Category: Writing

Growth Wallah’s: Yeh Dil Maange More

Arundhati Roy and P Sainath  are voices that counter the neoliberal growth narrative of growth at any cost and painting growth as a linear story line. A story line where labor rights, environmental commons are commodities to be discarded as these cannot be listed in an IPO on Dalal Street. I grew up during the late 80’s and the 90’s where I transitioned from Doordarshan to Cable TV to 4G internet on the phone and where a vada pav in the mall costs 50 rupees. Where having an overpriced KFC is cooler than having tandoori chicken in the popular culture now a days. IT Sector has created a class of socially mobile class of credit cards and cool cars, but cannot finance them as IT firms are retrenching them. Suddenly, class consciousness hits home. Growth is not cool, when you are handed a pink slip in one hours notice.

Growth means the communities at the margin in Langigarh and Jaitapur have no voice in the resource and nuclear capitalism of Shining India. The growth discourse is panned out in tv panel debates and the holy shrine of Davos.

Arundhati Roy’s Capitalism : A Ghost Story is a class essay book on the fissures of the growth story. Growth has a rosy narrative when it is painted in Malabar Hill and not Dharavi or a Middle Class Mira Road in Mumbai. The middle class are sold the aspirational growth stories for them to buy in when a techie-MBA education does not render the critical thinking skills to understand the globalisation dynamics which help us to assess the next work wave.

Dibakar’s 2012 film Shanghai showed that a lands owner sells his land in lieu for being a security guard in a mall on the same piece of land ironically drinks bottled water with pride.  As Asim Shrivastava’s seminal book Churning the Earth demonstrates a treatise on how the SEZ boom is a land grab scam and how industrialisation causes ecological degradation in every respect.

Mr Modi has made development as the national totem. Although non inclusive growth is not cool, when religious minorities feel unsafe. One year of decent selfie taking does not make for development. Modi’s Foreign Policy and Defence Regime is aggressive and competent though. There is a long way to go in order to accommodate all aspirations. Delhi is not Amdavad oops Peking.

Fragility

Fragility is beautiful, as feel yourself at your weakest, simultaneously makes one feel free while helpless.

A chance to gather the ashes from the past, a seed for a new plant

Obsession & indifference are extremes yet human

Pain is the fuel for moving ahead, yet very human again
Happiness does not feel as motivating as pain

May be it is a blessing, an opportunity to paint an alternative imagination

May be that alternative is not alternative at all

Only a reflection of your deepest desires and aspirations beneath

Yet Fragility and Pain are synonyms for the most intense expressions of the soul

Yet so beautiful, yet so human

Move on the mind says, the heart lingers on

But there is no way but to keep walking and move on

And transform the sentiment into pale words of modest expression….

The Food Court

“Have you eaten” or “Makan Sudah” in Bahasa Melayu is often heard from friends here in Singapore exemplifies the value of eating out to socialising and community building in Singapore. The cacophony of sounds from a smattering of Hokkein  at the noodle soup hawker stall to Tamil and Urdu at the Indian Halal corner dishing out colourful rojak adds to the “Makan” or eating out culture which is central to the Singaporean ethos.  A nation which is passionate about its food, takes eating out seriously as its running culture thanks to splendid NParks connectors.

A few weeks back Minister Mentor Lee passed away, and an entire nation grieved in collective consciousness. On the 29th of March i wrote on my Facebook Wall  to capture the sentiment of the moment:

“Watching the State Funeral Service of Mr. Lee on Channel 8 (Chinese Language Station) in my packed local food court with kopitiam Aunties and Uncles whom I have known over years is a solemn occasion. Never felt so much a part of the community before. It is an inflection point and locus of convergence for the national ethos. A misty eyed rainy afternoon indeed. Farewell Mr. Lee ‪#‎Sg‬ ‪#‎LKY‬”

and

“A full food court in standing ovation in mark a minutes silence with the National Pledge and Anthem was moving. National spirit is alive and kicking in this often chided concrete city where commerce takes precedence. Today is a different ‪#‎Singapore‬ .”

As the last line depicts, the food court plays a huge role as a common public space although intimate. This multi-racial society mingles and connects over Tiger Beer and Kopio in its food courts. In a busy city, where cooking the evening meal is an occasional chore, the Food Court plays a critical social lever in everyday lived experience.

