Filter Coffee #149

On Dumplings Instead of Flowers

Dear readers, as you read this post, my wife and I will be on a tour of Leh-Ladakh. We left on the 8th and have just completed acclimatisation. Today we are supposed to go rafting on the Zanskar River. I don’t think I will, not knowing how to swim. Nimmu is a beautiful valley that marks the confluence of the Indus River and the Zanskar River. The Indus River drains the dry and deserted terrains of Ladakh, a landlocked valley, and serves as its lifeline. 🔗Try this link.

Due to connectivity issues while being on the move and because we are returning on the 18th of June, when the FC post would have fallen due, I am unable to post FC #150, which I shall do on the 25th of June. But on the 18th, I will offer you one of the previous posts worth reading again.

Coming back to FC #148, I did get some interesting comments and compliments:

• Shahji Jacob says: “I had not heard of the idiom ‘riding an elephant to catch a grasshopper’. However, I know that the idiom ‘to kill a fly with a  sledgehammer’ is used in a different context. My new learning for this week, therefore, comes again from you. Thanks, Pras.”

• Tarun Kunzru says: “An overkill is when you use a bazooka to kill a fly! But a complete killer is when you exploit the poor and vulnerable, [for example], as Pras rightly points out, taking for granted the unrecognized effort/dedication of a housewife who faces a tough job day in and day out with no promotions and no vacations.”

• S N Viswanathan says: “When I read your post today, I remembered two batsmen of the old guard. One was Anshuman Gaikwad and the other was Gundappa Vishwanath. While Anshuman used to take so much effort to hit the ball and the ball would travel only 30 yards, Vishwanath would just slice the ball, and it would reach the boundary.”

• Cdr. V K Santhanam comments: “A very good Idiom was chosen today at the right time & needs to be preserved. An example which comes to my mind immediately is the tragic accident in Odisha. The people from railways working tirelessly (of course others as well) at the end of the day do not get any appreciation or a word of Thank You, instead, there is a clamour for resignation, a political slugfest. These railway men need great appreciation from the Citizens of India. They are fighting, a war at home.”

• Prabha Prasad states: “Yes Prasanna. I know a lot of people who do much ado about nothing. They get excited & worried about achieving little things. Exactly answering to the description of the title of your article. But I have also seen a lot of people who go about patiently & calmly achieving Herculean tasks. Blessed are the latter. It is all in the mind sent my little brother. Which category do you belong to?”

• M Shankar wonders: “Can effort be always commensurate with the desired output?”

🥟 Dumplings Instead of Flowers

Hana yori dango, translated literally as “dumplings instead of flowers,” refers to choosing something useful over something pretty and decorative. We are all too familiar with the phrases “substance over style”, “function over form”, “substance over form” or “form over content”.

The Japanese wisdom shines through when they prefer dumplings to flowers if they have just enough money to buy something for the house. Having something to eat is clearly more important than having flowers to look at. But the reference to ‘dumplings’ and ‘flowers’ is a euphemism. One could use words of different kinds and yet retain the same meaning.

We often buy something which looks very pretty unsure of its utility. We give into our impulses or get swayed by the hard sell talk of the vendor. I touched upon this aspect in one of my earlier posts. Please check out 🔗FC #085.

Hana yori dango is sage wisdom when it comes to choosing what we really need versus what we fancy. This wisdom plays out when you walk with your kid to, say, the Hamley’s store. You try to convince the kid that buying something which you know they will get bored with is not a great idea, and instead he could buy something of use. An American lady told me that when she goes to such shops she would set a budget and if the kid wanted something pricier, he has to dip into his piggy bank. She said it brought about some discipline and pre-empted an impulsive buy.

Function over form is another aspect that one should be mindful of when buying something which you always wanted but deferred it for later. A product may look sleek and attractive and may sit well in your kitchen, but if you asked the right questions you might realise that looks don’t matter but performance does.

Form over content is like gift wrapping, showcasing or stage managing. People tend to focus on presentation and style rather than making a lasting impression. Form can be linked to presentation. Imagine a fine dining place where everything is so well-organised and pleasing to the eyes, yet after the meal you leave the place disappointed with the food and outraged at the money you shelled out. VFM or value for money is determined by what you eat and experience and not by what is around you. Ambience has a back ended influence on your rating of the joint if you have had a great meal in that place. 

There are people who let the ambience influence their rating of the place. It is a case of form getting the better of content. Like tender coconut water, served at 5-Star hotel in style — in a basket wrapped in a white napkin with an umbrella straw. What a form! You take a few sips and it makes a gurgling sound. What content!! Pay 200+GST, then drive out and spot a vendor selling it for Rs.40 and no GST. People, rich or poor, throng a roadside joint selling sandwiches or pani poori unmindful of the surrounding noise and chaos.

Style over substance is quite relevant to arts and performing arts. For the life of me I cannot understand modern art. But there are many discerning patrons who acclaim or criticise art in abstract form. In performing arts, the performer may give more importance to style rather than substance. An artiste can be very stylish, but his performance may still fall short of expectations.

If you are a good orator, you can have a unique style provided the speech you deliver has content. This applies to politicians as well. They may have excellent language skills but if there’s no substance, it would mean nothing. I am reminded of what my British teacher in middle school told me: “You can hear a person who speaks well, but you should learn to hear a person who speaks sense”. This advice resonates in a quote by Sam Brown which reads “Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance.” The quote makes equal sense if you replaced the word ‘offend’ with ‘impress’.

Substance over form is the rule in financial reporting. Transparency is evident if the accounts are stated explicitly. For example, as a matter of form, you can simply mention a certain amount as expenditure without giving the break-up. But as a matter of substance you need to give the break-up to not just understand the nature of expenses incurred but also to see how much of that expenditure is tax-deductible.

Substance may well determine the nature of the transaction in our daily life. Take for instance the abominable and despicable practice of giving dowry. One can give a car and a house as wedding gifts but that that’s just a form of hiding the substance called dowry.

Reverting to Hana yori dango, we need to understand the difference between need and greed.

Greed in the sense of something you really don’t need, but you fancy something, so you acquire it at the cost of foregoing something you need. What you require and what you desire are two different things. Unfortunately for many the line that separates the two is rather blurred. If desire rules, it is like giving into greed. If someone offered me something to eat, and I accept it even though I am not hungry, I am being greedy, in that sense.

A friend of mine shared his experience of going to Ikea, a well known store that has a large collection of household goods and furniture that one can assemble at home. He said at one stage he was putting into the cart things which he had not planned on buying forgetting the purpose of his visit to the place. He tells me that at the check-out counter he took out some of the unwanted things but still ended up keeping a few for which he had no immediate need. 

Purposeful buying is preceded by evaluation of the need for a thing, its utility and the money at one’s disposal. Persuasive buying is when one doesn’t really require a thing but is swayed by celebrity endorsements or peer pressure or some other factor that makes it obligatory to buy something. Like I confess to buying the coffee I don’t need from Café Coffee Day on the highway, as it would entitle me to use a clean washroom. I end this post on a lighter vein:

Zing: Where’s your girlfriend, Ling?

Ming: I had to dumpling. Could not afford to give her expensive flowers! 

See you guys on my return from Leh Ladakh on the 18th.