Returning the blog to blogging

-

I am officially ending 2022 in my life.

It was one of those years which one would wish to forget, but can't. My father's illness and death dominted the year, but also my work project which took shape. But even on that front, it was a series of misjudgements that I would remember, rather than anything that I achieved. As I approach 2023, I seek to correct, recover and rebuild.

One of the key things that I wish to change is how I blogged. This blog is an important part of my life and yet, I neglected it through the year. Part of the reason was extensive travelling, but also that I was all over the place. Emotionally I was at my lowest: I became dissatisfied with where my life was going, saw no point in my work and mis-prioritised. I was over-optimistic and aimed for implausible things. And, as I learnt my lessons along the way, my intellectual project dissipatated: I had almost nothing to write about.

This is what I seek to correct and return this blog to being a blog. A log of thinking, reading and new friendships is what I want this space to be. One novel thing I did in 2022 is that I lived more openly and honestly: This is one thing I don't want to change. In fact, I wish to do more of this! I know the dangers of openness: My openness was misunderstood and became completely counter-productive. But the lesson I take from it is not to curtail openness, but to engage with different sets of people who have more prepared minds. In fact, that would be my key goal now: To become less apologetic about my intellectual ambitions and surround myself with people who share similar ambitions and objectives in life. And, to that enterprise, I want to dedicate this blog.

In the past, I have used this blog to write technical stuff, with the intention of projecting my expertise. It did work and I did get good opportunities and work through that medium. But I am aiming to do this now on more business-like platforms, such as LinkedIn or through books and magazine articles, which I have now started working on. Therefore, this blog can now be less like my portfolio and more like my diary, a chronicle of my attempts to change myself. 

And, the reason why I wish to do that is two-fold: First, because I really want to change and I believe that will make an interesting story; and second, because at the core of my enterprise is a search for partners and collaborators, and I believe that telling my own story honestly and openly would allow me to connect with those people out there. I have always searched for such partners, and failed several times, but I think this is because I was looking for them too eagerly. I would often see potential in people and impose my own ideas on them, only to be hugely disappointed when they failed to live up to what I thought of them. Living through a full cycle, I have understood that the mistake was really mine: I have to find a more patient method of finding such collaborators, rather than trying to seek them out. I want this blog to become that platform of connection.

Therefore, I hope to post more often and write more about books, ideas and people. I would travel a lot in 2023, so I guess this would mean writing about places too. And, invariably, this would be about dilemmas, which dominate my life all the time. My current list of dilemmas are long and varied, and this could be a good starting point for restarting this blog:

  • Should I adopt a more 'executive' outlook, given that I am now leading an Edtech start-up which has just received an investment, or should I continue in a 'creator' mode, which gave me more pleasure?
  • Should I start my PhD, which I have been contemplating for so long and putting off every year? There is obvious merit for doing it, given that I am in Higher Ed, but also the challenges are daunting, given the paucity of time and travel commitments.
  • How would I balance my commitment to the current project, which is a funded start-up which needs to 'scale' to provide returns to its investors, with what I really want to do, create a small and value-driven education community around the 'world's friendliest college'?
  • Where should I live? I feel so connected in London, with all my networks and opportunities it brings, but also so out of place in its overtly commercial environment. I am so tempted to find a quieter and more soulful environment and about to rekindle my dreams of living in Valencia, but keep postponing it for practical considerations.
  • What should be my approach to Kolkata and India? I feel increasingly disconnected, particularly after my father's death, but at the same time, I consider myself Indian and think of Kolkata as home. Unlike some of my friends, my outlook for India is neither disinterested (I do want to work in India) nor bleak (I believe India holds the key to global future), and my best friends are all Indian (naturally). And, yet, I don't buy the Indian exceptionalism that pervades the Indian middle class at this time and do not subscribe to the all-too-common Sinophobia and Islamophobia (and hatred towards Pakistan) of my friends. 
  • How would I balance the freedom that my creative enterprise needs with the responsibility, towards my family? I don't feel bound by convention - never did - and yet I have lived a rather conventional life, until recently. The keyword for me was responsibility, something I learnt from my mother perhaps and would not want to abandon that path, but at the same time, I do feel that a conventional life is too constraining and I have a responsibility to achieve my own creative potential.
  • Should I continue to read, think and write in a serendipitous manner, as I have done so far, or give my intellectual project a focus and commit myself to being a professional historian (and do the PhD)? I alternate between the two, often committing to extensive reading list and then losing focus the next day. So I have these great collections, only 1% of which I have read. Therefore, even when I think of starting, I am forever thinking - is it history of philosophy that I should start with? Or British history? Or AI and future of work? Or Jose Luis Borges? This is perhaps many dilemmas within a dilemma, but a central one in my existence.

