Month: February 2017

The Narrative of Fine Dining in India’s Power Capital 

This was an experience to understand, enjoy and ponder fine food, but good food is beyond its core culinary ingredients. Olive Bar and Kitchen, a by reservation only eatery by AD Singh- food entrepreneur who redefined the hospitality experience in post liberalisation India, is a Mediterranean place next to the Qutub, sharing space on 1 Style Mile with Sabyasachi and Ritu Kumar’s boutique. An old fort like structure next to Qutub Minar renovated to an open courtyard style restaurant, all whitewashed to present that quintessential Mediterranean feel, with lengthy shadows of old trees lending a comforting shade in the neue Delhi Summer, with the spring retreating in ferocity. In this of this weather, we chose for an indoor seat by the window. While we observed the Delhi diplomatic and fashion elite swagger and strut their way in to crowd the salad counters. While i indulged in Sangria liberally and butter sautéed prawns, it seemed a works as contrasting a scene to Migrant colonies in east Delhi. A world with characters off a page on Fox Life HD or Harpers Bazaar. 

The food was world class, comparable to Mezze, a similar Mediterranean buffet outlet in the Singaporean city centre. My partner and me chose to nibble almost everything on offer, from ham sandwiches to pork belly sausages. We were however a bit too partial to the sausages, succulent and very well done. 
The bill was pricey as the patrons stepping off the chauffeur driven Audis. The designer shades and well trimmed hair styles were almost off a fashion catalog at an Orchard Road Mall. The finely dressed women were very busy with the selfie documentation for their Instagram feeds and their hair, ofcourse as the breeze was crisscrossing the courtyard. 

The brunch is a sociological window into the Delhi power set, as the location is geographical coordinates are next door to a cluster of urban villages in Mehrauli, with posters plastered for the Akali Dal organisational poll. The place is a case study in gentrification, almost like Punggol in Singapore. Food is Politics as Anthony Bourdain says for his food program ‘Parts Unknown’, which is an anthropological enterprise. 

Most of the service staff was super prompt and courteous mainly from the North East. The Chefs on the live counter were from local hospitality schools in Punjab, as I spoke to a young man fresh from chef school, evident from his manning of the ham sandwich counter. 
A true celebration of ‘New India’ in the words of Sula Wines Founder, Mr Rajeev Samant. This ‘New India’ as New School Creative Writing Professor Siddhartha Deb wrote in his 2011 memoir of New India- ‘The Beautiful and the Damned’ is one filled with all sorts of characters. 
The pancake with maple syrup was perfect to polish off the meal, as the explosion in my debit card could not take off the feel good tinge in the head. This is an affirmative, right? 

#SundayBrunch

#FoodWriting

Digital has a price?

The issue with digital vis-à-vis any other new technology diffusion curve is a problem of scale and velocity. Algorithms as mathematical black boxes are secret rules and surveillance is omnipresent. Anything free is dangerous. Most social and civic technologies are free and give away the privacy rights without any second thought. Privacy is a social justice matter in the digital era. In India, with the digital move with BHEEM, a government led electronic wallet and KAVACH, a government sponsored anti malware software; the public and private converge in the digital space. This is core digital, in the typological spectrum of the digital; near, core and surface.

The problem is with everything free. There are no free lunches, hence big data is used in micro targeting in electoral campaigns to consumer offers. How much use digital technologies to monitor water quality real time across the developing world?

 

The BMC Polls and DeMo : A short note

The Shiv Sena, retained its vote share. The local municipal polls are fought on extremely micro issues, and a lot of ex NCP chaps moved to BJP all over Maharashtra, and the NCP+Congress crumbled. There has been a transfer of votes from NCP+Congress to the BJP. This is not a vote for DeMo, as DeMo as a shock doctrine event has left its mark, and the situation is near normal after 3.5 months, the fake 2k notes is here too as per media reports. It is a definitive symptom of normalcy. A neighbor intent on economic destabilization, will not stop at DeMo to attack the financial spine. DeMo, is a step towards a global secular theology of neoliberal finance intertwined by tech capitalism, think the multilateral agency funded ‘Better Than Cash Alliance’. In India, it wraps itself in a shroud of cultural nationalism. India is a deeply religious Hindu nation within the home, and the secularism breaks at the seams and is transactional at best. The civilizational state is a living being.

The hierarchies of analysis for an election cannot be limited to binaries.

Innovation.Disruption.Digital.

