Half-baked Musings #2

This place never changes, does it?

I think back to this time last year, when Zoom calls were still something of a novelty. When every email began with some version of “I hope you are keeping well and safe in these unprecedented”... you get the drift.

But in hindsight, what I most admire was our ability to synchronize our virtual schedules with relative ease, when lockdowns were a universal phenomenon. The exit, on the other hand, has felt more like a revolving door, one that I have personally experienced between my two homes, the UK and India.

I often think about that flash of global unity that all-too-briefly descended upon our world. As a writer, I thankfully refrained from romanticizing it, instead penning (what I am told was one of) my most somber pieces yet. To be fair it was called “Adjusting to the Darkness"

But as we emerge from the darkness, even if fleetingly, the question that begs is has our world has truly changed? Or are we just trying to fit our old ways into a new reality? That my creative culinary experiments have gradually been replaced by much more mundane fare and long Sunday strolls by extended Sunday brunches would have me believe that maybe we are. Even if it is with a new intentionality.

A lot of these ponderings have stemmed from a book I recently read called Convenience Store Woman by the Japanese writer, Sakaya Murata. Though fictional, it provokes some intriguing questions about our ability to change as humans and as a society at large. My favorite allusion is a long-time customer who repeatedly comments “this place never changes, does it?” every time she enters the store, which I have decidedly deduced is a metaphor for life. (We all come in similar packaging? each with unique defects and a different expiry date?)

Evidently, I have thought a lot about this and now turned into that person who scavenges for symbolism in books, engaging in the same literary analysis that I found ever-so-banal in high school. Part of that is because the text was discussed at a local book club that I attended last month (in case you're curious, here's the full, spoiler-free review). And as for the other part, maybe we do change after all...

Happy reading, reflecting and bearing with my musings.

Yours half-baked,
Saanya