And indeed many more. Fittingly, I am watching Walter Mitty - exactly as I daydream all the time! I get the central message - look closer! - after all, I abandoned my familiar and comfortable life inspired by one book, Paulo Cohelo's The Alchemist (all these years later, I think it was just an average book!) which had the same message. Just that one doesn't know where to look without making all these crazy journeys first! I am still going through it.

So, signing off, but if you cared to read, I promise you more of these stream of consciousness stuff! I know it's boring, too personal! I shall, therefore, not share the link on Facebook or LinkedIn, as I used to do, and check back often on how many people read it. That's the only way I can keep it honest. That's the only way I want to live now, honestly, and see where that gets me in the end.


 






 

 

 


 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lord Macaulay's Speech on Indian Education: The Hoax & Some Truths

-
A friend has recently forwarded me a quote from Lord Macaulay's speech in the British Parliament on 2nd February 1835. I reproduce the quote below: "I have traveled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such calibre, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and, therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self-esteem, their native self-culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation." The email requested me to forward me to every indian I know. I was tempted, but there were two oddities about this quote. First, the language, which
Read more

Abdicating to Taliban

-
Nations are ideas. We try to fashion them as territories. But how can a river, a mountain ridge or sometimes an imaginary line in the middle of a field can explain the wide division in the lives, thoughts and futures of the people who live on different sides? Nations are not the people too. Indeed, people build nations and become its body. But the soul of the nation is an idea: People come together on an idea to build a nation. While that's what a modern nation is - an idea - and that way exceptionalism is not an American exception, very few nations are as completely defined by an idea as Pakistan. There was hardly any political, geographic or military rationale of Pakistan other than the idea of an Islamic homeland in South Asia. [In that way, the ideological brother of Pakistan in the family of nations is Israel] This, abated by the short term political calculations of some backroom colonialists, created a modern state which must be solely sustained on that singular idea. Religi
Read more

India versus Bharat

-
Image
This post is a reaction to Aatish Taseer's evocative obituary of secular India in the Atlantic ( read here ).  While I agree with it mostly - and share the reservations about the direction and the future of India - I differ with the author on one key aspect: I do not agree with his portrayal of a resurgent Bharat eating up a secular India.  In fact, I believe while Mr Taseer regrets the Indian elite's loss of connection with the realities of day to day life of the country, his very presentation of Bharat and India as oppositional entities stems from that incomprehension. While I understand that he is only using these categories as RSS uses them - to effectively other the English-speaking elites and non-Hindus - I believe it is a mistake to describe the profound changes in contemporary India as the ascendance of Bharat.  I grew up in Bharat. I never learnt English until late in life, when I started working. My growing-up world was one of small-town India, vernacu
Read more

When Does Business Gift Become A Bribe: A Marketing Policy Perspective

-
Introduction : The Business of Gift Giving Business gift giving has always been common and contentious at the same time. Business gifts are usually seen as an ‘advertising, sales promotion and marketing communication medium’ (Cooper et al , 1991). Arunthanes et al (1994) points out that such gifting is practised usually for three reasons: (a) in appreciation for past client relationships, placing a new order, referrals to other clients, etc.; (b) in the hopes of creating a positive, first impression which might help to establish an initial business relationship; and (c) giving may be perceived as a quid Pro quo (i.e. returning a favour or expecting a favour in return for something). The practitioners of gift-giving generally argue that doing business is often an aggregation of personal interactions and relationships, and gift-giving should be seen as a natural way of maintaining and enhancing these relationships. ‘Business gifts, especially one given in the course of the festive s
Read more

The Curious Case of Helen Goddard

-
Image
Today, Helen Goddard, 26, a highly popular music teacher of a City School for Girls, has been sentenced to 15 months in prison. Her crime was to carry out a year long lesbian affair with one of her pupils, who appeared in the court and admitted that the affair was consensual and it was she who pressured Helen into the affair. For Helen, a bright musician and a devout Chistian, this is an extraordinary lapse of judgement. Also, she was teaching in the £13,000 private girls only school in London. She was surely aware what the consequences of her action will be. The fact that she still could not stop herself tells us that lovers do not always act rationally, something we always knew. There is more in this affair than personal tragedies. For a start, this has all the dramatic elements: a bright, beautiful teacher more in Julia Roberts mould [as in Mona Lisa Smile], a stiff upper lip school [not unlike Wellesley] and a story like Notes On A Scandal with an added twist. Indeed, Helen was gui
Read more

