The history of the Indian Diaspora is not one of software engineers in USA, UK and Canada, and sometimes an occasional entrepreneur or businessman….. but of a subaltern history in Africa and the Caribbean: Ram Guha in the NIF conversation with Amrita Shah

With Moinul, who has worked on a farm in Suwaiq, Al Batinah North for eleven years. From Dhaka, he has worked in the farm sector only in Oman, and is far more fluent in Hindi rather than Bangla. He was kind enough to take me and my colleagues on a detailed tour of the farm.

#experienceoman #migranttales

We take the everyday in the Gulf with a pinch of salt, as something mundane and insignificant. When i announced the #KarakChaiTales series, I was met with the quintessential snigger, as something so minor that it is not valid enough to document, to write to bring it out in to the public discourse on ideas. Small things are interconnected with the larger canvas. There is very limited literature on the GCC except a handful of scholars whom I know very well. The life of the South Asian Migrant is worth noting down and making a story out of it. We are not, just remittance nodes?

#changethinker #KarakChaiTales #episodeone

IPL is the prime time summer theatre of ‘New India’ created by a certain Modi. Gripping, Delusional and Rootless, exemplifies the consumerism in the country. The franchises are companies with no local base and as a seasonal commodity, at times it seems that foreign players are playing against each other aimlessly. IPL destabilises the notion of loyalty in sport. It is a made for TV/Digital product with little of team sport. The tournament creates celebrities as commodities which are ultimately auctioned off. Commodities are products in the marketplace. IPL is a simulacrum, almost WWE-esque, scripted but the saving grace is the young talent which get the platform and the money, otherwise where would we find Rashid Khan from Afghanistan?

I am starting this series called #karakchaitales where so much happens over a 100 bz chai in the Gulf. Melting pots of banter, these are places to socialise in the region where affordable places to hang out are mostly in shopping malls where the beverage is 15x more pricey.

So what has been your Karak Chai story so far?

#changethinker #migranttales #nofilter

Data is the new oil. The biggest myth that got busted big time today as our data becomes a product. The digital sector is not naive. They think that we are naive and stupid, and those valley alpha males who code are smart and they can demolish institutions and norms. The political class at Capitol Hill got back at Palo Alto. We are not stupid was the message at the Zuckerberg hearing.

Zuckerberg did not do his homework. Money can’t buy you Leadership when grilled by an esteemed panel of senators.

Writing a book for the last 18 months has taught me much about the digital sphere but more about me as a person. The topic is a moving target with a dynamic role of the digital in society, but I have learnt that how one thinks and articulated ideas in a way which the stakeholders shall accept is more important than what I convey. Being a non PhD means that academics and academic publications take you with a pinch of salt especially because I write on policy being an engineer. I have worked in places where this has been a massive handicap, but due to a few good souls who backed me, out of sheer generosity, I keep knocking at the door. I will complete my book for sure and make a Impact. I share my skills in my day job as a sustainability adviser, with curiosity, empathy and zest for making the system work.

The anti intellectual’s new treatise on risk and uncertainty. Taleb is the thinker of the generation after Black Swan, Fooled By Randomness and Anti Fragile.

People often quip that Gulf life puts one in a comfort zone lifestyle wise as far as learning is concerned as books are pricey and unavailable. I beg to differ as learning is individually driven. I bought the book here in Muscat and was a price of a meal for two in an okay place. A lot of books are available for free online. Your MacBook does not mean much if one is not accessing the right content.

#changethinker

Create your own space

It’s too crowded to ask for an inch

There are always interstices

But that’s survival

Not flourishing

Initiative and Energy

Is the key

But the hunger is what matters

Smash Walls

Crash Doors

Gate crash clubs

Invitations won’t come

Demand an invite

Mark your territory.

Digital is being weaved in to everyday life as a fibre which is indistinguishable. Digital as this fibre is predisposed as ‘advanced’ and the pre digital as not up to the mark. Smart cities are the planning manifestation of the digital, where sensors harvesting data is considered more needed than more fundamental infrastructure. It is time to interrogate digital for its merits and have a hazard warning for its minuses, such as privacy for Aadhar and the social Internet. Did the gig economy make life better for the Transporter sector? Did more information make decision making better?