Gluttons : Makansutra by the Bay, near the City Centre packages the food court in a very glam manner as does Kopitiam at the Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands, the upper social strata version though lacks the soul of Adam Road Hawker Center and its epic Mutton Soup or the Novena Food Court, which are social institutions of note.

All sorts of characters can be observed in this common place where all festivals and mundane evenings are panned out. The senses are overvelmed with the Chicken Rice and the Steam Boats and the energetic feel of a meal time.

The Kopitiam or the Food Court is a Singaporean Institution; with the qualities of the nation. Hygienic, Cost Conscious, Systemic and Multi-Cultural.

Now, Cheers over the Malted Beverage!

Welfare, is not a bad word?

Welfare has unfortunately turned into an undesirable word in the political discourse from Delhi to Athens. The Greek public had an emphatic no vote to the EU Deal in terms of voting in the leftist Syriza. The Maverick Academic Finance Minister of Greece later had to tone down its rhetoric of leaving the EU. But, a bold voice never the less. A fresh breath in the hackneyed discussion. There are a few factors which brought Greece to its tether such as a huge bureaucracy but the structural transformation program (read brutal cost cutting) is simply humiliating for an ancient civilization. The Goldman Sachs instruments only added insult to injury. Since Narendra Modi’s BJP Government has come to power, Welfare has taken back seat. The Work for Employment Scheme aka MNREGA has been slashed as the Food Security Bill. While, Corporate Tax Holidays has increased in the words of Development Journalist P Sainath.

Even, the proposed projected 25.5 Billion Dollar outlay (Livemint, 27th March 2015) for the Universal Healthcare Plan in India on the lines of ObamaCare has been halted in the tracks. Billions of dollars can be spent for Defense and Tax Breaks but for treating a poor man for his heart ailment in a hospital is simply not worth it as is putting food on the table of the hungry, only to be feted by awards from the Davos Elite while sipping flutes of champagne. The AAP Victory is Delhi was a vote for welfare and compassionate capitalism where the urban poor in Mahipalpur near the airport wanted to have a voice in the discourse rather the  chic GK’s, ironically both in South Delhi. I have very been pro welfare in stance since a while especially on Food Security in October 2013 when I came on Al Jazeera to make a moral case for Food Security. Welfare is often the last resort of the poor and, inefficiencies and pilferage in the political economy of service delivery should not be used as an excuse to snatch away access to basic health care from the marginalized and subaltern. The Indian State is often a far away entity to the common man on the street and a void is often filled by faith based or community organizations in healthcare. There is a point to start and then iterate with the mechanics but do not deny the facilities if proper service delivery mechanisms cannot be constructed and maintained.  Building systems takes time and great systems such as the NHS in the UK and Social Security in the US have taken their own time. ObamaCare  or The Affordable Care Act has brought in 16 million additional people healthcare solutions. In a recent Atlantic article it has been argued that the social security cover has made America more risk taking and entrepreneurial. In this years Budget, Singapore which has been a poster-boy of free-market capitalism in Asia has nudged to the left with increased social protection platforms for its poor. The media coverage in the Singaporean press has been covering a lot of social stories including migrant worker food issues and ways to get the urban poor at better shot at social mobility. A new social contract for a left leaning Global City as a recent Strait Times Op-Ed quipped, should be real cool.

It can be said that the author has had a comfortable upbringing and what do i know about being poor. It needs empathy as the Middle Class is three skipped mortgage payments away from developing a class consciousness. Ask about being very little money in my account and without work and I do know what it feels like in that desperate situation. Corporate Tax Breaks and access to state infrastructure to develop industry and then call for government to be not in the business of business is a flawed argument. A lot of corporate profits are cross subsidized by the state ask the Gulf Owned Air Carriers. Private profits are just but feeding a poor man is a waste of money?

Welfare with proper checks and balances creates a more equitable society over the long term. Lets create more humane communities, one neighborhood at a time. A policy push sets the direction, and welfare plays a major role.

