Just met a super courteous elderly Sikh man Sukhdev Singhji in Nehru Place after our biannual health screening, who drove us home. He broke bread with Sir Ben Kingsley during the making of Gandhi and Satyajit Ray during ‘Shatranj ke Khiladi’ as he worked for the producer of these films. He drove for 8.5 years on behalf of the Embassy of Western Sahara. We were discussing Polisario Movement and Magrebi Colonial Politics driven by phosphorus during the 15 minute drive. Some days do make me wonder about the sheer wealth of understanding academic life outside the ivory tower of Commercialization. 
Day: August 15, 2016
Bhatt on Bollywood
Mahesh Bhatt to Karan Thapar in an India Today TV Interview: ‘We make two kinds of films; to comfort the jolted, and to jolt the comforted- for the jolted it is an ice pack and painkiller, and for the rich, pain is an aphrodisiac’ in response to a question on whether cinema is for changing the world.
And
‘We are not in the truth peddling business, we are in the illusion manufacturing business’
No one articulates it better than Mr Bhatt; the provocateur exemplar.
Reimagining Azadi: Making it matter
Happy Azadi Day India. May we reimagine the way we look after marginalized communities from Bastar to Bombay as we turn 70. It seems too many folks are squeezed in the middle and on the margins. The business of democracy is an imperfect transaction, and we seem to be operating on an auto pilot mode, the energy to change the drift of the discourse on inclusive growth and buy in is missing big time. The nationalist rhetoric has to move from the Times Now Studios to the actual project delivery in the micro politics of everyday life. Let’s talk more with humility with our community members to improve livelihoods wherever we are.
The future does not lie in a utopian city overseas for the middle class, or the urban centre for the poor, it lies where we are. Aspirations need to be actualized in order for a real Idea of India to matter from the text to experience. Let India be prosperous and peaceful for the year ahead from Imphal to Anantnag. Bharat Mata Ki Jai!
Change Thinker 