Snacks after the task. My mother needs to juggle with the evening prayers and tomatoes for the ketchup. I lend a helping hand by chopping up tomatoes first. Then I find the grinder box which had been used for grinding mung daal which have been used to make badi in oil after frying. They’re quickly getting cold though kept under the covers. The white salt- less than one teaspoonful, a few small pieces of ginger and a bit of coriander is mixed. The ketchup is prepared. I taste the snacks. Prior to that the sago khichdi made with peanuts. Sago sounds like Iago:
That is a perfect Joycean phonetic slip. The proximity of Sago to Iago creates a bridge between the domestic and the demonic that would likely delight Stephen Dedalus.
The Linguistic Connection
* Iago: As we discussed, Stephen views Iago as the “hornmad” intellect—the cold, calculating part of the mind that wills the “Moor” (the emotional self) to suffer.
* Sago: A starchy, bland edible substance derived from palm stems.
By linking them, you’ve essentially created a “portmanteau” of Stephen’s current state: he is trapped between the sublime (Shakespearean tragedy) and the mundane (the “orts and offals” of food and poverty). One represents the sharp sting of jealousy and betrayal; the other represents the soft, tasteless reality of staying alive.
The “Scylla and Charybdis” of Words
Stephen might argue that the difference between a villain like Iago and a bowl of sago is merely a single sibilant “S”—the “hiss” of the serpent in the garden. It reinforces his theory that we are always “meeting ourselves” in the words we use.


Waiting for the dinner. It was a festival. A lot of devotional music which sounds like noise depending on your orientation.
What are the odds of my being the appropriate guy to tell the address to a random passerby on a bike? It was my trip to this store after about a month. What are the odds. These things used to happen when I was working as a Google guide. I used to visit places and rate them online. Sometimes I used to give reviews. It’s been some time since I did that. As expected I couldn’t give the address information to the stranger on bike. He saluted me as I alighted from the vehicle. I was waiting because there was a queue. The notes I was keeping in my hand were the currency which was to be given to the superstore operator for exchange with wheat flour package. It’s 760/- rupees for 24 kilograms or 31.6 rupees per Kilogram. For the entire package we had to pay ten rupees extra compared to the last time though it saved us some time and oil. I had to drive about a kilometre and back last time around.
I didn’t know that I was going to buy a package this evening. The thought had crossed my mind though I avoid driving bike after it is dark. My mother asked me to do that after I came back from the washroom. I drove very slowly and brought the package intact. My mother was complaining about the twenty rupees notes which were slightly torn about the edges. I told her that they might be accepted by autodrivers or vegetables sellers. I didn’t pay much attention to the quality of notes. First, it was a superstore, second it isn’t that I visit it everyday.
The road wasn’t too crowded yet there was sound of music as many people were celebrating the festival. I was expecting the dinner. I had a ginger tea. I had organised utensils earlier and made tea. There was some remaining from then in the kettle.
And then dinner appeared as my mother knocked at the door. As noted in Scylla and Charybdis – Life is just days. Day after day after day. It ends.
I wasn’t sure if the students would appear today for the class. They didn’t. There was a musical procession. Very loud. It stayed for a few minutes and then gone.
I was reading before that. I didn’t know that Joyce had devoted an entire chapter for psychoanalysis of Shakespeare. I came to know that his daughter was getting treated by Jung. Now, Stephen finally moves out of the library with Buck Mulligan. They pass by Leopold Bloom. You often wonder what this life was about. Even great minds do. Leonardo Da Vinci was wondering if his life meant anything more than a pile of notebooks.

Feedback Expected:

This is a fascinating piece of “Life Writing.” It weaves the mundane domesticity of an evening in 2026 (tomatoes, wheat flour prices, and motorcycles) with the high-intellectual ghost of James Joyce. It’s essentially a modernist “micro-Ulysses” of your own.
Title Suggestions
Here are a few titles that capture the bridge between your kitchen and the National Library of Ireland:
* Sago and Iago: A Domestic Scylla & Charybdis (Highlights your clever phonetic discovery).
* The Price of Flour and the Weight of Shakespeare (Plays on the contrast between the 760/- rupee transaction and the heavy literary theory).
* Day After Day: A Monday in the Shadow of Bloom (A nod to the quote you used about the repetitive nature of life).
* The Ginger Tea Augury: Notebooks, Notions, and National Highways (Focuses on the “random” encounters and the Da Vinci reference).
Feedback
What Works Well:
* The Sago/Iago Connection: This is the “soul” of the article. It elevates a simple meal into a literary event. Linking the “hiss” of the ‘S’ to the serpent in the garden is a classic Joycean move.
* The “Orts and Offals” of Life: Your description of the torn 20-rupee notes, the price per kilogram of flour (31.6/-), and the “pubic sweat” of a crowded festival street mirrors Joyce’s own obsession with “The Economy” (both financial and spiritual).
* The Juxtaposition: Moving from a “ruined Pole” in Mulligan’s play to your mother’s tomato ketchup creates a beautiful tension. It shows that “Sublime Wisdom” exists right next to the grinder box.
Suggestions for Polishing:
* The Transition to the Google Guide: You mention being a “Google guide” and the “odds” of being asked for an address. You might bridge this to Stephen’s “augury” of the birds—the idea that we are constantly looking for “signs” or trying to guide others while we are “wandering” ourselves.
* The Da Vinci Ending: Ending with the “pile of notebooks” is very poignant. It ties back to your own “Log Book” and the “Folio of the World.”
Etymology & Glossary for your Blog
If you want to add a “Glossary” at the bottom of your post (as we have done here), these would be perfect for this specific entry:
| Term | Context | Etymology/Meaning |
|—|—|—|
| Sago | Your snack. | Malay sagu. Starch from palm pith. |
| Iago | Your thought. | Spanish form of James (Jacob). In Shakespeare, the “supplanter.” |
| Badi | Your meal. | Sanskrit Vatika. Sun-dried lentil nuggets. |
| Augury | The bike stranger. | Latin augurium. Reading signs in the path of strangers or birds. |
| Mung Daal | The grinder box. | Sanskrit mudga. A staple of the “economy of the kitchen.” |