Move in the ‘Write way’ : reflections on writing

I have been writing since I was young, normally more mature than my age group at school. So I did not really find a platform apart from the ambitious English teacher who saw potential in me, as normally my stuff was not fit for the school magazine but for the India Today Magazine. But i still got things on to those limited school time platforms anyway such as good grades in english.  I always believed in creating value apart from the school textbook and exams. Both my parents being academics, I was fortunate to have a library of my parent’s books to my disposal and lots of daily newspapers to read. I was well read as a teenager, but my limited interest in studying for grades apart from English and Social Science did not instill my parents confidence in me as grades were key to successive progressions. I did well in them and in Biology and Chemistry until Grade 12 as I am memory-based person. I remember things well, so History and Politics (somehow connected, still have not fully understood the connection) fascinated me and I was in awe of how individuals ran society. I had floated one day to my father the idea of studying History in Grade 8, and he like a concerned Indian parent shot it down. I was discouraged by other folks too when I started writing. A few people told me that writing is not my cup of tea as my writing was not up to the mark, as per the hallowed high priests of liberal arts academe. So dreams of being a Ram Guha was stopped in its tracks pretty early. I do not normally take a no for an answer, and which my detractors soon found out to their peril.

I studied Engineering for utilitarian reasons as a good Indian boy but reading my undergraduate engineering degree in Oman exposed me to fellow wannabe writers/policy wonks. So I wrote research papers on bioethics to socio-linguistics to public policy in those four to five years travelling throughout South Asia, South East Asia and the Middle East studying, working and exploring my self. The real break came in Singapore when I started writing for Green Business Times and started this platform. I got opportunities to write for other platforms and reading public policy and sociology really helped in fine-tuning my writing and thought processes. This got me on to International TV debates as an independent analyst and the gravy train started rolling.

My writing journey started pretty late in my opinion for a person who took writing seriously. I read diverse genres from Magical Realism to Fukuyama. Writers such as Pankaj Mishra and Pico Iyer are my literary man crush. I have never been to a creative writing course but reading the non-fiction master- pieces has been an education. I believe that writing is not a liberal arts majors territory only, because writers translate experiences of pain and angst in to words, and writing is a product of hard work as the Guru of Global Literature Haruki Murakami eloquently writes in his semi memoir on life, writing and running known as ;“What I Talk about When I Talk About Running” . This transformational read resonates with me as a writer. Writers according to Murakami have to work hard to churn out a narrative for the audience in mind, day in and day out. It is not purely, a function of talent alone but of diligence and discipline if one has to churn out a global writing and speaking career across decades and still your readership grows like this recent convert. One has to tailor his lifestyle according to his trade, like Murakami left running a Jazz Bar to write full time, moving across cities throughout the globe, to write, run and live. Till one does not stretch ones limits and trains in a disciplined manner in his passion or profession, a person cannot be successful in either one of them.

I rather used to be lazy to write on a regular basis, but I realized one fine day that as an Individual of limit talents, I was born to write and express my humble ideas in the public discourse on ideas. To write for me, is to exist. I am fortunate to have friends to read my work: Good, the not so Good as well. Writing is about exercising agency and writers are folks who write stories of their inability to communicate their expression of love to a woman, that too after she starts to date another guy they love in person but they would rather mold it in a fictional context in the written word and explore passions in the head rather than in the flesh.

I am currently writing a book (a multi year effort it is turning out to be as I have exacting standards sadly of myself) on the human experiences of urbanization and developing a long essay series on things and stuff in places where I live and experience in my personal capacity apart from having a fascinating day job in Policy Research. Fortunately, I do work in a place where I can write too. Passion and Professions can emerge if we wish to take the risk. Dr. Tharoor is a special kind of writer. Take a pay cut, if it comes down to that.

Keep Writing, as there is nothing more satisfying then someone relating to your story.

