My migrant transporter friend from Chittagong loves Falguni Pathak tracks. SAARC succeeds in the GCC.

It will be a feat of intellectual production to reimagine the restructuring of the economies of the petroleum world from Moscow to Medan in the post oil era particularly when the world is staring at USD 10 per barrel prices in the upcoming decade as solar and wind, become mainstream with Electric Vehicles leading the caravan in the mobility and renewable revolution. Some real feat will be that report.

It’s amazing that Migrants in Singapore with real talent such as MD Sharif and Amrakajona Zakir Bhai are getting a shot at publishing their experiences in text along with Mukul, who has become a micro celebrity of sorts. These are real authors with talent. Mohsin Malhar Gwee Li Sui Shivaji Das Theophi Kwek Cai Yinzhou and others who have heralded the ecosystem deserve a rich pat on the back. Richard Angus Whitehead too deserves a mention for academically studying this phenomenon.

Having been a co partner in this journey, this Singapore case study has carry over experiences for Hong Kong and the Gulf.

#MigrantLiterature

#Singapore

Cities are the engines of our global economic paradigm and the arts have not shied away from reflecting this material reality from the cultural mirrors. Art, reflects, refracts and deflects life from the living on to the rubric of text and visual art. Cities have a unique DNA on to itself but have something universal in this age of neoliberal capitalism where malls dot the landscape from Medan to Muscat where the Americano from Starbucks shall not fail you thanks to the tropes of quality driven by standard operating procedures, a way in which imperialism is recirculated.

Text and visual art, are tools of soft power, hence questions of representation are critical. Cities have been a powerful muse of writers and directors in India and around the world. A slice of the city in 300 pages or 120 minutes is often our introduction to our beloved cities. Bollywood or the Hindi Film Industry and Indian Writing in English have lent cities their reflections and it’s shape in popular discourse.

Mumbai is written about in Suketu Mehta’s Maximum City in the most accurate way for a tome which is seminal for exploring the darker underbelly of the megapolis. Mumbai similarly has found notoriety in gangster land flicks such as D, Company, Satya and most recently Haseena.

Kolkata on the other hand has been the muse for movies since the 1950’s such as Howrah Bridge and over the years, Kolkata has featured as the backdrop for many Bollywood films including more recently Teen, Yuva, Pinku, Kahani and Gunday which evoke Kolkata as a poignant backdrop to their screenplays with a Howrah Bridge and the Ghats almost visually over powering the narratives. Kolkata has a strong literary culture to say the least, being the fountainhead of Indian Writing in English. Prof Amit Chaudhuri’s Calcutta tells the stories of life lived in the city as does Kushnava Choudhury’s recent book ‘The Epic City’ on life in Calcutta.

The microscopic mechanics of what makes a book great versus a film wonderful to watch are distinctly different to each other. In this age of video, films have a catalytic impact on how cities are constructed in the popular imagination. This has an effect on tourism dollars and employment creation. Books are often the inspiration for films as the raw text.

Representation is a important anchor in books and films of how cities are framed. Is Mumbai, only gangster land, or the land of the dream factory? Is Kolkata only the Howrah Bridge, a totem of the past, where the past is the only texture worth portraying?

The politics of representation is a complex mine field. Cities are complex creatures and metabolic entities fusing, breaking apart everyday to create a new cartography of imagination. Are the books and films doing justice? Did Slumdog Millionaire do enough for Mumbai; I beg no.

The South Asian migrant

a peculiar beast watching India TV on YouTube

eats sabzi roti and Biryani

discusses Nawaz or NaMo

Lauds the progress back home

But finds himself

Neither at home in Karama or Kanpur

His holidays are spent thinking about heading back

And his days overseas

Are spent thinking about the upcoming trip

Months away

The conundrum

For the opportunistic

Comfort loving soul

Writing is too much of a performance art

All for the audience

All for the SEO

Just Write

With the raw edges

For the writer self

For the art

Not the critique

Not for the Critic

Write for the stories

Within you

The gift is not for the market

Even the proto poems

Are gold

Salon Tales with 1990’s Bollywood tracks on YouTube on a smartphone, on borrowed wifi, with hairstylist chattering away in Awadhi, a dialect of Hindi from the Lucknow region in Uttar Pradesh, India talking about gyms and diets. The vernacular and cosmopolitan blend effortlessly in the Gulf. A Gulf Modernity which is unique to the region among the migrant communities. A life anchored in memories of home, via Bollywood, but seeking to keep up with the times so that they are competitive enough in the brutal marriage market back home, hence the calories count.

#barbersofmuscat

Snowman is as smooth as the Volvo and is from the same Northern Europe thriller mould as the Girl with a Dragon Tattoo, again a book adaption from its namesake. The canvas it’s beautiful, with solid character actors. A good watch although strictly R18 with the gore.

#changethinker

#moviereviews

In the era of now

Bringing money on the table

Buys respect

More people

Fewer Opportunities

In Academia, is grants

In the private sector

Is called Business Development

In the Non Profit space

It’s known as Fund Raising

The bottom line is the green back

Bitcoin or not

Money is the fuel of the engine

Of life

The Sustainability business works on two counts: regulatory drivers or it reduces cost. No social good thing works ‘sustainably’

Regulatory compliance has its roots in ecological and social justice translated in to policies and projects, undergirded by politics and law.

Cost savings in a recessionary economy is the holy grail. The sweet spot is often when solutions are simple; reduced to an ROI number, reflected in an excel budget sheet. This would require technology, law and economics to blend in seamlessly, which is an intellectually uphill task.

Remember, the client has the same information as you; Google is pretty democratic.