Sunday Posts

It took me a while. Several months, in fact.  Once this blog was my life, and I posted at least twice a week. But lately, this became a graveyard of new starts. Every time, I was starting afresh - there have been several new starts for me in an extraordinarily short period of time in the recent years - I made posts pledging myself to restart. And, then, I lost my way and became silent again.  I want to make it different this time. I am looking back and wondering why I start and stop. It is perhaps because I did not accept in the past that I failed, either completely or at least to make good of the pledge that I made to myself when I restarted. Therefore, I guess, instead of making statements of hope and looking into the future, as the American self-help books would have us do, these restarts should start with an acknowledgement of failure. That is exactly why these are restarts in the first place.  But, before that, I am questioning myself - why do this publicly? When an...

Grow up. Don't fall for an American trope.  For my generation - I would be Gen X by label - United States of America, its style, its messages and what it passed on as its values, provided the model. Older now, I see the deception. It is not subjective view of a post-colonial - the Americans themselves have elected Donald Trump and let us know that they don't believe in what they preached.  I am not just a Gen Xer, but one that grew up in a post-colonial nation. So, United States was not our first disappointment. We already knew the trajectory with Soviet Union. Claims of universal values that come to nothing. I know this bitter disappointment and learnt its lesson - universal values don't work! Don't import the ideas about how life should be from a dominant culture, look deeper and look wider, look inside and challenge everything! Therefore, do not fall for the infantalised version of yourself. Be attentive - there is no glory in being scatter-brained and attention is, ...

Dear M Do you believe in dragons?  I know many people who doesn't. Because they are grown-ups, and it is not fashionable for grown-ups to think about dragons. But I would like to believe that they are real. At least as real as the things we believe in. For that matter, we call investors dragons in some countries - in Britain, start-ups go to the Dragons' Den - while the other countries have Sharks (India) or Tigers (Bangladesh) for that. The investors changing the world for better as real a story as my having a dragon which can fly me from one country to another, coming to my rescue when bad guys really corner me. You would say that is literally not possible. I would say - cliché but true - that literal is a metaphor. Language creates the world we live in, in our minds: That indeed the only world which matters to us, the only one we can ever know. In reality, there could be other worlds - one where dragons fly around, for example - but we live in our own literal bubbles, where ...

It is almost over and it is starting.  I am finishing 2024 wiser. This has been one of those pivotal years of my life, comparable only to 1993 when I started working or 2004 when I migrated to the UK and started my life again. In the sense that those two years taught me a lot and made me a different person: 2024 did that too. I am also wiser because my optimism is tempered. I have finally gotten rid of my youthful assumption that it is possible to change people or systems (in other words, I have now, finally, become old). I am not cynical - at least not yet - but far more conservative than I was. I know things change only very slowly, and only organically, and forcing the change, however desireable, is beyond the powers of human beings. We seem to think that we are at the centre of the universe, and therefore the changes are really brought about human action. I can wake up one morning and command the Sun to rise, and when it rises, can claim my supernatural powers, but ...

Trump Rex!  Okay, I wrote I did not care, but I do. In a different way!  I don't think I should still be concerned who Americans vote as their President. There is no such thing as the 'free world'. If there ever was an iron curtain, it was over a long time ago.  However, even if I haven't voted for Trump, I can't ignore that a large number of people in a very educated and technologically advanced country did. I am also painfully aware that someone like me could have written a similar sentence back in 1932, and perhaps many of them, like me, decided that it didn't really matter. The least I could do is to try and understand why such things happen. To be clear, I don't see these things as strange. There are a number of reasons why such things happen. After all, there is a cognitive bias named after Warren Harding (see ' Warren Harding error '). I have been labouring on Will Durant's Story of Civilisation since the beginning of 2024 (and have now re...

I wrote this blog through my 20 year stay in Britain, some years more diligently than others.  No one, including myself, would ever look at the archives perhaps, but if one did, one theme would stand out: Restart!  For the first 10 years of my career, spent in India and then in other countries in Asia, I followed a straight path: Working in companies, growing into more senior role, within the training sector. It was somewhat regular life. I had KPIs and month-ends, appraisals, holiday forms and salary raises, which I worried about.  However, I left all that and came to Britain in 2004. I came without a job - therefore, it was a proper restart! I assumed that my experience within the IT Training sector would get me a similar or a better job, but the IT training industry was very different in the UK and my skill sets did not travel well. I landed up managing accounts in an e-learning company, a role and an industry in which I had absolutely no prior experience.  Therea...

  For us humans, it seems to be  the best of times, and the worst of times.   It is indeed the age of having information at our fingertips, but also to let misinformation rule our sentiments.   It is a time when technology can talk back to us in a human-like manner, and yet many people struggle to read , understand and write properly.   It is a time when the OpenAI’s o1 can do complex reasoning, and yet most of our readers would find this Dickensian rendering of human  plight incomprehensible.   Our newspapers would claim that we are all going downhill , and yet we are now at the threshold of delaying ageing and death, s eeding  rain and synthetic fuel, space travel for leisure and being present everywhere at the same time through holograms.   In short, we are having a normal day, complaining that things could be better and forgetting that we have come a long way.   Of course, as Paul Virilio says: “ When you invent the ship, you also...

