Life lessons from the humble chapati
Chapati, the Indian flatbread (and no, it’s not “chapati bread”, unless you also refer to chai as “chai tea”), also variously called roti, phulka etc., is a traditional Indian meal staple. This versatile bread finds a place in most Indian meals. Pair it with a curry, use it scoop up some dry sabji or just dip it in a bowl of dal; the wholesome chapati satiates and nourishes the body, and rounds out a meal with it’s protein, fibre and carb content.
I also love chapatis; a plate of the hot, fluffy bread brushed with ghee and accompanied by some dal and a potato sabji is comfort food for me. I also love to cook, esp Indian cuisine. However, when it came to making chapatis, until very recently, I drew the line at making the dough.
Why, you ask? For the longest time, I couldn’t roll the chapatis out properly. They used to get stuck to the rolling board, be unevenly thick or most often, take on fantastic shapes that resembled mythical beasts or yet undiscovered isles. Given the perfectly round chapatis my wife, Mom and sister can make, I was very hesitant in these misshapen rotis being served. Also, as an observer, rolling out rotis and cooking them was a LOT of effort: dough ball, flatten, dust with flour, roll a bit, adjust and repeat. And so I used to weary of the task without even trying it.
Looking back, I realized that this was essentially the process of learning and attempting anything new in life
With the recent Covid19 outbreak and mandated work from home, I decided to try my hand (yet again) at rolling out acceptable rotis. And guess what, after repeating the process a few times over a period of a couple weeks, I can now comfortably complete the end-to-end dough-to-chappati process on my own. And looking back, I realized that this was essentially the process of learning and attempting anything new in life, and gave so many valuable lessons that we can apply to everyday tasks, from the mundane to significant. Be it a hobby, some personal improvement learning or projects at work, these rules of thumb can ensure we all do well at everything we attempt. So, here are my takeaways from the process:
1 Learn from the experts and adapt to your own style
Adopt existing techniques so you start from 70 rather than 0 on your journey to a 100.
Be it making chapatis, driving a car, machine learning or playing a sport, it’s always beneficial to learn from people who have been through the same process before, made mistakes, learned from them and arrived at an optimal approach. What consistency of dough is right? How much pressure should be applied while rolling? How to use dry flour to stop the dough from adhering to the rolling board? All these are problems that have already been faced and solved for by people before you, so adopt these techniques so you start from 70 rather than 0 on your journey to a 100.
2 Sometimes, old techniques work best; use them rather than reinventing the wheel.
Where available, use existing techniques and use your ingenuity and energy to find ways to doing something in a more efficient manner that gives better yield, rather than innovating for the sake of it. For example, focus on making the dough better, rather than trying to put all the dough at once into the oven and slicing it into rotis later (that will give you some really tough bread btw)
3 Perfect the basics for a good foundation before attempting advanced versions
In everything you do in life, perfect the basics so you always have a base to fall back upon
When making a roti, first learn to just make the dough, roll out the roti and cook it on the griddle, rather than attempting to make stuffed parathas or laccha parathas. Learn how to drive well first before learning the Scandinavian flick or handbrake turns. Have a good grounding in statistics and programming before attempting to develop ML models.
In everything you do in life, perfect the basics so you always have a base to fall back upon. And remember, everything that seems daunting at first becomes muscle memory after a while; the human brain is a wonderful thing
4 Avoid perfection paralysis
You must learn to ration your time and energy prudently, because neither are unlimited.
I’m one of those people who try and do everything they do, perfectly. If I’m mopping the floor, it needs to absolutely shine, no speck of dirt acceptable. If I’m making my bed, the end result should be something a soldier can be proud of. So I used to shy away from roti making because the end result would be less-than-perfect. But often in life, what you need to do is what is “good enough”.
You must learn to ration your time and energy prudently, because neither are unlimited. So if you keep trying to rollout the perfectly circular roti, chances are you’ll either have dinner an hour late, or have half the number of rotis you’d originally planned for. Focus on execution and getting better with time rather than falling victim to perfection paralysis.