‘A World Without The Jews’: Nazi Ideology, German Imagination and The Holocaust[1]

-
Image
Introduction Erna Petri née Kürbs, a farmer’s daughter from Herressen in Thuringia, arrived in Ukraine with her three year old son to join her husband Horst in June 1942. Horst, an SS leader inspired by Nazi ideologue Dr Richard Walter Darré, settled in the plantation of Grzenda, just outside today’s Lviv, to become a German Gentleman-Farmer. Erna saw Horst beating and abusing the workers in the plantation within two days of arriving there, which was, as Horst explained, necessary for establishing authority. Erna joined in enthusiastically, settling into a combination of roles of ‘plantation mistress, prairie Madonna in apron-covered dress lording over slave labourers, infant-carrying, gun-wielding Hausfrau.’ [2] However, there were clear rules in the plantation, and Erna was very much expected to play the woman’s role of being a Cake-and-Coffee hostess. When four Jews were caught in the estate while trying to escape from a transport to a death camp, Horst told Erna and her female
Read more

The Morality of Profit

-
In most societies today, making profits are accepted as moral, if not especially praiseworthy. This was not as obvious as it appears today – people used to be embarrassed about making a profit not so long ago. Crazy as it seems today, it is worth thinking why it was so. Profits, as economists will put it, is the reward for risk-taking, for putting a business enterprise together in the pursuit of an objective. In this definition, remember, profits are not what it is commonly understood to be – the gross middle-line towards the bottom – but a figure net of entrepreneur’s earning [wages for his labour], dividends and interests on borrowed capital, and provisions for building and other physical assets [a sort of rent, offsetting what these assets could have earned if leased out]. This pure profit – surplus – accrues to a business as a reward to its organisation, for the act of entrepreneurship itself. Economists were divided on how this surplus comes about. The conventional wisdom was, as
Read more

The Road to Macaulay: Warren Hastings and Education in India

-
Image
Introduction: Hastings in the history of Indian Education Whether or not one includes Warren Hastings in the history of Education in India is a matter of perspective. If writing the history of education means writing the history of schools, the impact of Hastings' administration would be quite limited. If anything, the rapid implosion of local rulers in Eastern, Southern and Northern India during Hastings' tenure had meant a bleak period for the indigenous education system, as patronage and funds would have dwindled away for many of them. The Company administration really concerned itself with the schooling of the natives only after 1813, as Nurullah and Naik rightly pointed out ( see my earlier post ) and one can legitimately start the story at this point. However, if history of Education in India is to encompass the transformation of Indian Scholarship, on which foundation the new, colonial, system of Education would be built, the story must start with Warren Hast
Read more

A Conversation About Kolkata in the 21st Century

-
Image
A lot of conversations about Kolkata is about its past; I want to talk about its future. Most conversations about Kolkata is about its decline - its golden moments and how times changed; I want to talk about its rise, how its best may lie ahead and how we can change the times. In place of pessimism, I seek optimism; instead of inertia, I am looking for imagination.  It is not about catching up, I am arguing; it is about making a new path altogether. It had, indeed it had, a glorious past: One of the first Asian cities to reach a million population, the Capital of British India, the cradle of an Enlightened Age and a new politics of Cosmopolitanism. And, it had stumbled - losing the hinterland that supplied its Jute factories, overwhelmed by the refugees that came after the partition, devoid of its professional class who chose to emigrate - the City's commercial and professional culture evaporated in a generation, and it transformed into a corrupt and inefficien
Read more

The Road of Macaulay: The Development of Indian Education under British Rule

-
Image
The story of British influence on Indian Education, to which Macaulay's Minutes of 1835 belong, has been told in six distinct phases. Syed Nurullah and J P Naik's very popular and influential History of Indian Education calls these 'six acts' of the drama:  From the beginning of Eighteenth Century to 1813   The British East India Company received its charter in 1600 but its activities did not include any Educational engagement till the Charter Act of 1698, which required the Company to maintain priests and schools, for its own staff and their children. And, so it was until the renewal of its charter in 1813, when the evangelical influence led to insistence of expansion of educational activities and allowing priests back into company territory. From 1813 to Wood's Education Despatch of 1854 The renewal of Charter in 1813 re-opened the debate, which seemed to have been settled in the early years of the company administration, between the Orientalis
Read more

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

AddThis