A playfield called CSR
A playfield called CSR This happened ten years ago when I was heading corporate communications for a company and CSR or Corporate Social Responsibility was slowly attempting to penetrate our plans. The CEO said, ‘We need to project the company as environment friendly.’ The suggestions that followed included giving away hundreds of saplings during events...
The lens is forever between you and your camera
With a camera in your hands you have the power to take ‘an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still’ and then whisper a thank you to Dorothea Lange for these wise words. But before you begin assuming that great photography is just about zooming in on whatever it is that you...
Innovations translated
Innovations translated Review of Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge Innovations are the conversations that the consumer has with brands… but unlike verbose conversations where a lot is lost in translation, good brands make sure that desirability and feasibility walk hand-in-hand for a long distance. Yes, distance is of value. Take a smartphone, for...
All talk and yet nothing to say
Most of the students that I meet today tell me without mincing words that their teachers have a lot to talk about and yet nothing meaningful is ever communicated. Obviously then, words are in a constantly high supply but they are not being used effectively. This lack of meaningful communication in our classrooms has led...
Ration the potions with notions of nation
Ruckus. Babble. Chaos. Irreverence. Arrogance. Protest. Bullying. Questions. All this and more happens every time the nation starts defining any concept… it could be anything stretching from nationalism to terrorism. All that one never really sees are solutions, answers, a convergence of ideas, and an acceptance of dissent. All that is never there are people...
That’s how stories happen
I tried rubbing the edge of my study table, whispering, ‘Appear, my lovely story. Appear!’ It didn’t. I tried this with the walls in my home, with trees in the park, and once even slyly tried rubbing the end of the shawl of a woman I didn’t know at all. Nothing happened. No story appeared...
An emotional acre on the road
An emotional acre on the road – Zica review A car isn’t just a car but attempts to be an emotional bond. A relationship. It tries to be a drivable emotional acre on the road. Every time. Each of them. Some succeed and some do not. This is so much like any of our...
Intolerant: another word messed up
Here was this word loving its holiday on earth patiently waiting for another language upheaval to came along and pick it up to place it in the ‘was used’ list… and we have all gone and messed up its sedate life. The word is now flung everywhere by almost everyone – on the short-life pages...
A comedian in the PMO
‘Heylo everyone!’ Everyone looked up. The secretary looked up. The deputy secretary looked up and so did the assistant secretaries and the associate secretaries. Well, if the secretary looks up, the others had better not keep their head down as this is what gives a wrong signal and allows supersession in offices. The secretary then...
The Nation Needs to go Hybrid
I’m part human There is hardly anything that exists as a single entity… look at what we study in the university and you’ll know why adding mathematics to even economics makes sense or why reading science gives a student of literature that edge. Petrol and diesel vehicles say namaskar to CNG, capsules encourage different...
The story of Chinky, Thulla, and Tambi
What is more offensive and derogatory – a name that is spoken with some affection though sometimes with ignorance wrapped around, or the Shiv Sena asking Biharis, workers from UP and Gujarati businessmen to leave their ‘amchi Mumbai’? Or people in J&K, the NE, and a few other regions calling you ‘Indian’ when you go...
Between the future and the past
Yes, we’re somewhere between the future and the past. We are no longer madly in love with democracy and yet we do not know what else to adopt or where to go. Democracy has been here for years and trumpeted its case against other known forms of governing rather well… and this is why these...
