I love the entrepreneurial instincts of folks from Dhaka, with or without Education who want to work in Probash to earn money and do something in life. It’s so refreshingly different with regards to linguistic cousins from Kolkata who are often awaiting sarkari jobs. Although in the past few months I have found restaurant staff from Malda and Bandel too.

Soul, like a sponge is born free

School packages it

To be an employee

To pay taxes to the state

As a consumer to the market

It then becomes a stat

A good citizen

The soul is only important

On the death bed

Where ethical accounting

Kicks in

And the ledger of sins is tabulated

It is a product after all

To be traded in the moral marketplace of souls

Chastising Shah Faesal, a Mason Fellow at Harvard and Activist Civil Servant from Kashmir is a huge own goal. In the age of the digital, hundred year old structures do not work, as one tweet can be enough. An IAS topper with a mind of his own, now with access to Ivy League networks, can be a really potent critic in the perennial tinderbox of Srinagar. A future politician in the making, which New Delhi will have a handful of problems.

It seems from the sustainability fraternity as can be captured from the discourse, narratives and conversations in the digital realm that it is all about meta climate change and finance linked adaptation and associated instruments. The hype from climate change related events, usually PR gigs and the financialization of the climate change narrative, at a global level does a massive disservice to the nuance of climate change itself; impact in the everyday lived experience of people . Legal drivers do more good for climate change at the level of the nation state compelling organisations and communities to adapt them all the nudge through fancy ted talks. More structural drivers towards behaviour and action and less talk. No amount is of youth conferences will help in combating extreme weather events and it has been a hot year this summer. The onus is responsibility at the individual level will be transform structural deficits. Make people lose money and then watch the wheel of change move.

I welcome RIL to the higher education space as the Jindal’s, Nadar’s or even Ashoka are in the game as well. The criticism of the institutes of excellence tag is like a Bollywood award show where the award is purchased with clout. India is a land of ‘Sifarishilals’ hence RIL or Jio University is no different, hence I don’t buy much in to that reasoning. The economic might of RIL can be a game changer in education. People with money have always influenced the course in education in a neoliberal system. Humanities and Social Science Folks mocking the fracas on social media will be the first in the queue to apply for a rare well paid faculty position in India or even an endowed faculty chair.

My hair stylist friend from western Uttar Pradesh, commented that the other colleague has refused to rejoin work as he wants to get married and he won’t get any more leave as they get leave, once in two years and due to visa issues, it is hard to get replacements. I asked him, will he get suitable employment back home?

My friend commented with an air of confidence: ‘we get barber work anywhere we walk in, as there are not too many. It is the educated that they find it difficult to get work. We walk with our bag and get going.’

Take life as it comes.

#karakchaitales

After binge watching 8 episodes of Sacred Games on Netflix (a personal record of sorts as the last series I watched was The House of Cards in Singapore) it was can be Saifly said, that the Nawab is a polished actor, more suited towards nuanced roles and Sartaj Singh is one. The series is so refreshing, reminds me of Bombay Blue on Star Plus many stars ago. Neeraj Kabi and Nawaz are an acting Tour De Force.

The karak chai shops, serve not only the milky, sweet brew which is the gulf version of doodh wali chai, in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The south Asian Male worker diaspora regales in each sip as if reclaiming home, and life in a way. These shops are liminal spaces, and in between between the public and private, gossiping away work tales after hours, in native tongues while sweltering away in the balmy summer evenings. The truck driver from Pindi and the restaurant manager from Mumbai share an unlikely space, while the Bangladeshi supermarket assistant from Chandpur banters with a hair stylist from Banki in Uttar Pradesh. Colonial India gets mapped in these realms with paper cups and plastic chairs as post colonial South Asia dissolves over various versions of Urdu/Hindi infected with Bangla, Malayalam and Punjabi. The humble chai in a paper cup creates common spaces for banter which Track 2 dialogues often fail to succeed. This is a fleeting kinship of belonging fuelled by ambitions of feeding mouths back home.