible functioning unit to know the world and an interaction between ‘two persons’ is the fundamental reality of that world. In it lies the fundamental limit of the human world, and it is to preserve this - system of evaluating one human choice against another, one human experience against another, one human value against another from any possible threat, humans invented morality. Hence the emphasis on the niceness, appropriateness. Therefore when we measure a person we measure him by our feelings, the morality of our feelings – the most superficial yet most essential of the tools available to us humans to access our own experiences, choices and values. This is an unwritten agreed principle of mankind for its functioning. The only, unwritten, agreed exception known and accepted by humans is- a state of war, when all of the above is suspended.

Outside of war, is it ever possible then to let go of one’s own choices, values and influences while evaluating someone else? Speaking in strict terms it is impossible but if these influences are ‘boxed in’ and kept to a minimum it is workable. Further, in doing so, you can notice the effect they have on your evaluation and thereby be able to contain it in future. Here I can cite two such persons. One of course is Nietzsche. But for an average man he is too abstract and too demanding. The other and perhaps more relevant is Naipaul. A couple other examples would be Conrad, Dostoevsky. But I think both of them lacked the consistency of Nietzsche and Naipaul, and by that I mean though they were painfully aware of their influences, at times they deliberately utilised it in their evaluation of the world.

Let’s consider Naipaul. I know I have never hesitated to express my admiration of him. But it is simply because I have never found another man who has the ability (gift if you like) to evaluate the world with no or minimal personal influences on his evaluation of it and articulate it enough to convey his view clearly. What the Nobel committee described as .. having united perceptive narrative and incorruptible scrutiny in works….

I have met people, more often Indians than not who expound at length how they hate Naipaul. To an extent, I must admit I become slightly unsettled if an Indian I meet doesn’t try to run Naipaul down. It is not exactly surprising to see an undiscerning mind which can seldom put its own choices, values and experiences in perspective, finding it easier and perhaps even comfortable to run down other’s influences and experiences. But I suppose I am not addressing this to such minds. But if you are an Indian, you take yourself to be discerning and if you want to know all the cock and bull of choices, values and experiences I have typed above in simpler terms, you can do this:

Take a copy of the Area of Darkness and read chapter 9 – The Garland On My Pillow. It is a record of Naipaul travelling in South India, accompanied by a NRI Sikh whom he meets on the train. He writes his impression (experience, value, choice remember?) of South India, South Indians, Sikhs in simple cogent humourous prose. More implicitly what is explored is how South Indians regard North Indians and how North Indians, a Sikh in this case, view South Indians. And all of these, experienced by him for the first time, are placed in a world perspective with Naipaul only being a witness and not bringing in his own influences to his experience. ( Remember incorruptible scrutiny?)

And mind you, this book was written in 1964. A lot more ink has flown since, a lot has been said and written about Indian culture, weddings, food, temples, outlook, Indian way of life and the interactions between the North and the South by a million others. Yet, that chapter, written in 1964 holds its ground almost half a century later. For all the hues and cries, nothing said then has been proved untrue or wrong. That, is what to me means to know something, someone.

PS: I have chosen the Indian example for the sake of Indians. There are millions of examples from his works to understand other cultures and people, including British, South American and African. While I find many such descriptions right on target, others remain relatable in patched, but that I guess is because, at this point in time I am not  qualified enough either in terms of equipment or experience to comprehend them. It is here I have to recall a simile that was used to describe Naipaul’s writing by someone in one of his interviews. Right now I forget who used it and where, but as far as I can remember it was said to describe his writing in the Enigma of Arrival – how his prose feels like a wave falling and receding on a shore – adding something to the before, yet taking away something after. Curiously, I guess Agnes after reading A Bend in the River also voiced a similar sentiment about how the perceptions and people change in the book as it moves forward.

I think this is important because, ultimately all our choices, experiences and values are bound by only one thing. Change - that adding something to the before yet taking it away slowly, gradually, and perhaps subtly to make it more bearable for ourselves. In plain language, life.

In my job stress is defined as disagreeing with more than 2 colleagues within 24 hours. If I take the last 24 hours , I have disagreed with 7 people. Imagine how it has been, and I’m saying this sipping my whiskey at half past one in the morning while tomorrow I have an equally colourful 24 hours to look forward to. Just hoping that the number is less than five.

One of the amazing aspects in the working of mind becomes apparent when you realise how when something has been pushed from conscious to subconscious. You always fret at the prospect of the security at the airport, oh! the metals, sharps, the liquids,  the liquids yes, what goes in cabin baggage and what doesnt etc?  you got to remove the watch  yes, and the belt with the gun metal buckle; but do it often , do it daily like i am asked to do at work, then in an airport you can look like an artist who has mastered the art of subjecting himself to a security procedure. Rhythm and  Perfection. They say it takes twenty one days to push the conscious to subconscious. But what of subconscious to conscious?  - a memory is stored forever - just like now, how  having used mac largely over the last few weeks, i wait in frustration for my microsoft vista indigo doughnut spiralling forever at half five in the morning thinking of all my old lovers as i prepare for a presentation for the medical students due at noon but instead somehow compose this post. Amazing indeed!

And oh! Doing the good old Japanese Wabi Sabi that has been recently popularized by Marcel Theroux ,  over here. Navigate using the next button.

Not sure if I had shared this here. The phrase - Rule of thumb has a rather  interesting origin. Here is an extract from wiki:

The earliest citation comes from Sir William Hope’s The Compleat Fencing-Master, second edition, 1692, page 157: "What he doth, he doth by rule of thumb, and not by art."^[1][2] The term is thought to originate with wood workers who used the length of their thumbs rather than rulers for measuring things, cementing its modern use as an inaccurate, but reliable and convenient standard.^[3]

It is often claimed that the term originally referred to a law that limited the maximum thickness of a stick with which it was permissible for a man to beat his wife, but this has been discredited.^[1][3]common law before the reign of Charles II permitted a man to give his wife "moderate correction", no ‘rule of thumb’ (whether called by this name or not) has ever been the law in England.^[4][5] Nonetheless, belief in the existence of such a law can be traced as far back as 1782, the year James Gillray published his satirical cartoon Judge Thumb. The cartoon lambastes Sir Francis Buller, a British judge, for allegedly ruling that a man may legally beat his wife, provided that he used a stick no thicker than his thumb, although it is questionable whether Buller ever made such a pronouncement.

Caricature condemning Buller

In the United States, legal decisions in Mississippi (1824) and North Carolina (1868 and 1874) make reference to—and reject—an unnamed "old doctrine" or "ancient law" by which a man was allowed to beat his wife with a stick no wider than his thumb.^[1] In 1976, feminist Del Martin used the phrase "rule of thumb" to describe such a doctrine, and the usage gained currency in 1982, when the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights issued a report on wife abuse, titled "Under the Rule of Thumb."^[5]

And for the more famous origin of the phrases as greedy as a pig and nemesis, I give you Mr Brick Top :

A cross-section of the attires, smiles, hair-styles, faces and races. Observe  the sample of personalities, It cant get any more post-modern than this.

Shot at the Royal Mile, Edinburgh Scotland.

Executive Decision 1996  Unilayered A vs B

<The Seige 1998  Trilayered A1 Vs A2, A2 Vs A3, A1 Vs B, A1 Vs A3, A2 Vs B, A3 Vs B

<Syriana 2005 Multilayered A, B , C, D, E, F in  a Geo-Politco- Economic Game Theory