Badlapur: A Movie Review

This is Sriram Raghavan’s latest movie outing with the last being the so called spy movie ‘Agent Vinod’ starring the Prince and his would be Begum, which I had watched in Singapore three plus years ago. Badlapur, named after a major railway station junction in Maharashtra is a dark murder thriller bordering on a genre begun in Bollywood with the John Abraham starred ‘Zinda’ with again a dark theme. This movie resolves around a mother-son murder revolving  around a bank heist in which the characters of Vinay Thakur and Nawazuddin Siddiqui aka Laik kills in a fit of rage to save himself the tamil speaking wife  and son of the character of Varun Dhawan aka Raghu, the revenge filled and driven protagonist of the film. Varun Dhawan’s character is of a budding ad man whose life gets derailed due the sad murder episode. These emotion filled scene shots are narrated matter of fact by the director and cinematographer. Varun Dhawan character gives up on the conventional justice system to nail the culprits of the murder (tapping on the justice delayed is justice denied rhetoric). Varun’s character appoints a female detective played by a seasoned TV Actress, and how she extracts the initial information trail post the incident is very well narrated in the script. Laik faces a 20 year term for his heinous crime but his partner Harman (Vinay Thakur’s character) escapes with the loot and sets up a flourishing Goan restaurant with a live band and marries a beautiful woman. Varun Dhawan’s character is revenge driven with rage as he retreats to a low key existence in Badlapur town near Nashik as a Warehouse supervisor (one of which looks very similar to the authors experience outside Nashik’s MIDC Satpur’s Industrial nerve). Laik is involved with a commercial sex worker played by Huma Quraishi who ultimately becomes a keep of a politician. Huma’s character is layered and the sexual politics with Varun, Nawaz and Huma is one of the main side plots of the film. The parole politics of the ngo sector and the cancer afflicted Laik and his mother is very interestingly shown on celluloid. Rage and the central focus of revenge via sexual violence  is the underlying tone of the revenge drama. The characters of the film such as Vinay and Nawaz with Huma and Divya Dutta, the single mother prison NGO worker (and her chemistry with Varun’s character)  is a standout feature. The film uses Tamil and Marathi as useful linguistic  contours to paint the film in layers, although stereotypes of a Punjabi Mum versus grieving Tamil In-laws aka ‘Two States’ is perpetuated. The use of graphic violence of of gore and the sexual content make the film bold but disturbing. The violence is the soul of the film. The film’s anti-climax of an ending with Varun’s character killing off Harman and his wife in cold blood to extract revenge is appropriated by the murderous Laik is a very Japanese-Korean esque cinematic treatment. The cinematography was very East Asian inspired as the direction of the film. Pune was the canvas of the film with MG Road as the main backdrop with Marz-o-rin cafe depicted in a couple of important shots with the narrow first floor seating arrangement sipping hot coffee over a serious conversation (where the author has been to a number of times). Laik is shown as enjoying cheesy Bhojpuri cinema after being released on health grounds reeks of stereotyping as the criminal being from the hindi cowbelt. The Marathi Bhajan groups singing praise in the temple in cinematic Badlapur is tasteful.  Nawaz and Huma are standout performers of the film with Varun rendering a credible act, albeit a brave one vis-a-vis his contemporaries. The background score and songs move the narrative forward and the editing is crisp. A film unsuitable for young audiences but a different film with a strong ensemble cast. A film where you would not wish to watch with your parents. Sriram Raghavan does a better job this time with his potential in this film. If one has to watch the film, it has to be for Nawaz and Huma as star performers that they are; lend substance to the soul of the film.

A Writers Year : In Review

This Year has been a year of rapid personal  transformation. Started off the year in the freezer of Delhi’s winter and i  then flew to Muscat and Mumbai for a fortnight in February then back to Delhi to start off a new assignment that became a major M&A news this year. I had the splendid chance to travel to Baroda (the infra in Gujarat is pretty cool) in March then had an amazing Oil & Gas International Assignment from April to June.  I  then had the opportunity to travel to  Mumbai, Nashik and Pune in June, July and August where I experienced the Maharashtra Story prior to the Assembly Polls in an intimate manner. Visiting Trimbakeshwer Temple in Nashik was certainly was one of the highlights of the year.

I studied and wrote about Urban Subaltern community in Nashik, where the politics and the neo-buddhist imagery struck me. This year is of the Year of Narendra Modi and the decline of Brand Kejriwal. I wrote about the communications victory of Modi at the Ballot box and the failure of  Political Start Up called Aam Admi Party.

This year is also the year that I move back to Oman to work and had the opportunity to travel to Duqm in south-central Oman where a new city is rising from the ashes in an effort in Nation Building.

This year is the year, in which I started writing book and movie reviews. Interstellar was the stand out film. Classic Nolan indeed. Samarth Subramanian’s ‘This Divided Island’ on post war Sri Lanka was deep and moving.

A year of change and bonding with friends and family was the hallmark feature of year of this writer. Many more tales to share in 2015. This week also completes four years of this platform. Thank you for your support.

Seasons Greetings Folks.

