Month: June 2016

Festivals : Diaspora markers of the Past

On a crowded Deepawali or Hari Raya eve in Little India, we can observe a sea of humanity passing by, the excitement palpable in the air and faces gleaming with joy. Festivals in Singapore serve as cornerstones of a multicultural society founded on respect for different beliefs and cultural affiliations.Various communities and sub groups within it have observed festivals as days to mark their togetherness and to celebrate diversity as the cultural fabric of this city state. In that nuance, festivals are registers of memory, emotion and a past that a person tries to cling to as time fizzles away like sand in a glass jar. I remember spending Hari Raya eve with Bangladeshi and Indian friends at Usman, a Pakistani food joint at the intersection of Desker Road and the main Little India fareway over masala chai and pakoras will 3am in the morning chatting away in anticipation of something more than a public holiday.
The Thaipusam procession along Veerasamy Road to Bencoolen with packed devotees and bystanders is a spectacle of culture and faith for the Tamil Hindu Community in Singapore.
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Pic: Thaipusam Celebrations 2016 in Little India, Singapore (Photo: Author)
Likewise, the Bengali Hindu Community from India and Bangladesh celebrate Durga Puja in differing ways but the cultural importance of the festival is salient.
Hari Raya or Eid Ul Fitr is celebrated by different communities in their varied traditional flair, with the values faith, community and family as the bedrock after a month of prayer, penance and fasting. As a perennial migrant who has lived overseas in Oman and Singapore for many years, festivals were days i looked forward to engage as spaces of culture and memory along with donning the traditional attire and digging in to good food. Festivals serve larger purposes of social integration in multicultural societies as nodes of interaction between the mainstream and the margins of metropolis.
At the human level, Festivals are about celebration of values and bonding.
This is the true essence of a festival.

Writing as more than Communication

Writing is more than dishing out information, it’s about expression, aesthetics and shattering the silence. Mediocre writing is insincere at its heart. Great writing is not verbose, yet detailed enough, engaging and not indulgent. Writing is the mainstay of communication as we write emails, chat or write consulting reports. Great writing as a skills takes years of practice and mentoring by seniors who are amazing communicators themselves. Read material which expands ones imagination rather than sheer vocabulary. Writing after all is more than articulating data in words but about informing new visions for the future.

The nature of work is changing

The entire point of work is to make a dent and not to simply warm the pews of the Church of life. The nature of work is changing; most jobs will be automated and service sector work will be replaced by bots and AI tools. The future lies in work which is meaningful and cannot be replicated by information technology and data which is not found on the Internet, rather insights which are there in the community through ethnographic work. Interview probes that make sense can’t be replaced by software. Impact lies in creative disruption and methods that are constantly innovated upon. The nature of learning has to change in order to avoid being jobless in 5 years time. Move to professions which are purely value driven by innovation and are people centered. ‪

The fourth industrial revolution is changing everything through artificial intelligence. We better be shaping social infrastructure accordingly else unrest is only two skipped meals away.

Pragmatic Hillary

Sanders is like Paul, with great optimism and no structural strength to carry all the way through. Inspiring ideas, do not get you the top job as in politics as business who you know matter and what you can do really does not. Only political entrepreneurial initiatives such as AAP can succeed as they back their ideas with action. Hillary is one sharp political operator, preparing the ground for years. I wish her the best against ‘The Apprentice’

Nil Battey Sannata:A Short Quip

Nil Battey Sannata is a damn good film. Swara Bhaskar as a trained Sociologist from JNU stars as a house help with a grit and determination with an aspiration larger than her reality. ‪#‎NBS‬ depicts the condition of government school education. The true measure of poverty is the paucity of dreams rather than a material construct. Good cinematography is a stand out feature of the film along with some solid performances. More power to indie films.‪