5 Disregard the naysayers, unless it’s advice you can use or learn something to better yourself
When you start something, there are a few type of people who will invariably try to discourage you, either subconsciously or on purpose. Some of these may actually be pointing out relevant pitfalls that became a crater that they couldn’t cross or ran out of risk appetite before even attempting to cross. Others, will be those with absolutely no helpful advice, but will discourage you nonetheless, being negative by nature. Yet another category of people will try to dissuade you, and then pickup on your idea and try to benefit from it themselves.
So for every bit of advice you get from people, judge which of the above categories they fall into, and channel the value from their advice accordingly.
6 No one but you determines what you can and cannot do
This might sound sappy and cliched or copied out of a motivation book, but often the initial hesitation and reasons/excuses one comes up with to not try something new are a combination of inertia and procrastination, not lack of ability. We love the security and familiarity of our comfort zones, and our brains are hardwired to find ways to conserve energy. The trick is to take the ennui that comes from doing the same thing for too long, combine it with our brain’s natural inclination to laziness, and come up with a simple and efficient way to solve a problem.
Also, remember that everything that has been done in this world is by fellow humans, and most problems in today’s world can be solved using tools that have an easy learning curve (eg. there are hundreds of low/no code tools out there that let you do everything from website building to ML apps). So find your own limits and do the best you can.
7 You don’t need to be the best at every single thing you do in life:
Determine the effort-reward for everything in life and only expend as much energy as required
Sometimes, good enough is all that’s required. Is the chapati edible? Does it look like a chapati? Is it cooked well? Then its fine. You don’t need to be an expert chapati maker. Just as you don’t need to be an expert farmer if you are growing some edible greens in a home garden. Determine the effort-reward for everything in life and only expend as much energy as required. Otherwise you’ll find yourself quickly drained of time and energy in this phantom game of one-upmanship.
Social media today puts a lot of pressure on people to redirect energy to often pointless tasks. Resist that urge. It’s only yourself that you need to satisfy that you’ve done something to the best of your abilities, commensurate to the reward.
8 Leverage your team
It is almost impossible to be an expert at everything. Gather around you individuals who can walk the path to realization of your idea with you
If you are like me, you’d often find yourself wanting to obsessively control and oversee every single aspect of everything you do, because of the belief that people only apply themselves with an amount of passion and intensity that is proportional to their expected outcome from a task, and the outcome of a task that is important to you can’t be equally important to others. However, it is almost impossible for one to be skilled at every single aspect that goes into complex initiatives, or be an expert at everything.
eg. if you want to build a new baby monitoring sensor suite, there are umpteen considerations like the microelectronics, sensor tech, regulatory approvals, product design, legal aspects, funding and commercialization.
This is the age of teams and collaboration, and the difference between an idea and a commercially viable product is the teams that execute the vision. So take a good long look at whatever you are attempting, and see if it’s something you can reasonably expect to complete given your existing skillset, or with short-term upskilling. If you can’t, gather around you individuals who can walk the path to realization of that idea with you.
Finally, support someone who’s trying something new: You probably know best how disheartening it is when you are attempting something novel, and people either discourage you or act superior because they’ve done it better (obviously, as they have been doing the same thing for years). So the next time someone approaches you with an idea or talks about doing something new, support them and share your expertise. Gratitude has a way of coming full circle.
…and Value what you know, and have confidence in yourself: Often after you’ve been doing something for a while, it becomes muscle memory (eg. making a presentation, preparing a balance sheet). So if someone asks you for guidance or help, you do it thinking “oh that’s so simple, what’s the big deal”. But remember, to that person, your support really means something because it isn’t “just another task”. A lot of processes take time to perfect, and just because they come easily to you, does not mean they are not valuable. So ignore those that say “oh what's the big deal, that’s so easy”…because for every 5 people that say that, there’ll be another 3 that really have no idea how to go about even starting.
And those are some valuable realizations I had from my attempts at roti making. Do comment and let me know what you’re epiphanies have been from what may appear to be mundane daily tasks!
