The Paralysis of Choice

Image
A desk overflowing with choices — the perfect metaphor for a modern mind. I’ve always wondered why stepping outside my comfort zone feels harder than it should. With so many ways to spend time, I keep circling the same question: am I choosing what matters, or am I just numbing myself with options? Choice overload might be the defining anxiety of our era. One moment I’m browsing an AI course on Coursera, convincing myself I’ll finally finish it. The next, I’m tempted to restart my Sanskrit lessons. And somewhere in that mental whirlpool, a random LLM video on YouTube quietly steals an hour I never intended to give away. It isn’t learning — it’s drifting. I think back to my first iPhone 4. One model. One color. No storage decisions. Apple had already stripped away the noise. Life felt simpler when constraints were built in. Today everything comes in infinite flavors — phones, courses, ideas, careers, spiritual paths, entertainment platforms. Abundance looks empowering,...
Post a Comment

Mor Kuzhambu

Whoa! What's this mysterious sounding word. This is nothing but a South Indian sambar made from curds. What a paradox! Sambar and curds getting combined. Yeps! That's the speciality of this item. It was Saturday evening at 6 o' clock. The baays in my room got ready to experiment on yet another item. Oh! I had a sound sleep for an hour and as I got up, I was smacking my lips seeing the dish. We laid down the matress on the carpet, the mor kuzhambu and aloo curry. One of my roommates got up to take the container of yoghurt from the refrigerator. On seeing the brand of yoghurt, I let out a scream. We can't have the curds. It has gelatin. So, I told them, we won't have the curds today. So, my roommate gave out an equally loud scream...In that case, we can't have the kuzhambu too! Then it struck us what had happened. There was curds in the kuzhambu. For a moment all of us were caught on the wrong foot. Here we have a mouth watering dish right in front of us but just not in the position to taste it. So, we decided to give away the dish to our non-vegetarian counterparts in the apartment below. They were delighted to have it.

So, we had to do with some of the podis that we had got and the mor kuzhambu transformed into nil-kuzhambu. But we also thanked our stars in just missing out on testing the sample of gelatin unknowingly.

The bottom line is being a vegetarian is fine but to practise it real hard is indeed real hard. I just hope we live upto the name of vegetarians knowingly (of course) as well as unknowingly.

PS : If anybody wants the recipe of this item, get in touch with me :-)

Comments

  1. AnonymousOctober 6, 2005 at 11:09 PM

    He he.. That was amazing. Aama, do you know that Gelatin is present in icecreams? Dont tell me you'd give up on eating icecreams!!! Appadi partha, milk is an animal product. Veggies Thayir saadham saapida koodathu!!Come on maaaaaaaaaan :P

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJuly 4, 2007 at 11:54 AM

    that comment is incorrect. gelatin is not an ingredient of icecreams that i am aware of. on the other hand, capsules contain gelatin (and that cannot be helped!).

    - s.b.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Praveen KrishnanJuly 4, 2007 at 1:36 PM

    SB: Yeah, there are certain things that cannot be avoided. Nothing much that can be done about it!!!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment