Sunday Posts

There is no way I could stop rolling the stone up the slope Even if it would roll back down again - I am cursed! Born to be futile is how I would be remembered, And yet remembered, not restfully anonymous My work won't end, but does anything ever complete? The meaning is in doing, rather than like a take-away meal, Each moment is spent with my senses alert My life of labour has no time to regret - I don't envy anyone's leisure, or success, I haven't expected fairness of the gods My stone's heavy, and worthy of its name, I am blessed, as I am always looking upward.

I have the wrong idea about what entrepreneurship is. I must blame my grandfather. An austere man, he built a business by working hard, paying his taxes and keeping his word. He created something. He made money, invested in blue chip stocks and lived within his means. He would turn down opportunities, much to my uncle's disappointment, if he thought he couldn't service the contract. The first English sentence I learnt - from him - is 'Cut your coat according to your cloth'. Growing up, I had plenty of disagreements with him. Most of it was political. He never voted, which enraged me. His reason was simple: In India, once one votes, a mark of indelible ink used to be put on one's index finger. He hated that and objected to the implicit lack of trust this implied. He also told me that Gandhi destroyed the country by teaching people to disobey the laws, which did not go down well with the revolutionary sympathies of a twenty-year old. However, I watched him ru...

I am putting my faith in Z.  I shall not be popular among my radical friends if I say that Z seems to be the Thatcher of the Left! He is full of conviction in a sea of opportunists and can build a broad coalition. Mrs T brought small traders and middle-classmen to the party of the landlords; Z is bringing the small traders and gig workers to the party of the intellectual snobs ( see this profile here ). The self-declared democratic socialist is cutting through the cynicism of his party colleagues - just as Mrs T did once - and making democracy meaningful again. This is why the grumpy right-wingers, Republicans as well as Democrats, are so angry. I don't want to take the Thatcher comparison too far, but one I can't avoid: Thatcher was serious and admonishing, appropriate for her stiff-upper-lip party; Z is sunny and smiles all the time, just as the constituency he represents, those on minimum wage who must keep hope, does. The Clinton-Blair left imagined Thatcher's policies ...

Let us defeat fear with hope. Let joy overcome the gloom.   Darkness no more, let the morning bring   The task of building a future of our own.   No, we have said.    Now, let us begin yes.

I have forever been preparing for this, but now I am starting it. I want to write the history of the colonial university in India.  I was supposed to start this in 2019, but Covid and various personal crisis kept me from it. I am living through yet another crisis, but that only tells me that there would be no better time and that I should get started. The upside of this current crisis - if there could be any upside at all - is that I am completely grounded and now I won't think of travelling, for work or for leisure, for a very long time. I am recalibrating all my work and focusing on what I can do in the UK, first time in the 22 years I have lived here, and this gives me the stability and focus a project like these demands. Indeed, I am expecting archival work to be done in India and elsewhere, but that is different from spending time in airport lounges. In summary, I am embracing a quieter, boring life, with my only pleasure emanating from doing this work that I always w...

Project-based Learning (PBL), in its various forms, has many benefits, not least that it puts application at the heart of learning and allows learners to connect their knowledge more effectively to their lives. But I came to appreciate it from another angle altogether: sitting in the classrooms of a top university, as a mature immigrant who spoke English as a second language, I have come to see how much one takes for granted in traditional university education and how subtle, unintentional exclusion can work. Projects, particularly those that allowed me to work with my peers, enabled me to learn differently, with my eagerness and work ethic making up much of the cultural deficit I initially faced. Thereafter, I have consistently been an advocate, dedicating my entire career to exploring and refining it. Because it does need perfecting! My work in PBL usually involves two kinds of negotiation: one with educators who think PBL results in poor learning, cannot be adequa...

 Photo by Vance Osterhout on Unsplash The standard approach to enhancing employability outcomes in Higher Education takes the form of additional soft skills and technical skills training, internships, career counselling and renewed efforts to ensure campus placement. All of these have their place but the changes in the employer expectations, structures of the professions and breakdown of the traditional career paths demand changes in the traditional, one-size-fits-all approach. As such, there are five key factors why the standard approach isn't enough and must change: 1. Different student motivations: Students in higher education today are different from the students in large, traditional universities. They are often older, from ethnic minority ba...