Sunday Posts

College Education may indeed change as the social demands of it transform radically. We can debate whether this is good or bad - I have argued elsewhere that there is little objective discussion here and a lot of self-interested talk - but one frightening consequence of this is the impending demise of Humanities. This threat is less clear in some countries than others. An extreme case is India, which is fast becoming a nation of Engineers (and also Doctors and Lawyers), where humanities is usually treated as a subject for girls, or those who are not expected to make a living. But this is also pronounced in countries like the United States, where humanities funding is under threat in many states, and even in Western European countries, which were traditionally focused on liberal education but that edifice is being dismantaled rapidly with the roll-back of public funding of Higher Education. In response to this decline of the humanities, a number of books and articles have been wri...

Humanities subjects are usually derided for their lack of practical application, yet those who studied humanities, like me, would vouch for its ability to inspire curiosity and develop judgement. Compared to many other disciplines where there may be one absolute answer to every question (though the point of education is to discover that there is no such thing), humanities often deal with judgment and opinions, abilities that we most often call upon in solving complex problems. Besides, in a world where the nature of fast evolving – from process-based to creative work – a good humanities education may be enormously helpful in equipping the leaders of the future. However, this is not to argue that nothing has to change in humanities education, which is often delivered without regard to these changes that I just mentioned, and commonly in resentment to it. The idea I am working on is to design and deliver a humanities programme connecting it better to the goals such as employabil...

About a year ago, I set out to do what I always wanted to do: To create a technology-led network of global colleges, offering competence based education abroad. I was fully aware that this is a challenging project, having spent more than four years thinking and planning for it. However, doing it was always going to be different, and it was - full of new insights, unexpected turns and opportunities, and learning, which no amount of planning could have prepared us for. I am coming to the end of the bootstrap phase that we had to live through to get things going. It is, therefore, time to reinvent myself. One of the great rewards of doing something like this is that I come to know how much I wanted to do this. There should have been no doubt, given the time I spent thinking and talking about how this could work. I took on a rather unappetising job of working in a chaotic private college environment for a period to build my network and ideas: Those two-and-half-years of my life was no...

I keep doing this and I am at it again. A new start, that is. I love this sort of game, it gives me the spirit to go on even when things are difficult. So, that is it then - a new day and a new start yet again. I have made it a habit to live my life in 100 day chunks, and one such run finished yesterday. When I started the last one, indeed, I didn't know where my life was going. My brother's untimely death completely threw me out of gear, and I decided to lie low and not to do anything new: Just survive, was the motto of last three months. But this was meant to be temporary, and I am at the end of it now. It sort of coincides with my birthday and completion of a year in my new job, sort of milestones by themselves. So, I wake up at 5am this morning and resolve to start my life afresh yet again. In a way, such renewals keep me going. Often, the pressures of life - the fact that I am parched in England while the life became more difficult for my father in Calcutta, now that he is...

Saturdays are special, not just because they come once every five days. By that definition, Sundays will be more special, because they appear once in six days. But Sundays are rather lazy, even the God felt tired and slept, because, particularly if you are in Britain, most shops operate on an absurdly short schedule. But Saturdays are far more active, and though I usually spend a good part of the day shopping and stocking up for the week, it is still my time to plan for the following week. Sometimes, the planning horizons are longer, and issues on table are too complex to be decided upon immediately. This is one of those Saturdays. The key question I am grappling with is whether or not, and when, I shall be able to return to India. This appeared a no- brainer even a few months ago. I was in a dead-end, thoroughly unsatisfying job, which involved travelling to India once in a few months. An additional dimension was added by the racist abuses I had to endure, ever so often, inside my ow...

Before I could fully realize it, it is 1st April. Decision time! I have been writing about my journey through last few years in this blog, and have often written about my personal thoughts and career dilemmas transparently. It was enormously helpful, as friends and even those who did not know came up with suggestions and ideas to consider. It was like having a thousand mentors, with their combined experience and insight at play, and my journey was made easier in the company of friends. Here is it then. I have finally decided to move on. Not right now, but in four months time, by the end of July, when I set the house in order in the current company and stabilize the business model. I have already communicated the decision to my employers, started searching for a replacement and put in place a restructuring plan which will align the business better to the objectives of the company and facilitate easier integration with Irish management practises. To be honest, this decision was taken qu...