With the massive layoffs in the Indian Web 2.0 Technology Aggregator Space, as most of the VC fuelled paranoia fades away, example Snapdeal as cash is burned to capture market space, and the innovation edge is lost, finally the cash flow blues are hitting home. We need less alpha male adventurism and more bottom line rationale. Where are the good old times of building a supply chain and a clientele. Aggregators were once innovation in the transport, e-retail and food space. Now they are modular replications and a digital layer on to traditional commerce what the business+tech media calls old school brick and mortar. This however does not mean that traditional mall retail is heading for a comeback. Consumers are used to the home delivery comfort. Big Data and Machine Learning is disrupting Cntrl C+Cntrl V Consulting and Market Research. Print Media is laying off staff like there is no tomorrow. A few outlets like Monocle and FT shall make money because of quality. Sectors like International Development and Infrastructure will utilise new digital tools for non physical cross sector work. The era of Geographically Distributed Work is here even for International Development. The focus is on quality and how old school competitive edge can be sustained to deliver a sustainable bottom line.

Innovation from the employee standpoint is critical with unlearning and relearning as most of the technical knowledge is on the cloud. The essence is in the context, and how solutions can be delivered in no time. Government sector work is traditional, but disruption is up the alley there as well, with geotagging and real time data for program evaluation. We have to fly the plane while building it. Every employee is an innovator. There is no concrete philosophy in the era of the digital but some academic has to write it up.

Non Profits as Innovation Incubators

Fund Raising is the common concern of start ups and nonprofits. I guess Innovation should be another core strand in that aesthetic. Any venture which is innovative, is not in alignment with the existing structures of commerce and social constructs. Aggregators have clicked because of the convenience it renders to the consumer. They are connectors, and when they started, they were innovative, now they are the status quo, an important characteristic of the status quo is when even the established business class, the traditional mercantile groups globally whether it is the baniya or the east coast jew, or the west coast VC jump in not to solve issues via disruption, as no one does disruption or innovation out of the blue. The vexed matters such as urban homelessness have been around for decades, no one has seen money being made easily. The aggregators have a proof of concept. Lets make sanitation sexy as Jack Sim says. Or let’s make the difficult classy. Innovation works on many hierarchies. Innovation, does not pay upfront, as there is no market. That market has to be curated.

Non Profits are true incubators of disruptive ideas, start ups have a valuation imperative. Non Profit start ups, have funding issues, but they can be a grant magnet very easily once they have built the correct platform. Prasoon Kumar whom i am working with has a great innovative product for the urban homeless, is right up the alley for creating a ripple.

 

Collective Action in the Digital 

The so called digital economy crumbles, when transportation technology aggregator business models are not cost efficient, raise and burn cash to gain market share and finally when the crunch comes, the incentives are slashed, the ‘achche din’ for the cabbies are gone, most of them made almost two lakh every month, took on hefty bank loans to finance the sedans, now brace a slowdown in income. The OLA-Uber collective labor action aka strike paralysing local transport in Delhi, rewinding back to the pre digital era where autos ruled the road. After traversing diagonally to Noida from south Delhi yesterday via the good old auto via the standard meter rate, I would say they are truly the masters of the local ecosystem. The convenience of the transportation aggregator was surely missed; the GPS, the e-wallet payment etc. The standards of service have risen. This collective action, reveals how traditional urban life is. One strike can impose cracks in the era of the digital.

Need more icons

The social media jubilation over the ISRO launch only reveals the paucity of centres (read oasis) of excellence in India’s public sector. Only if we had moonshots as far as feeding the hungry, a second green revolution and housing the urban homeless. A country of a billion and a quarter, has too few present day national icons to celebrate (read vent) our national pride. A civilisation state needs a few more moments of celebration than cricket world cups and PSLV’s? We even go gaga over a flicker appearance of an Indian actor in a trashy Hollywood flick.

Writing about Written Art

If you pound the pavement, immerse oneself in a community, solidarity and stories flow, the digital pen suddenly takes up a form of authenticity. The entire mad rush for stories, to ‘build a portfolio’ mindset is the main reason for shallow writing. If there is a listicle site, you have a Caravan too. Written text is more than mere words, writing happens before the word is typed and after the word has been typed. Text is imagination, and takes up a life on its own once it is done as it is archived and is the realm of the scholar. The written work as visual art is quotidian politics. 140 characters or 5000 word long read, the art is there. Writer goes beyond the data, while the scholar is defined by it.