Musings ....

I have been called many things in my life. Team player is not one of them. It is not as if I have worked in many teams, or many teams have chosen me to work with them. I am the kid who was left out from the group formation as a kid in middle-school standard. Imagine the isolation. Recently, Aparna Piramal Raje, who is also my professor, quoted : Dare to stand alone,  Dare to make yourself grow, Dare to find your purpose, Dare to make it known.  Imagine, I have been doing it since I was a kid. The presence of a group can seem less fortunate sometimes than presence of lone Sysiphious warrior. Although now, it is difficult in a hyper-globalized world. I am learning the art of group management and negotiation, treading Moore's law every second. Since years, when I started volunteering. In the past few months I have been found fortunate opportunity with Anant Fellowship. I am a part of team with four more people. We have frequent conversations on Google meet. We have weekly interactions

I am a human being. I need to prove it day and night. As a human being I have to caricature the values of the people around me. To be human is to be a part of a tribe. A tribe with norms and positions with a role. I did not choose a lot of things in life. My mother, my father, my brother, my sister. Even my wife wasn’t chosen by me. I am a passive person true to Shakespearean quote, “ we are but actors in a play, acting the roles”. I have thought sometimes, who is the playright ? My mother told me it was the god who made the stage, wrote the script and directed us all. As long as we did good to our loved ones, played by the rules of the society and did good karma I will one day get off the stage and sit peacefully at the end of my life.  I had accepted all of it with humility. It is a hereditary trait in my tribe. My ilk and kith rely on the buttons that are programmed since ages. To listen and do no evil. Yes sir, no sir, jee huzoor, hanji maalik, in my mouth rings all these monikers.

How important is your culture to yourself? You never arrive at this conclusion, until temporal lens allows a retrospection of your past. What do you count as a culture? Is it intangible or tangible? Is it in the marble stones that have turned soft like the cheeks of your beloved? The coarse closet cheeks aren’t irritable anymore. The disgust towards my beloved is alien as if it never was. Now that the dark peppery beddings of white coffee mug have changed, does it rest asleep across the town? What is her identity in new built environment beside the jamb?  Would the color green and carmine, remind of what you left behind and make you cry. The love, they tell is in the eyes of the beholder. How wrong that woman is who observed the naked emotion but not the nudity behind. The mind’s own eyes leers in the past and yearn for that home. It is not the daytime but nights that turn harder. More than the path where foot found their feet, crumbled and learnt to rise again. What is the relatio

When Institutions that are trying to break free from the past. They also re-enforce the same value system to claim legitimacy in their present. What are the consequences?  ‘Why are students given deadlines in classrooms when choosing disciplines for attending a classroom? I was given a list of subjects to choose from, and among them I had to choose a few within a stipulated time. Luckily enough I got all which I chose. After a month, I requested to be added in the classroom. Having missed the deadline, I felt shame when I didn't receive the answer to my request on first go for many days. At first, I thought I made a mistake. After I pressed the button second time, I received a reply. It gave me a world of knowledge to ask some new questions. This also got me thinking the same question I asked in my undergraduate college. Unable to skip streams after first year of education, I was told to start afresh in the application process and waste a year. I'm investigating the mind of ins

Can you quantify happiness?  Ok, I see your predicament. When were you happy last time? Called a friend? Had a lush dinner? Slept after a long time? Don't say Netflix binge is your favorite. (Not judging) Fine, you can lie that you gym and jog.  Mine is appreciation after I write an article. Mind you, it is not the only pleasure I am guilty of. Among many it is at the top of my list I can assure you. You know, it is not easy for policy student to write. Boring briefs, and white paper drafts ... yuck.  They do add flavor to the power corridors making changes in their own style. I like to play with the emotion as you read my piece.  Recently I wrote an article about Electronic City in Bangalore. Oh yes, I finally got a chance to do it. It is not easy to fire up the grill and cook a tikka as you desire. I fleshed out that baby drawing from my experiences of dirtiest underbellies of that city. The unsaid, ignored, cornered talk ... relax, it was just taboo that was written thro

Human Species have caused damage to the Earth. This is believed by many scientists. It is an untruth and a myth for many believers just like many scientists believe in the opposite. Did we ever wonder why the two sides don't agree with each other?  One, the calculation of damage by climate change is hard to quantify. Which damage to give more priority? Damage to the rain forests or the tearing apart of glaciers? Fire in the forests or the smoke from coal plants? The calculation is difficult in quantitative terms. Garbage heaps are measured in tons. When the air pollution is charted in ratios of millions. Do you care about the marine life? Or do you use PET in the Himalayas?  Humans like complexity. Their brains do not.  If we break down history of the cosmos (yes from the Big Bang!). I hate to break the news (don't mind please) but, humans have existed for a few seconds in the entire time since the beginning of time itself. Maybe the picture of the clock would help you. Dart yo

 A lot of people in the 21st century forget. The way to happiness is to excel at that which is boring. That what excites the senses, is not the presence of happiness in the beginning of the task. Instead an accomplishment of a task by the time you have spent your last breath.  Brain works in mysterious ways.   Begin with the most boring task that life provides you, finish it.  Takeway: Deliberate lowering of dopamine is the key to a happy life.  

Silk Board cross-section bus-stop arrives. It tells you to take a short nap now. The twenty kilometers up-till Infosys office will take more than 60 minutes. It is a hot day. So take out your handkerchiefs. You might want to cry when you lose your patience. Electronic city was built as a satellite town at the southern periphery of Bangalore. The British city of retired sarkari babus discovered new wiry roots. The first world found cheap labor in the third world sleepy town. The eager and industrious Indians found an opportunity. Today when you step into Bangalore it is clouded with towering glass building and the dusty road. Sending an ambitious message of ‘who’ you can become irrespective ‘whose’ you are. Big engineering colleges, Thai and Chinese snack kiosks, along the unpaved walkways of the city make space for those who are not of merit yet, but show virtuosity to trudge and work hard favored by their luck. The Indian Silicon Valley ensconces the unworthy simply with a spirit

How do I identify the problem ?  Many of us spend a lifetime in pursuit of this question. I learnt it through an unconventional way. Recently I was on the Google meet with my team. We are working first time on a project from five different locations. A colleague external to the team was present there. She was scheduled to help us all navigate some tough waters. To push aside a few conflicts and set the narrative right, she was wearing the hat of a moderator.  The meeting went on for sixty minutes. Each team member got to speak. The moderator could be seen writing notes on a paper. By the end of the meeting a few project related conflicts were converted into clarity with her support. These roadblocks had persisted over some time. The team had veered into some setbacks. When I pressed the red button to close Google meet session that day, I saw them vanish like ice on a hot summer day.  Lessons  How to solve some team issues ? Write the individual narratives on a paper under names of each