In the atomised hyper neo liberal AI hypercharged era, every employee has to be a value creator aka bring money on the table. The founder is not the only custodian of the risk arbitrage. Now the problem is- most of the education we get at college makes us risk averse and seeking the public sector gig, which is limited. Folks in West Bengal preparing for NET please note, there is a life outside government exams; May a starting off at a market research company or KPI shall help. YouTube is not for Cat Videos only. The gravity of text is passé in our online streaming MOOC generation.

The nature of the future of work is changing the very foundations of society as we rush through MRT or at the back of our share cab, invested in playing the latest game on our tab. Easy access to data is killing critical thinking which will replace your job by automation. The world is getting dumber by googling it. Privacy, Information bubbles, Information search skills and validation, creeping in on our lazy habits of copy and paste from the mail to writing lines of code to constructing poor arguments is only making the current employment crop very replaceable. The tsunami called future of work is knocking and most are plugged in on their headphones, not able to process the noise.

Coping from failure and relearning are the top skills for the future. Is someone preparing a course, to reskill for the AI era?

Dr Arvind Subramanian changed the terrain of the Economic Survey report. I thoroughly enjoyed the topical essays and the GIS based data collection and Analytics. I sat beside him at a book launch in Delhi 16 months back and he was down to earth and rather communicative. India loses talent one by one.

The urban politics of AAP as an alternative vision is dead. Revolutions die as usual in internal power games. It elects jokers to the Rajya Sabha where it had the opportunity to send activists to the upper house. YY and Prashant Bhushan where the intellectual consciousness of the movement. Every one knew that NCR is a half state. Now it is the Delhi Kejriwal Sanghathan. I hope it loses all 7 seats in Delhi next year. It is a betrayal of public trust.

World Cup Football 2018 on a projector at a Turkish eatery with coffee and Shwarma, and frenetic Arabic Commentary in Muscat. Takes me two decades back to France ‘98 when as a child I watched the greatest celebration of the Global Game on Rotana. It’s Mexiki versus Al German going on now. Cannot be more at home.

Bania Traders from Kutch (in Muscat) and Chettiars from Tamil Nadu as trade diaspora in the early twentieth century, from ‘A Hundred Horizons: The Indian Ocean in the Age of Global Empire’ by Historian and MP Sugata Bose.

I sometimes wonder how much little do we know about the region we live in apart from living in our ghettos and watching vernacular channels or reading news from back home. The world is not growing more intelligent by the democratisation of data in the era of the digital, information needs to be read. Information is not for the search engine.

Dreams fade

The exuberance to jump at the deep end of the pool wanes

A dawn happens

Of the times lost

While exploring the wild side

May be the jet skiing was worth it

Or the hours spent on the food court

Or the hours writing away

To realise that

Capital wins

And the 16 year old lost

Poetry, and other narrative devices are crucial for business. Poetry helps in locating the human condition. The human condition is not all datafied to be plotted on a curve or fitted in to an algorithm. Markets are communities of people. Your consumer is a human. Analytics should be about meeting your consumer need. Tech Bros get derailed by their lack of empathy. Read poetry. Start with Rupi Kaur.

Bourdain’s work is anthropological and food was merely the pretext. Waiting for some grad school rookie to write this thesis proposal on parts unknown. Rest in Swag, Mr. Bourdain. A Vassar dropout, this judoka was as cool while speaking to Mr. Obama in Hanoi as he was asking the tough questions in his trips to conflict zones. Parts Unknown had a profound impact on me. A wide gaping chasm in the discourse on ideas.

Have pride in the steps taken

In your journey

As it is only yours to experience

The recruiters straightjacket is passé

As in the fourth Industrial revolution (or whatever the WEF likes to call it)

Only folks with the agility to transform on demand

Will play the game

It was a Ramadan Month Weekday in Muscat at a posh mall, for a show at Iftar time and still the hall was nearly full with eager expats waiting for Thalaivar to show his social justice antics with Pa. Ranjith, Dalit Leftist Film maker, whose ideological moorings were evident with Kabali, where subaltern Tamil diaspora politics were the anchor. Shift frame to Kaala, the Bahujan Leftist Progressive Politics is not the subtext as in a footnote, it is rather the full thesis. It is a manifesto for Dalit politics whose framing or context is the Tamil heartland of Dharavi, the largest slum/informal urban hub in Asia, next to the International Airport in Mumbai. Dharavi is known for its Dalit Panther/Republican Party Politics since the 1970’s.

At the soul of this political project with a small p, is land rights for the urban poor in slums. Rajnikanth, the film legend turn wannabe politician is Kaala, the muscle man and community organiser from Dharavi, whose struggle to keep the district away from the clutches of the land sharks in the cloak of development and cleanliness (think Swachch Bharat and New India, as clean and pure Mumbai/ the overlaps are plenty with even a ‘Digital Dharavi’) and politics of religion seems like a direct rebuke of the politics of the BJP. The cold blooded but suave politician named Haridev Dada, as Nana Patekar is a good foil to the strong screen presence of Rajnikanth, and there are plenty of high pitch duels on screen. Huma as the Muslim reformer protagonist plays her part with poise. There are a bunch of star talent from the Tamil, Marathi and Hindi Film Sectors including Tripathi and Sayaji Shinde who are the ballast of the cinematic initiative.

The inferences to untouchability and Buddha/Ambedkar are present almost in every second frame of the film. The red and blue colors at the end of the film are clearly anti Savarna and Capitalism. Raees had the Gujarat riots as subtext as well as Shanghai which was about the politics of urban land acquisition for SEZs. Kaala is about the urban poor, and a massive advert for the Ambedkarite movement. Prakash Ambedkar and Mayawati among other owe a meal to Pa. Ranjith and his Activist school of cinema albeit in a populist foil with rap music and a fancy SUV.

The slum common loo as a locus for social interaction is depicted subtly in the vain of Joachim and Bezwada. The role of meat and alcohol in Dalit life is also stressed. Notions of Brahminical purity are parodied in the film. Kaala is juxtaposed as Ravana, and Hari Dada as Krishna, and parallels with mythological characters are drawn. There is a strong anti a Hindutva bent to the film, with the word ‘Fascist’ being uttered, which is unprecedented in today’s times. A film which is purely an answer to the times we live in. A courageous film at many levels; commercial and activist do not go together, at all.

The politics of Kaala is not Rajni Saar’s politics in the light of his comments on Thoothukudi. Reality and Reel even in politics, do not overlap.