Seven-ping Sunday (4)

A ping tastes different in India

In India, and especially in IT hub Bengaluru, where I lived for nine years (from 2008 to 2017) and where I am currently based for two weeks, a ping, measured in milliseconds, is the response time between your device and the server to which you are connecting. Vital for those working from home, which, since Covid, is for many the norm, a lower ping is fast response whereas a higher ping means delay and lag. Here’s hoping your frequency gels at least now and then:

Instant ping: Room 515, Koramangala, Bengaluru. Room of choice because, on the fifth floor and facing citywards, it seems to have the best position — and creative and study space — in the hotel. Similar vibe, but with palm trees, three-wheelers and saris outside, to the Abidjan haven I wrote about a few months back. https://sharonski.substack.com/p/room-for-a-view

Spring ping: Spurred by a new app developed by local techie, Malavika, we set out to track down pink tabebuia rosea trees which signal the beginning of spring. Brought to what was once called India’s garden city by British colonial horticulturists in the 19^th century, the South American pink trumpet tree is testimony — in the face of pollution — to nature’s resilience. Though they are the much-needed lungs of this expanding city, trees started being chopped down in 2012 for development; the fight to keep them is ongoing.

Soundbyte of the week: Neil Diamond’s ‘Beautiful Noise’. For my dad, who died two years ago and who would’ve been 91 this week. I have such a clear memory of him taking us to see The Jazz Singer at Pietermaritzburg Drive-in in the early ‘80s. Single father of four, aged 13 to 17, after my mom died in a car accident, my dad had the high EQ heart of a cricket captain: courageous, complex, competitive and selflessly dedicated to the team’s success.

Meal of the week: Rogan josh. In Ahmedabad, Gujarat, which I am visiting for the first time. Always my first ping, and a headier than usual mix of spices here, despite the dry state of Gujarat being chiefly vegetarian, I discover. Foodie though I’m not, Tony Jackman’s writings come close to converting me. He went in for heart surgery this week, so I’m sharing his Durban adaptation of the Kashmiri signature mutton dish by way of sending caring vibes. (After writing, a Daily Maverick e.mail dropped telling me Jackman has just brought out a cookbook, Retro Karoo Food: 80 Nostalgic South African Recipes (Penguin Random House South Africa, 2026). On Tuesday, 17 March, Daily Maverick is hosting a live lunch-time first look at the book with Jackman himself. If you’d like to join and possibly leave with a copy, click here. If you’d like to order a pre-copy, click here.)

Walking pings: Driving along the freeway from Ahmedabad to Rajkot, observing clumps of plakkie-wearing pilgrims on their way to an unknown temple destination took me back a few months — to Portugal and the camino over Labruja mountain into Spain. It was my 60^th birthday on October 1 in the year of the wood snake and I needed to shed old skin and trot more lightly into fire horse year. From Porto to Santiago we walked 240-odd kilometres in 13 days, sleeping in auberges and airbnbs booked the day before, and emerged triumphant, humbled and a little sad at an ending which seemed like only the beginning.

Quote of the week: “He turns me on and I turn him on. When we met each other at 11, we gave each other a charge. I recognised him as the poor child in the neighbourhood and a livewire and he recognised me as the same.” - Art Garfunkel on Paul Simon in The Harmony Game (viewed on Emirates EK 540, current status of which seems to be dependent on status of war)

Substack post of the week: Poet Padraig O Tuama explains how attentive editing, rather than being a censoring, cutthroat skill, is a transformative act of love and compassion. Lest it become a relic of pre-AI past. A random sympathetic discussion about which I had with a woman at breakfast who, as co-developer of NHS apps to wean gamers off addiction, was doing “an Oxford-equivalent course” in AI in Bengaluru. editing is a form of love - by Pádraig Ó Tuama

PS I did get waylaid in the writing of this by another Marita van der Vyver masterping, Entertaining Angels. I hope it doesn’t detract.