Author: changethinker

Born and raised in Mumbai, India with an undergrad degree from Oman and a masters degree from the National University of Singapore. I am an Environmental Professional with a passion for Sustainability, Social Innovation and Governance related issues. A Change Agent in the making who believes that small is beautiful and that impact can be achieved -one soul at a time.

Writing Cities

When I started writing on cities five years back on changethinker, I could feel a connection with the urbane heart as i have written on Muscat, Mumbai, Delhi and Singapore and other places where I have travelled. I now realise that this urbanity book project was a precursor to my interest in urban design with a focus on social and environmental planning. The book project on urban spaces and development is a broth on slow boil. It has many stories to be crystallised in its digital pages. The urgent book project regarding Digital Modernity has overlaps with my original project on urban lives.

Christmas Food Diaries in Muscat

Christmas in Muscat during growing up years and college years, was about Church but also a meal with Baba and Ma, with turkey, chicken stragonoff, chicken kiev and cream caramel from Al Aktham Restaurant in Al Khuwair. Years later, by the LORD’s Grace and Mercy, I am back in Muscat working with a set of professionals who have trusted in me again and again. This year, today on a working Christmas I ate the same menu apart from the non available turkey, with my beautiful wife (she has made a steaming stew and fried rice this was the main course), gave me goosebumps and thankful for all the memories and blessings. Food is a celebration and an anchor to the past. Geography in the head, is not only spatial but sensory and food is more than mere morsels. Amen.

Digital as Vector

Digital will matter when it brings about structural changes in daily life. Über is a taxi firm masquerading as a tech company. It’s success was brought about by three different factors; GPS, high speed data and the smart phone. Digital piggybacks on neoliberal capitalism for velocity and direction. Digital is a vector element, and a resultant of many scalars converging in an appropriate plane comprising of space and time. Hence it is not a technology, but a pipeline, a platform for power; an ideology in short. Smart cities, AI and Crypto currency are the vectors mapping the digital, the Modernity which is refreshing every moment. If you don’t believe it, refer to the Gartner Tech Hype Cycle curve for 2018.

Year in Writing: In Review

I count my blessings in having a wonderfully supportive partner and family, in my most experimental year till date. I published my first poetry in Banglar Kantha edited by Mohsin Malhar Da. I wrote a full long length story on Singaporean NGO Politics for the platform too. I thank Mohsin Da for his support over the past three years.

I wrote a series on DeMo and Digital as well as edited Alochonna from Delhi, thanks to Prof Mubashar Hasan, for who I pray that he comes back safe and sound. I started writing on cinema for The World of Apu edited by Ramchander Krishna and Anusha Srinivasan as well. I wrote my first poetry collection and curated a photo essay on Migrants.

This year started off in Kolkata and the new few months were spent in Delhi writing my book draft on Digital Modernity and consulting for non profits. I wrote an article on homelessness shelters in East Delhi on the banks of the Yamuna during last winter. I was however not paid for this assignment among others. Perils of independent work took a hit on the financial end. However, I have learnt a lesson or two on entrepreneurship. I end the year in Muscat where I work on projects which I am passionate, and contribute to projects of national significance.

I write, hence I am. Happy Holidays!

Gujarat Polls Decoded

Gujarat election result is expected, that the invincible BJP will win; a close race was ruled out by and wake up call for the ruling dispensation. Amit Bhai’s Mission 150, busted for good is an excellent result for the Congress. The myth of absolute might of the election winning machinery of Modi ji-Amit Bhai has been disrupted. Rahul ji has got his playbook right; local leaders such as Jignesh and Hardik, Hindu Politics which is not rabid and a pleasant image, espousing approachability. This election will have spill over effects for neighboring Rajasthan and the states of Madhya Pradesh/CG.

The opposition needs rebooting with the HAJ model. New faces on the ground and a freshness away from Lutyens. It was three young leaders who saved the day for the Congress. The established leaders on the contrary lost. We don’t need Prashant Kishore’s of the world with their laptop politics, but on the ground leaders. Elections are won on the ground on polling day rather than online. There is however the politics of Watsapp forwards, and the 66A issue.

If these are implemented in the next year, there will be a contest for 2019. Otherwise it will be a walkover.

