India has entrenched binaries
Metropolitan Elite versus the hinterland
Vernacular versus Cosmopolitan
Now, Secular means Graft
And Development for Majoritarianism
Definitions are being reframed
Although the basics stand still
Food on the plate
Roof on the head
Job to support the family
These are a few of everyone's favourite things

One turned pious
Only, forgot to be human

In urgent times
Poetry turns Polemic
For a reason
When art itself is not response enough
Poetry drips reality
Arundhati writes fiction as real it can get
Poetry needs an intimate urgency too
———————

Nation Building is synonym for sacrifice
Rituals and Totems of the Nation State
The Flag, The Anthem, The Parliament
Are all vital
Academia is as well
Human Development indicators matter
A Tank is not one of them
No wonder we trail our neighbours
As progress is blinkered
And the Nation Is an imagined community
With people at its core
Which is often forgotten/foreign, conveniently

Temples of Post Modern Aspiration 

Frames lifted from a Science Fiction work

Delight anticipated, rather than dystopia 

All wired and plugged into a perennial data performance dashboard 

Where everything is smart

City/Nation

Even the Cow

Where prejudice is baked in to deep fried data

Where are the questions of Memory and Heritage

Culture and Social Inclusion

Oh, Smart. Is itself a Digital Culture 

Erasing the non progressive past

A vanguard for Digital Modernity

Baby Driver is a different car thrill and chase film. It’s cute, with a heart and great fun watching the film. The film’s anchor is in urban freeways and music and the iconic iPod is a symbol of urban culture. As an underworld, gun totting and horse power fuelled visual narrative, it does not have the cool appeal of FF franchise, but tugs at emotional strings for traction. A Good Samaritan who does crime to survive while caring for his step father and lives in the memory of his singer mother. A transporter who moonlights as a DJ. An out and out American road movie. 
#changethinker
#moviereview

Hipster Boutique Cafes in my neighbourhood in Muscat. I still prefer my Karak Chai for 10 percent of the cost of my double expresso shot machiatto though. Globalisation as I quip often, comes in various shades, rather weird. This picture is so geographically mundane that it could have been taken in Mumbai, Jakarta or elsewhere. Joining the global economic grid comes with such creature comforts. 
The steep pricing structures will however be a dampener for individual entrepreneurs trying to bring in the Seattle Artisanal Coffee Culture to the Gulf as this region has an independent coffee shop culture typically south Asian and Turkish. 
Al Khuwair is not Tiong Bahru. @boomba_oman
#muscat #iphone7 #foodwriting

Life is beautiful 
Lived in various eras and frequencies

Challenges propel us on to higher levels

To move on needs an escape velocity

Managing ones self at various nodes

If often the hardest bet

Happiness after long is hyphenated by the other 
Takes the lustre away 

Life is meant to be a journey 

Often bears an albatross around the neck

The synonym for neoliberalism is powerlessness
All are interconnected in this food chain

Each subservient to the other layer

Individual rights are championed 

Collective decision making is reduced to a farce

Companies are the new empires

Knowledge is a hammer 

Enlightenment is commodified 

Consumption is Culture 

Relationships of note are passé

In an era where twitter followers can be bought 

We are all Data

Available to the highest bidder

Such is the ‘transaction cost’ 

Efficiency and Productivity are priceless

Social Darwinism is a close relative

Words are able to quell the pain

Well, not quite

Till a few voices are alive 

An Arundhati here, Naomi there

Monbiot in the middle 

A Vandana for the lecture circuit 

Some wine and cheese for washing down the capitalist/activist guilt

The powerless will be muted 

As the middle class are no better

Silenced with jobs taken away

Libel suits thrown at them

There is no better way than poverty to silence the rebel