The last few weeks have been contemplative for not only me but also the people around me. My mom has been in a deep exploration of her next steps career-wise, which incidentally is also what Natasha has been exploring. While I try to be supportive of their decisions and actively listen to how they try to navigate this time, I am always struck by how much passion has to do with people’s careers.

Passion is a drug. It’s a motivation that pushes you to achieve more, provides you with a clear vision of what you want to do, and more importantly what you cannot see yourself doing. Passion is how I have been able to keep this blog alive all this time. This is like a second job for me if you look at the number of hours I put into it. I spend anywhere between 4-10 hours daily on this along with a 10 hour a day full-time job. No one in their right mind would do this if all they wanted was to build an audience to make money. I would have rather studied for the GRE and gotten a masters (which to be honest, has been something I have had to fit into my schedule in the past. It didn’t really work). Passion has been the driving force for this. That being said, there is a side cousin of passion that we often forget in this conversation. Not because it doesn’t play an important part in the process, but because its hard to sometimes associate it as a cousin than a part of the “passion + cousin = success” formula. This cousin is struggle. Passion can only take you so far, the struggle is what makes the success all the more successful, the story all the more aspirational, and the reward all the more gratifying.

I recently gave an example about this over a birthday call to Aakanksha. We were having a side conversation on the value of an online education when it comes to employability and brand name. My thought on this was that if we look at the scores of kids who get into an IIT— we only hear about the ones that had the greatest struggle to get into the college. The ones who left home and lived in Kota for years so that they can give back to the family that sacrificed so much for them. This idyllic rags to riches story is one we hear every year yet family WhatsApp groups are littered with them and some might even find their way into your personal chats with your parents(with no caption just so that it doesn’t look like they are comparing you to that kid but just found an interesting read on page 3 of The Times of India). We love sharing the struggle but what about the kid? What happens to them when they begin studying at the IIT? How come we never see a follow-up story about what the kid achieved in the first year of college? Could it be because the main struggle is over? No matter what they do for the next four years, “unki life toh set hai na?”

While I was throwing shade at brand value and education in that example, the deeper connection there is the fact that success can’t come without our cousin struggle. I studied biology and never did I once think that I would be working in marketing. I could have nicked the career off by saying that its not something I am passionate about. Instead, I chose to push the passion to the back burner and focus on the struggle. I squeeze every ounce of what I do in my full-time job to furnish my passion further. This comes in many shapes and sizes— from keeping a ground to market trends to building connections with the right people. I think that passion has an expiration date, after which it alone can seldom drive you forward which is perhaps why I focus on the cousin. I struggle. I enjoy it. In a way the wins I get from there just feel a whole lot sweeter. But then again, I am just 25 years old. I haven’t seen much of the world to really comment on the theologies of success and happiness. All I know is that for now, the struggle feels good.

These yogurt eggs went through a similar dichotomy. The original goal was to make a breakfast meal that plays around with the idea of the softness of fat in the form of poached eggs with runny yolks and savoury yogurt; with the crunch of carbs in the form of some bread and a chilli oil that is bedazzled with caramelised onions & garlic. However, the eggs turned out not be fresh enough to get poached and turn into a pocket of silkiness that is akin to chocolate-covered actors as they perform love to a Cadbury Silk Chocolate. It was a struggle to turn the recipe around but the fried eggs— with their crispy edges and steam poached centres do the trick equally well.

Glimpses from the week

Serves 1

Ingredients

• 2 large eggs

• 1/2 cup greek yogurt or strained regular yogurt

• 4 cloves of garlic, minced

• 5 leaves of fresh basil, or any fresh herbs of your choice

• 2 teaspoons of Chile oil crisp (get the recipe here)

• 2 teaspoons of olive oil

• Salt and pepper for taste

Method

1. Clean basil leaves, pack them in a bunch, roll tight and slice thin. This is called a chiffonade.

2. Prepare the yogurt: In a bowl, add yogurt, garlic, salt, and pepper. Mix well.

3. In a pan on low heat, add 1 teaspoon of oil and let it come to temperature. Drop one egg. Cook for 30 seconds. Add salt pepper. Drop a half a finger full of water and cover the pan until the whites firm up.

4. Time for assembly: In a bowl add yogurt. Top it with eggs, drizzle with oil, basil, and serve with a side of crusty bread.