Digital: Beyond Cartography

Digital is a reality we experience in the communicative realm along with e commerce now a days. The functionality of technology makes life easier to navigate and negotiate. Digital is underwritten by technology and anchored in neoliberalism which makes its velocity ferocious having both direction and magnitude. The vector of the digital is inter weaving through society. However, the epistemology of Digital is rooted in more aesthetic configurations.

Digital is an imagination which is beyond the constraints of cartography. It hooks physical reality with technological determinism. The hope of the digital is more powerful than the present functionality of the paradigm. The investment in the hope factor, makes it powerful. Neoliberal cash follows the momentum of technology, to generate better returns.

Smart Nation philosophy of Estonia, with its radical e-residency structure is banking on the success of IT platforms such as Skype, moves the nation ahead of its limited birth rates and geographic limits. Singaporean technocrats are leveraging digital to meet is urban planning challenges, and has a dedicated minister incharge of Gov Tech, exemplifying the People Action Party’s faith in pragmatism and planning far ahead of the curve. The notion and practice of Digital in the Smart Nation narrative fits in perfectly.

India too is creating an ambitious Digital agenda with the philosophy percolating in daily lives through Aadhar. This is in thorough difference to its challenge in sanitation and hunger. A bundle of paradoxes at every node which India is. The ideology of the digital is beyond the technology which it’s creators write the code. An imagination which has a dark flip side in shaping society for the worse among which is loss of jobs due to automation.

More than just a ‘Like’: Image in the Era of the Digital

Image in the age of Instagram has democratized the access of visual information and art previously the exclusive preserve of art galleries in the power capitals of the world, but cannibalising monetisation opportunities for the visual artist. A simple netizen has access if interested to the Magnum photographers collective work at the click of the smart phone. It’s powerful as the visual art informs people of different angles of the world previously unexplored. The conversation has transformed into a dialogue, young visual artists from Salt Lake, Kolkata such as Ronny Sen, can inform narratives from Kolkata which are bottom up. Similarly Arko Datto with his engaging visual commentary on climate change is adding to the discourse as Aarti Kumar Rao, an environmental photographer whose work on riverine ecosystems has been phenomenal.
Instagram has with the filters, has monocultured a visual aesthetic, a very millennial aesthetic. The filters are filter choice architecture. Technology is augmenting the art of the image, as Animation has added its wizardry to cinema. Where is Technology limiting art? Is there a boundary? Bangladeshi Photographer recently was lambasted over social media for ‘editing’ his photos in a project in a red light area.
How is image consumed? A photo which has been captured over hours/days/weeks especially for an ethnographic project is ‘seen’ in a flicker of a second. Is it justified? The deluge of visual data is saturating our attention spans.  The same is valid for the documentary/commercial movie business. Netflix/Amazon Prime and it’s desi equivalent in Alt Balaji is shifting content consumption patterns to the smart phone from the theatre. The power of decision making is moving to a different set of executives. The tech  executives in Seattle and the Palo Alto area have the key to the purse strings rather than studio bosses. The clout of the star producer can whittle down, and women actors can feel safer. The indie film makers have a new audience for its content; the cutting edge work from film festival circuits have a broad audience.  There is a new economy at play for a new digital visual narrative.
The power of social media as an amplifier was observed during the #metoo movement, that the bunch of pioneer activists such as Rose MacGowen are the Times Magazine  Person of the Year. The powerful from Kevin Spacey to Charlie Rose was shown the door. The über popular ‘House of Cards’ dropped Spacey while the final season continues with the real star Robin Wright. I totally adore her character, Claire Underwood.
The digital natives consume experiences on the digital. Instagram with its own exotica such as the Tiger Nest in Bhutan to sky diving in New Zealand is noted/catalogued in the cloud of the digital archive. The cultural sector as well as the food business are victims of this millennial fetish. The photos from the UNESCO Heritage Town in Penang is primed up for photos for Instagram. Restaurants all over the world with social media branding gurus, are creating Non distinguishable spaces. Food porn does not make always for electric viewing.
The digital as a cultural realm is the field for the visual arts to curate the popular imagination. The movie makers, photographers and editors have a duty to create experiences for the audience to challenge their thinking. The last thing would for Instagram/Netflix to stream business as usual content, reflecting creative decisions on , reflecting creative decisions on cable and in print.