Sunday Posts

I have reset my life. I did this before: When I hit a roadblock or got stuck doing something I hated,  I would imagine a day when a new life started. And, it works, because, all frustrations wash away, and hope comes back in. Besides, I let go of expectations, all that I accumulated over time, as those often are the biggest roadblocks. I have just done that again. So, everything needs to start again, and this blog too. Having just separated it out from my work not very long ago, I want to connect it back again. In fact, I want to restart my blog and bring it to the centre of what I do. That may mean letting go of certain things, like my profoundly agitated thoughts about Brexit, Trump and other global calamities, but - who really cared for those thoughts anyway? The new blog would hopefully allow me to be more personal - and meaningful - as I intend to write about a thing that I am discovering more and more: Identity!  I grew up in more hopeful times. By the ti...

I have done various things in my career, from selling to teaching, from developing products and campaigns to designing courses and raising money. But, then, all of it was really around one thing - helping people develop skills and get jobs! My exposure has been various - I have spent time in the world's largest independent IT skills training company as well as a big name English training provider, a company providing technology to Europe's largest e-learning project, an Irish recruitment company embarking on global expansion and now an American start-up looking to bridge the Education-to-Employment gap - but the point of my work was always the same.  This claim may seem odd to some, as we tend to box skills training into one skill or another, and indeed cut this adrift from Higher Education (which I have also indulged in, in a private Higher Ed institution in London) - there is nothing common between a business degree programme, IT training and English language for work, ...

I have spent the last four years working exclusively on the faultline of education and employment, and it is time to take stock.  I could perhaps claim that I have been doing this for much longer, indeed, my entire working life of 23 years, except for a couple of years when I was exclusively focused on learning in employment, or corporate training, as it is called. All my work in IT Education in India and then South and South-East Asia, to build English Training Centres globally and even the quest for a new kind of Business School in London, the point of all that was an employment for the learners. The starting point of this reflection is to recognise the distinction between what I did then, and the work afterwards, as I stepped outside employment and tried to set up U-Aspire and then took on a project to establish Knod in Asia: This was about looking to solve the problem, exclusively and with singular focus, rather than theorizing about it. This distinction is important ...

Simplifications are good for focusing our minds. Without claims of being exhaustive, they are wonderful tools for us to see what really matters. Hence, here is my attempt to portray the story of Independent India in the story of three competing identities. It must be said that the politics of identity is indeed all about simplifications, with the pretencion of being exhaustive. You can be one thing, and nothing else. Though in real life we carry multiple identities - a British Citizen, Indian by heritage, Entrepreneur, Blogger, Teacher, Liberal, Friend, Son, Brother, Husband and Father can all be the description of the same person at the same time - Identity Politics is all about highlighting one primary identity at the expense of all other. In that formulation, a Socialist may become a Socialist Father, even if there is no such thing. But, despite its apparent absurdity when seen in the context of individual life, such simplified identities are the life-blood of group life in th...

Before we talk of the mechanics of how to develop global expertise, we must attempt to answer whether such an endeavour is worth it. The education system as it stands today has changed its goals, from the modernist vision of 'Reason' to the promotion of National 'Culture' in its glory years, to the current idea of Developing 'Excellence', which, as Bill Readings argued, means very little. But even if the efforts to promote a national culture looks spent, and the universities today are multinational corporations with great sophistication, they are decidedly in the business of 'soft power', which is, crudely put, about exporting 'national culture' to faraway lands. The object of the universities, therefore, is grounded on national values and cultures, or what goes in its name, and 'globalism' of the kind we are talking about is quite alien to its DNA. This is not to deny some parts of our education system is more global than others. A...

It does not take long to undo civilization. An insightful urban myth, as told in India, involves a High Level Japanese delegation and the then Chief Minister of Bihar , one of India's poorest and most lawless (at least then) state. The Japanese, for whom the Buddhist shrine in Sarnath (allegedly Buddha's mausoleum) is one of the holiest places on earth, were dejected looking at the state of Bihar and offered to help: Give us Bihar for seven years and we shall turn Bihar into Japan, they said. The Chief Minister, famous in India for his quips, reportedly answered: Oh, give us Japan for seven minutes and we shall turn it into Bihar . But my context for today's post is not Bihar , nor economic development, but Egypt. Watching the television in the comfort of the Christmas break should be a pleasurable thing, but it is not. The stories of violence keep monopolizing the headlines. Today's news tells me the bombings in an Egyptian church which killed a score of praying Co...

I discovered my identity only after I started living abroad. If I go back to India some day, which eventually I will, this will be key learning I carry with me. This reflexive construction of identity took more than one step. First, when I arrived, with all the comfort and reasonableness of modern Industrial life, I started to wonder why some of my relatives and friends did not ever think of migrating. In the cacophony of requests that I started to receive for assistance in migration, I grew a private frustration - why doesn't so and so want to come - and a feeling that the talk about ' Indianness ' is all excuses, a cover for lack of enterprise from my own folks. Then, even in the subliminal reality of the equal opportunity world, my colour of skin became more and more highlighted. Contrary to the common perception, racism, at least in Britain, is far less 'up in the face' and far more systemic. So, unless one is travelling to more 'exotic' parts of the co...

Because there was nothing to write. I suddenly feel - almost for the first time - very depressed. Oh, yes, with a laugh. But it seemed either age or recession caught up with me. I spent an useless weekend doing nothing, wondering where I am now and where I wish to get to. Not for the first time, those who know me will testify, answering the second question was very difficult. It almost seemed like a series of flashing images, an endless list of alternative futures. But, for the first time in my life, I craved for some certainty . My first problem, indeed, is that I am homeless. It was always there - I sure recall days long time back, when I shall stand on the terrace of our family home in India on a wintery morning and feel that I do not ever want to go away, but at the same time telling myself that I must go and see the world. I lived a life of compromises - going away with a promise to return - but I obviously know how difficult it is to return, to anything, at any time. I intended t...