It’s hard to start on any note other than the fact that India is entering a new wave (second? Third? I have lost count) of covid cases and potentially a new lockdown itself. As a country, we weren’t ready last year and this year seems nothing but the same. Mass migrations have started, curfews have been implemented, and people are being taught about social distancing yet again. The only new thing this time has been the addition of a mask that seems to be found near the chin more often than over the nose.

Unlike last time, this time the distance between me and the person getting the virus has gotten a lot closer. Touchwood, I haven’t been in contact or know of anyone in the family who have had the disease but my office has been full of covid cases. I’m writing this on a Sunday and I already have 3 team members on indefinite leave. To be honest, I don’t even know how many more are yet to come which is the scary part. The lockdown comes with a lot of physical and emotional baggage. I struggled with the isolation. The consistent rigmarole of seeing the same thing, doing the same activities, with the same faces around you. What helped was building a schedule and creating pockets of respite. Whether that was playing Monopoly Deal with mom or cooking, it allowed an escape from the things around me.

My social media is heading back to the same: news of live covid cases, the need for help, and greater calls to action about how we can make the communities we live in better for people in need. I am all for it but for a second there, social media had taken a turn as well. We had truly understood the concept of democratising content. Everyone was creating something: from hopping on to trends to sharing throwback photos, to just sharing their lives with others. People sitting in their own homes with unfinished walls, noisy ceiling fans, unkempt clothing: all of this became normal somehow. Comedians would be sharing jokes, cooks were sharing meals (on shaky handheld devices) and somehow we were fine with it. We didn’t care how the content was presented to us. We began to look deeper into what the message of that content really was. Zoom calls became the way we did everything from hosting national press conferences to some of the most prestigious award ceremonies like the Oscars and it didn’t matter that almost everyone was sitting at home. The clutter surprisingly didn’t bother us anymore. We took the little annoying pauses and Internet buffers at face value rather than judging how things could have been made better.

We moved from content marketing to message marketing and that’s really important. The pandemic forced us to listen deeper, watch without distractions to extract a nuanced meaning to everything. As a marketer, this meant that instead of having to invest in technology that made content look better, I had the opportunity to create a stronger emotion through my script. The spoken word took over. We could share branded content that was recorded over a Zoom call and not have the challenge of losing an audience, we could make a podcast and people wouldn’t comment things like: “I was annoyed by the baby crying behind the host through the episode.” I believe that this is something good that came out of this pandemic. Our ability to decode sentiment and intention has become stronger. I only hope this continues even as we get rid of this vile virus. Content has immense power and if there is anything we should be thankful for, is that today we appreciate it a lot more than we did exactly a year ago. So let’s be there for one another. Let’s continue to listen deeply, and watch closely. Our message should always be heard, regardless of where we are and how bad our walls look.

This raw papaya salad comes with a nifty little message. A code of how to build a great salad. Of course, you have the fresh veg, the crunch, and all that great texture. But you also have a fabulous dressing that makes a compilation of sliced ingredients into a meal. The dressing follows a simple tenet: Salt, acid, fat, heat, and sweet. For people familiar with Samin Nosrat— this should not come to you as a surprise. For everyone else, use these five tenets the next time you want to build a kicker of a dressing. This salad (which comes from the house of the Ratti Kapoors. The true salad connoisseurs) has a little bit of a Thai cuisine bent to it, so it comes with fish sauce (or soy) as the salt, lemon juice as the acid, sesame oil for fat, garlic & chillies for heat, and honey for sweet. Bring these things together and you will never be disappointed. I hope you do try this recipe and comment below about your next dressing. How would you use these tenets? Until next time, stay safe.

Glimpses from the week

Ingredients

1/2 Raw papaya, shredded. Use this peeler if you can.

1 sliced carrot

1 sliced cucumber

Handful roasted crushed peanuts

For the dressing

2 teaspoons soy sauce or fish sauce

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 tablespoon honey

1 tablespoon sesame oil

A handful of preserved red chillies

4 cloves of garlic, minced

Method

1. Start by shredding your veggies. This is fairly easy.

2. For the dressing mix all the ingredients mentioned. Taste and adjust. The heat isn’t a lot in this dish, you can add a hint of tobasco if you want. Since it’s a vinegar-based hot sauce, it will mix daily easily.

3. In a large bowl bring all the ingredients together, pour the dressing and you are done!