Hello from my home in Helsinki! This is NordLetter #111, a weekly newsletter on living and walking in Finland. Each week I share some of the interesting things I found on the web.
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I am reading The Sixth Extinction right now. This book is about the Anthropocene or the human epoch, i.e. the age of extinction we are living in right now.
This book contains stories, which follow a similar theme, the author goes to a place, describes the place, notices some things about people or places that make the description special, and then talks about how things were, are, or will be.
While reading it, I thought this is a good thing to emulate. This, in fact, is what Nordletter is about. From time to time, I go somewhere, I experience something, and then I write about it.
I like the way The Sixth Extinction is written. It is entertaining. And that’s what a Nordletter has to be over and above anything else.
You may or may not have noticed it, but I have made some changes to how I write Nordletter. Since NL108. That had a lot of dialogue in it.
I was inspired to do it after reading The Anthropologists. There was a lot of dialogue in it. Which is not how I used to write Nordletters. I was experimenting and a part of me was dreading it.
But an equal part of Nordletter is about me getting better at the craft of writing. This is after all, the only piece of original writing I do every week, without fail. This is where I get to be creative.
The Sixth Extinction has a similar style of prose - Elizabeth describes some things and then without much pomp and show, a line of dialogue from one of the characters she is with. I had this thought, while she was talking about Norway and the sailor who took her to the island, said something, I don’t remember what. But the way it was written, spoke to me.
I was thinking about this last week, as I wrote down about our midsummer picnic. By the time I started writing it, I was in a race against time. It was already Sunday, and that’s when Nordletter ships.
Usually, I type it out on Saturday. Not the last one though.
And as I wrote about it, finished it, and sent it out. As I sat with it for a little while, I thought I could have done a better job with it. And I realised I will only be able to do it, if I spend some time with it. Trimming it a little. Maybe expanding some things. Talking about things that meant something to me.
That’s the point after all.
Like, I did not talk about the conversation I had with a friend while we were cooking rice. He talked about how he used to write, but then couldn’t. Now he had restarted writing. He said he had seen an earlier post of mine, the one where I had talked about writing my 100th edition. How that meant two years. And I thought, yes, two years. And I went somewhere else, in a warm and fuzzy place. Prerna told him it takes support. And the conversation continued after that.
He was interested in knowing how I wrote.
There was also some conversation around using AI to write. And I said, what’s the point of writing if Claude writes for you. I write to understand, to think. If Claude does it, what do I do?
This is how I write -
- In Obsidian, every day I write in my daily notes. Maybe one or two things that happened in the day. At this point there is no burden on these thoughts - they don’t need to carry the next edition of the nordletter.
- While out walking, I think. I think about what I want to say.
- On Saturdays usually, I sit on my Mac, open Obsidian and type.
I am writing this on a Thursday, that should give me enough time to revisit this, rewrite this, edit this, before sending this out.
That, is the point.
I love cooking.
I love everything about it, especially the chopping and prep part. I love my knife. I sharpen it before I use it every time. I remember when I started cooking, looking at the ways chefs cut vegetables (Prerna teases me about this from time-to-time).
During the weekdays, I don’t have time to. During the weekdays, I (we) want to get our macros, not from elaborate recipes but rather from one-pot dishes.
During the weekends, I search for recipes online and then pick one or two to cook.
I am also a man of routines, so I am trying to turn Sundays into Biryani days.
I made Paneer Tawa Bhuna masala on Saturday. The bhuna part took a lot of time. That, as Ranveer Brar would say, is the monopoly of the dish. I also made Laccha Paratha to go with it. Both recipes courtesy of Sanjyot Keer/YFL.
On Friday evening, I had cooked Street Style Chowmein and Prerna had made Kadi Pakoda. We had invited some friends of ours for dinner and Savya’s play-date.
These are the same friends we had gone camping with.
A part of the evolution we have had (Prerna and I) as hosts has been that we don’t have the same need anymore to make sure everything is ready before the guests arrive.
We started cooking an hour or so before they were supposed to arrive. I chopped the onions while Prerna worked on the kadi. And then I went on to chop the veggies for the chowmein. Once I was done with that, I started up the wok for the frying, while Prerna worked on the pakodas.
It felt very much in sync. We did not get irritated. We were smiling and talking and just cooking. It felt good.
During the rest of the evening I found myself invited to a party Accenture would be hosting at their premises in Aleksanterinkatu tomorrow. The original plan had been that I would drop Prerna and Savya at the party and then go to Oodi and get my k8s practice done. Once Prerna and Savya were done with their party, they would join me at Oodi and I would take Savya and leave for home.
Me and my plans don’t really go anywhere though.
And so here we were, standing at Aleksanterinkatu 46, after getting down at the Rautatientori bus stop, crossing the road, walking, taking a left at the World Trade Center building, and walking some more. We told the security person we were here for the Pride Party. They took us to the back, through a door which allowed us to take the pram in. We parked it there and took the lift to the fourth floor.
‘I had been here before, Nitor has an office here’, I told Prerna. She nodded.
At the office, we were finding our names in the register when our friend joined us. We had found me and Savya, but there was a Priyanka where a Prerna should have been.
We entered a large room, through its glass windows, I could see the rest of the city beyond. It was a sunny day outside.
To the left, I could see people swaying, some EDM tracks going on.
‘There’s food at the back’, she said.
We kindly obliged. The kitchen was at the back, to the right of this room. There was a large marble countertop with different bagel options - vege, turkey, and some vegan options to the side. There were smoothies and juices on the other side.
We ate our breakfast - Savya had a smoothie.
On the other side of the kitchen was a meeting room with a ‘Kid’s corner’ stuck on the glass door. There was a large table filled with an assortment of knick-knacks - beads, alphabets - things you could put a thread through and make a necklace or a band.
There was an artist putting colours on children’s faces. We went there next. Savya was wed to his sunglasses by this point, so she made a firework on his right cheek. He was game for the first couple of colours, but then I took him in my arms as she completed the thing.
Prerna meanwhile got some sparkles on her face.
We moved on and got to the dance floor next. The kids did their thing, dancing around, waving the pride flags. The floor was mostly empty at this point. We, the adults, took a table in a corner - drinking and talking, grooving to the music.
Helsinki Pride is Finland’s largest human rights and cultural event. The Pride Parade would start at 12:00 from the Senate Square - as do most of the events in the city.
And so, we left the party and made our way toward the square. There were people with flags and banners and placards slowly moving in that direction. We had a couple of balloons and a couple of children in strollers.
There were bands prepping in the street. There were dancers in loud costumes. It was a smörgåsbord of colours and laughter in the streets.
When we reached the square, the first thing I noticed was a pram covered in pride colours. The next thing was the Cathedral and the hordes of people in the square and on the steps leading up to the Cathedral. There were banners protesting the Palestinian crisis. There were pride flags and balloons. There was music in the air.
We took a seat away from the centre, closer to the tram tracks. I got up after everyone had settled and walked a bit further inside. The music was louder here, as were the cheers. I heard the MC talk about some things - about who he was - a Brazilian, who had moved to Finland six years back. About how he was a teacher in daytime and an artist at night. I saw a girl with a sign - my parents are proud of their lesbian daughter.
We were here last when Helsinki had opened up the Christmas season. There was a parade then too. There were hordes of people then too. But the vibe was markedly different.
As I looked at the cathedral and the people in and around, I thought about the politics of this, the symbolism of this parade starting at the cathedral.
It’s simple, really. Love is love.
Happy Pride!
If you enjoyed reading this, and know someone else who might, please consider forwarding this to them. It would help this grow and make me happy. 😄
Until next week.
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