Like millions of my compatriots, I am watching the news coming from Calcutta (now Kolkata) with anger and a sense of shame. First, there was a horrific act of rape and murder of a Junior Doctor inside a government hospital. This showed not only how insecure women are, but also how broken down the healthcare and education systems are in the city. Then, it was apparent that this was no ordinary murder. The hospital administration, the police and the State government rushed in to destroy evidence and cover up through any means possible. After that, when people protested and took to the streets in an unprecedented way, the arrogance of the administration was plain. The Police Commissioner, despite the litany of failure (including Police Officers getting arrested for destroying evidence), would not resign; the Chief Minister would not meet the protesting doctors in a transparent way (they are demanding the meeting be recorded or live streamed); the bureaucrats from once-glorious Indian Admi...

Sir Keir Starmer is a man in a hurry, as he sets upon his task. He seems to know that he needs to get things done quickly, or otherwise his government may crumble under its own weight. That's what super-majorities such as these do - they allow the hangover to spoil the work-day. Britain is in decline and another decade later, when the rest of the world has fixed its financial infrastructure and the Americans have finally gone home, no one will care about this little isle. This last opportunity to reverse that fate lies with this government. Supermajorities do another thing. For example, I shall now be voting Green, as I would feel no longer threatened that my vote can give a little filip to people like Sunak. And so will do millions of others next time, as thousand parties may bloom in the aftermath. Labour's big win is obscuring the other stories - the growth of Greens - and the Reform party is being seen as a breakaway faction of the Conservatives, and not as the up-and-comin...

One of the great regrets of my life has been that history ended too soon. I was not even out of college when Soviet Union collapsed, and all ideology seemed to end. Everyone, right and left, agreed that there is no point arguing about how to build a good society and all difference is about the difference in emphasis. But I was already past twenty and arrived in this post-ideology world rather stuck in old-fashioned cocktail of idealism, values etc.  Worse still, I found my nirvana in Internet. That became my place to run away from life. My Indian suburban life, all its expectations, restrictions and pre-conceptions, could be left behind at the first crack of modem handshake. After that, I was transported to the world where people spoke my language, a different type of friendship, dream of an unmoored life. I could be ideological again, at least for those connection minutes I could afford to pay for.  But then it became more user-friendly. The browser was the start of the frami...

I did more or less abandon this blog. Not because I was writing less - I was writing more. I was writing a lot actually. And speaking a lot. Doing workshops and meeting a lot of people. It was too exciting for me to find time to reflect. Predictably though, that phase is now over. I have done a lot and learnt, but now it is time for me to get back to blogging. And as I restart, I confront the question again: Why am I doing it? These posts were supposed to be breadcrumbs for remembering, so that I remain grounded. They served this purpose wonderfully well when I look back. But several years now, I fell into the public/private persona trap. There is so much I can't write about, and that made honest writing almost impossible. But I am also at that stage, in life and professionally, when being crazy isn't a bad thing. I have always been on the unreasonable side, trying to push the envelop and eschewing security and money and conventional things, but always followed the rules. My gr...

Katy Milkman points out that the Spring solstice is a good time to start new things. Certain days work well, her research shows, to start new endeavours: New year's day, birthday, anniversary of something significant! I have missed this year's start to do anything new; right now is my next best chance. I am in the middle of a big change. I, along with a few other people, built a business over the years. But it was flawed from the start. My partners had different aims, which they, self-declaredly, did not disclose. It was more like an academic project put together, without proper structures. I went along with it, acknowledging the limits of my power and boundaries of my engagement. The goal for me was learning and doing, which I have done in abundance. But it was never meant to be a successful in its original aims because of its structural shortcomings, and right now, it is being morphed into something other than its intended form. It is painful, as it will be for any creator in...

I have learnt a lot in 2023 and want to put that learning to use in 2024. Chiefly, I have tested and clarified some ideas I have had. I got involved in Higher Education somewhat accidentally. Mine did not follow the career paths of my colleagues - a graduate degree leading to a university job - but rather an unsual one: A technical job leading to a career in professional trainining, which in turn led to recruitment (I worked in healthcare and technology recruitment for almost four years), which, in turn, got me curious about what colleges do. Because of this background, I did not start in any academic role or even an administrative one, but was recruited for transforming an institution trying to figure out the linkage to employment. Everything else, including teaching and curriculum development work, came thereafter. Therefore, while I have now spent over twelve years dealing with details of academic planning and administration, my peculiar experience focused me on transformation of ac...