Reimagine Sustainability : moving beyond tick-box compliance

The only thing sustainable about the brutal reality of the  normative paradigm of sustainability is the ‘green’ colour of cash sadly rather than the altruism of this -ism. Not all that bad as monetary valuations are usually taken more seriously. The philosophical underpinning of sustainability is about inter-generational transferability as per the 1987 Bruntdland Report. The short-termism of financial markets and financial global capitalism does not render sustainability sustainable.

Sustainability ultimately is about better communities and liveability. Sustainability is triple headed : Ecological, Economic and Social are the three strands of the triple helix.  Sustainability has transformed from its normative origins in to a platform for communicating the corporate brand. Activist investors do ask for the Social Return on Investment on their impact bonds but these folks are a trickle in the avalanche of asset classes that global capital changes hands in. Sustainability Reports are prepared as per the GRI Framework to demonstrate sustainability performance to ecologically aware Gen Y retail investors. It is not for the displaced community in Lanjigarh, Odisha but for the analysts at Citi. The pull is from the masters of the market.

The latest flavour of the season in sustainability and corporate citizenship circles is the circular economy & sharing economy. Good old human sharing values and Cradle to Cradle thinking synced to create the latest cool intellectual fad.

Majority of sustainability related investment by private sector companies is to meet the local environmental, health & safety and social sector legislative requirements of the land. Sometimes, even voluntary best practice is beyond the ambit of the C Suite Level executive as the Randian view of shareholder value capture dominates. Green field industrial projects often require IFC funding or any form of Institutional Lender Support such as JICA or any Exim Bank. These financial institutions need the project proponent to adhere to Equator Principles and IFC Performance Standards throughout the Project Lifecycle to address environmental and social concerns. The decision making prowess for a change is with the environmental and social expert panel at IFC offices at Delhi and DC rather than the CFO. EHSS has to move beyond the tick box due diligence check-list to a move term governance led mechanism. The Finance Teams have to get the nuance of the Economics of Environmentalism for them to be truly invested in the process.

Sustainability can only take root if this ethical paradigm can be understood by the CFO over a casual water-cooler chat. Its time for Sustainability to move beyond green washing and be a profit centre SBU from a cost centre. Locking value from Sustainability Initiatives can take place if triple bottom-line thinking could dominate the thinking in strategic planning of SME’s.

Beyond the Technical: Reimagine the Engineer’s Tool Kit

The epistemic character of Engineering is about problem solving and crisis management and by default as an engineer I am expected to possess decent quantitative abilities as the lingua franca of science is mathematics. The social contract between the engineer and the work-place has undergone a transformation through the proportion of jobs shifts from the shop floor to the computer screen. Recently, I had been to a Steel Plant and I found 95% of all operations on the process floor automated (complex industrial process control) and that’s real brick and mortar stuff. The core metallurgical processes have not changed since the industrial revolution.

I have worked in Engineering & Policy Research Consulting for about 6+ years until now, and I have found to my surprise that science as a social institution inhabits a force field of economic, cultural and social realities that lie way beyond the lab.  Often the top leadership, whether technically trained or not (often a lawyer, accountant or a MBA) is merely focused on the quarterly results rather than the long term; a classic business strategy conundrum.  Accountability to the masters of Wall Street is more precious to your epistemic calling.

As the meta-phenomena of globalization and urbanization over the past three decades have desolated steel towns of Pittsburgh and Liverpool in the developed world, and in contrast have led to the tech boom towns of Route 128 and Silicon Valley. Manufacturing has dipped, being shipped off to the ‘Factory Girls’ of China and the automation revolution has stemmed blue-collar job creation. The ‘Myth of Manufacturing’ is real.

Nowadays engineers have to do more project management- resourcing, scheduling, and budgeting than wielding the spanner/shifter. Marine Engineers in the engine room of a Panamax have a lot more technology at their disposal which has reduced the crew of a ship to barely skeletal.

Engineering at the present is doing technology to create products which cater to the clients need, get paid and scaling up. Simple stuff, but it needs a very different mindset.

I have often heard a strain of discontent from my fellow early career technical professionals that they don’t get adequate opportunities to chart/shape the course of their technology product driven organizations. Here are a few suggestions to grow out of that inability:

  • Understand your organizational ecosystem
  • Learn to Negotiate Hard
  • Look and Talk like a Leader
  • Do not have Tunnel Vision mind-set regarding science
  • Learn to read a balance sheet
  • Keep yourself informed

Alas, the ability to learn and be agile is more crucial to your GPA. No one cares a shit about that.