Sunday Posts

Today started with a false start, much like yesterday. I started early and landed up, prepared to queue up, at the Indian High Commission at Aldwych . There were no one around, except for a few odd souls like me standing around in search of a queue, and we all realized, only after a few minutes of private wondering, that the High Commission is closed for Eid . The guy who so helpfully enlightened all the lost souls did indeed pass on a rather tacky leaflet printed with Indian tri -colour, and informed us that he is a visa agent and he can help us without a need of a return visit. Later at work, the discussions turned to India. Rather unexpectedly, as my previous suggestions to my colleagues were almost always ignored. The fear of India is understandable: It is exceedingly difficult to do business in, particularly for smaller companies. For all the excitement about India, very few foreign companies have actually made money in India. The reasons are varied, and primarily because the l...

Nothing happened today. Well, almost. The usual happened: I returned to work after a few days break - full of aspirations to get things done - but, unsurprisingly, end of the day, had most of my to-do list sitting pretty untouched. The small things I expected to finish were just too small to attend to, and the big things, too big. My time was eaten away by whatever I don't remember now. I came home rather late, struggling to finish a spreadsheet that must go tomorrow, and missed my commitment to go to swimming every day. Consistent with the day of false starts, that was my only consolation. Indeed, I make it sound too gloomy. There were good things too. My application for Overseas Indian citizenship has finally arrived the Indian High Commission in London and I shall pop over tomorrow to pick it up. This is closest I can get to dual citizenship: This allows me to stay in India as long as I like and work if I want to, even get back my Indian citizenship someday if I manage to sta...

My parents came from two very different families, and my childhood was defined by the differences. My father's side of the family was rich and entrepreneurial, mostly self-taught, fiercely independent, disciplined and hardworking. My father, the first to go to university and with his teaching job at a college, was as much a misfit in the family as one could be. The family, led by the family patriarch, my grandfather's eldest brother, was apolitical, somewhat elitist and focused on building a great business. My father's popularity as a teacher and his superb musical skills would be fondly referred to, but his profession was almost treated as a hobby. My mother's side was exactly the opposite. They were not in business: They were in politics and public service. My grandfather went to jail fighting for India's freedom, and my mother's elder brother was a leading light in the extreme left movement in Calcutta in the early Seventies and died a premature death w...

I am at an interesting phase in my life. In the last 18 months or so, my life has completely changed. Old responsibilities and attachments have died, and new configurations have emerged. My plans for return, which I felt about so intensely at the time, have receded to the background; but I rediscovered my attachment to India. And, overall, after spending many a year in waiting, almost in hibernation, I feel ready to go out and try what I wanted to do all my life. I have indeed made no secrets about what I want to do: I wanted to set up an educational establishment which fuses creative spirit, technology savvy and enterprise thinking, in a truly global context. Also, I am an unashamed idealist, and therefore think that this institution should strive to engage with global problems, poverty, climate change, intolerance, inequality etc., and the learners should emerge with an urge and a commitment to make the world a better place. In a way, this is not new. All my life, almost all th...

Indian media, and the global media has caught up lately, is completely obsessed with Anna Hazare and his Lokpal bill now. Indeed, Anna Hazare has caught the public mood by picking up the issue of corruption, which is all pervasive in India, and he is the man of the moment. His struggle at this moment symbolizes the rift between the new India, the India of the young people, and the old India, of the Raj mentality, of privilege and unaccountability, and this is why he is suddenly so popular. The government, inept and clueless, has made the matters worse by arresting Anna Hazare . Farcically, the reason given for arrest was a bungled attempt to impose conditions on the protest - the government wanted to have the power how many people can come to protest, whether they can come by car or by foot, how long they can protest etc - and they had to make a swift about turn when the comical nature of the arrest became clear. Now, the momentum is completely with Mr Hazare and the government is ...

I am interested in Higher Education: I believe that expanding Higher Education opportunities, through private sector participation if necessary, is key to create opportunities of social progression. I am not alone in this - this is possibly the most commonly held view in the UK and the United States - and this allows me to think favourably about what I do. Even if the Private Higher Ed is run for a profit, I argue, this performs an important social function, and helps change the society for better. At this time, however, I am trying to question this deeply held belief - does it? The reason I question is because I am at that time in life when I feel like questioning everything I took for granted. In a way, I am starting a new life. I am out of the burn-out I was suffering around this time last year and have a far more positive world view than I had before. Despite the series of deaths in my family, I have lost four very close people since this January including my brother, and ind...

If the stock markets are to be believed, the US and the European economies are on the verge of a double-dip, a second recession in three years, which will possibly, inescapably perhaps, lead into a long great depression, the second time in modern history. Whether or not that really happens, one thing is clear: If we thought the recession of 2008 would be a short-lived affair, it turned out to be far more persistent. With governments and central banks across the OECD countries frozen into a rudderless chaos, as against their initial strident response with big stimulus and matching rhetoric, we can only expect the worst now. And, if this happens, this will transform our societies completely and reshape history, remember the last great depression ended in a global war and ensuing detente lasting over six decades, and these days and weeks would go down in history when we brought this upon ourselves, through our collective senselessness. The warning signs were all there. In 2008, we kne...