As the world goes towards curating a digital present fashioning a new modern , the basics of society seem to take a back seat. The fundamentals seem to be out of focus. There is hunger and no stress on food production reform except agri biotech start ups concentrating on weed resistant strains. Farmers kill themselves in hordes, and DeMo does not make it any easier.

The era of the digital is always leading to a wave of job losses, and the good minister for railways calls it an opportunity for entrepreneurship. Digital is not adding to job creation, rather the process efficiencies are canabalizing work.

Narrative spins can shift perceptions for a while, but the ghosts of medieval realities haunt if the level jobs are not created. Development as performance mediated via totems such as bullet trains (on loan money, just before polls in Amdavad), statues and ‘Skill (Fail) India’, ‘Start Up (Where?) India and Clean (Build Toilets) India’ can take the electoral gravy train thus far.

In the IoT era, there are missing tracks which cause fatal train accidents. Where is the network of smart sensors for failure detection? Digital Modernity needs to be recalibrated to the basics. The questions we need to probe is:

Is this hype changing basic quality of life for a certain segment of the population?

Most identify based services are online in India, though can be expedited through an additional facilitation fee. Ask any small time trader negotiating the morass called the GST.

Achche Din needs more gravitas. BMKJ. Jai Maharashtra.

Guantanamo has a reference in Golden Eye, long before its tragic stature after 9/11. Golden Eye released in 1996, had a Cold War back drop, and remember my father heading to Metro at VT in Mumbai to watch the film long before the multiplex movie going culture got established in India.

Once middle class, or bordering it

Now, migrant

Not really mainstream

A service provider

A statistical note

A cog to keep prices low

In the meantime, fill stomachs

Feed families from Pindi to Palakkad

Yes, the sheer act is to recognise

And negotiate invisible glass ceilings

All an ephemeral act

Seen at home as an ATM

An outsider in the migrant Coffee shops

Drowning misery over Karak Chai

Watching Asianet on a Thursday night

Waiting for Jumma Nawaz on Friday

In the only crisp salwar

The only non work outfit in the suitcase

Waiting for the Kerala Dum Biryani after Jumma

The nap after the Biryani is gold

Then the passionate discussion on Nawaz

All waiting for the rooster to crow on a Sunday

For meter down,

For life to keep running

This life is better than working at Chawla Chicken or riding an auto

At least the migrant tag buys me respect

For whatever little it is worth

Poetry found me late at 30

But I am glad that it did

As it expresses a scoop of the soul

Like no other literary device

Remembering Mohandas in the Age of Narendra Bhai;

Both Baniyas, different beliefs, different visions of Bharat.

One was dependent on Birla, the other on Adani

Consulting firms should be open to ideas from Academia and Civil Society for better ideas for application, engagement and dialogue. There is a general whiff to be anti intellectual, and simply brush off the PhDs, as idealistic. How many consultants do read latest research on Science Direct to bring their knowledge up to speed?

Applied does not mean, forgetting the basics of validity and p values.

In this age of video, content producers are simply scratching the surface. The listicle is a lazy form of epistemological reductionism. The writerly community has an important role, in rebuking the age of alt facts, circulating over social media. Scholarship always has a legitimate space. It takes time, imagination and argument to craft theory. Theory ruptures the entire reconfiguration of everything around us to create income, efficiency and outcome. What is the outcome for radical non marketable thought ? Thinking new futures for sustainability in an non oil era, in the electric car paradigm will need a new language, away from the excel sheet, to engage the past, present and future in a continuum. Thinkers believe in more than mere citational engagement; value created is long term. Quarterly capitalism needs to be decoupled from the structures of knowledge production at best.

As usual, Mumbaikars will forget the loss of life in the ethos of so called Resilience, and continue with life hoping for its bullet train. The Mumbai Local Train system, the life line of the city is efficient and sub human at the same time. This too shall pass.

Transitions have their own pace

From one moment, status quo

To the next blink, a dramatic turn of events

Do we prepare

Yes, subconsciously

Then why are we taken aback?

The reaction to change often depends on excess space

Writing is about enjoying the process of crafting the narrative. Sharing the content to drive SEO defeats the purpose. Hollow sharing sans engagement diminishes the ‘You Inc’ brand. Share a story. Be authentic.