New years are for new beginnings, and I am readying myself for one. I have lost my way. Comfort had me, somewhat. Despite all my fear of comfort zones, I became too comfortable with what I was doing. And I haven't moved forward in a while. Hence, a full reset is necessary. I have to break away from the slot I got onto. Part intentionally, because I lacked the energy, but partly because I am bored playing the small game. To sit and watch the world go by is painful. Being limited by the neocolonial international higher education more so.  I came to Prague to start the journey. The next chapter of my life would be a lot of Europe and a lot less India. I am looking to revive my pre-Covid project of moving to Spain, though I don't have a definitive project in hand. It could be anywhere now, anywhere in Europe, including Malta. In fact, Malta is a leading candidate for me as it speaks English and I am getting to know Education Malta well. And so will be Germany, though the news today...

I am lately in the question of morality. I almost know that it doesn't matter. History tells us clearly that the sense of morality is historical (what was right in one age, was wrong in another) and mostly relative (based on the person's station in society and context). Yet, a sense of morality is the bedrock on which our certainties about life stands: If there is no right or wrong, it is almost impossible to make the choices one has to make all day, everyday. My problem, therefore, is not that moral sense is pointless, but the unsettling question that I have the wrong sense of morals. I have always maintained a level of integrity at work, and a level of transparency in personal life. For example, I tried to be dutiful and consistent, respectful towards others, democratic in disposition and never greedy or envious. In personal life, I believed that the transparency of emotions will keep me honest: Even when I am making a mistake and don't know it, being open about what I am...

We are the stories we tell about ourselves. I am one of those writers in search of a story. That story has not appeared, yet. But I am always crafting one. In this, it is not the start that confounds me. It has already begun - I am in it! The reason I have never written because I can not end it.  Because I lack courage. Around me, so many stories begin and end everyday. In fact, I also see beginnings are endings too. But I still can't write about it. Happily-ever-after is cliché, death or departure is beyond contemplation, something dramatic is too unreal! In that sense, I live in the precipice of the story, that kind of safe bourgeois existence where nothing really should happen. Therefore, I am just going from chapter to chapter. But the script is becoming quite predictable now. Characters seem to be desperate for something to happen now. The narrative is becoming one of those overextended TV series whose writers have run out of ideas. Something got to happen - and I am waiting. ...

I spend a lot of time speaking with educators. Most of these conversations are about two things: How the world is changing and how higher education does NOT need to change. The assumption is that there is an unmutable core of higher ed: Some type of transcendent purpose beyond the question of practical application and economic returns, beyond here and now, something that can not be or should not be measured. This is very hard to argue against. What kind of lowlife I would be to question an educator dedicated to building better lives?  But I usually leave with a question. If we want to improve lives, is getting the students to attend school and making them read textbooks the best way to do it? Besides, we don't even do it for free: We make them pay for the pleasure of becoming a better person and often their parents have to sell their land (or liquidate family savings) to be able to afford it.  For me, there is indeed an unchanging core of higher education - that to be able to ...

The last year was chaotic for me. My father passed away, and this resulted in a profound shift of perspective. For the first time in my life, I felt disconnected from India. I did not know before what India meant to me. Like other immigrants, I saw it as a source of nostalgia; and like others in International Education, I saw it as an economic opportunity. I wanted to go there once in a while, but did not want any of its dust and grime. My father's death made nostalgia a source of pain; the real life business engagements in India, which I am in the middle of, reminded me why I left the country in the first place. But, I forgot what India is really to me: My root! As I indulged in the mental drift away from India, a deep uprootedness took over.  I was oblivious to it, though. There were other things happening in my life. Somewhat contradictorily, I was discovering my romantic, twenty-something self all over again. I was able to write, first time in many years, and found beautiful fr...

It has been a while I blogged, but my life has completely changed during these couple of months. Overall, these changes have been positive. An idea that a colleague and I developed became a company by itself and received investment. We were pursuing this possibility for several months, but in the last twelve weeks or so, it actually happened.  The other change that happened is in my role. Given that we were working inside a larger business, I confined my role to innovation and product development, leaving the financial and revenue responsibilities to the owner of the business. However, this became untenable after the investment came through. There was a clear requirement of disconnecting from the other group businesses and necessity to have control of finance and operations aligned to the business goals of the entity itself. Therefore, when offered, I took on the CEO role, assuming, along with my thousand other things to do, the responsibility for money and investment.  In a w...

Journey is an over-used metaphor. It presents a particular relationship between space and time. But the inherent assumption in a journey is that one moves forward. At a time when someone feels going in circles, journey is not a good metaphor to cling to. Such is my situation. After a long time, perhaps the first time in my career, I have lost the enthusiasm for my work. I have always traded financial reward and security for interesting work, so such enthusiasm was never in short supply. But as Christmas holidays draw to a close and I look out to New Year, I am so not excited!  May be I am getting old. It seems finally my attitude towards work is becoming like a normal person's, which I have always failed to understand. I hated the moaners and those who complained, and i changed jobs before I got to that point. This is possibly the first time I feel unenthusiastic but also stuck! I have made some big commitments lately, trying to assemble a team around me with whom I can work long t...