Idiot in a lockdown
Idiot. This one word tells you how most of us were made to feel during the lockdown. If you think I’m being unreasonable, just look at the sheer number of people who were updating and guiding you with facts that you never knew existed. Before you think I am trying to be cynical only towards...
Calling teachers “untalented leftovers” doesn’t tell the complete story
With the NEP 2019 zipping and zooming from one stage to another and its interpretations getting into every kind of conversation taking place anywhere, the focus is bound to be on teachers… and students, of course. Everyone wants teachers to get better. There is a lot of talk about doing away with sub-standard teacher training...
Throw the R away in FrEE
Long queues, hurried footfalls, urgent changes in plans, snap-snap, snatch-snatch, adrenalin rush, and all survival techniques put to use are invariably found to co-habit wherever and whenever the word FREE comes into force. Just whisper the word ‘free’ and any place gets transformed into a war-zone. This is a global phenomenon created by brands to...
Everything means nothing
Armies of specialists have taken over. Consultants are grabbing all there is to grab. Experts walk around with pedestals looking for a place to set up their shop. You really need to be a wizard in one thing or the other to get attention. Survival is difficult if you cannot prove that you are an...
Parenting in the midst of social media
When I say ‘look around’ today, all that I mean is to keep your eyes glued on the screen of your laptop or smartphone and hop from one social media platform to another. This is what parenting has come to mean now. You want to disagree? Well, all you need to do is to look...
Women’s day in search of a new relevance
Women’s day is an opportunity. ‘For what?’ you may want to ask. The answer to this meanders around newspaper adverts, TV spots, radio jingles, emailers, social media updates, and whatsapp messages. The blitz began a couple of days back and my inbox has almost every sort of seller remind me of either what to do...
We live in a world populated by sales instincts
Don’t ever make the mistake of assuming that creativity is what makes the world work wonders. I see everyone selling something or the other all over. Hard-sell, I thought had finally conquered the human mind… until I read what Leo Burnett had to say on this. He wrote that there’s no such thing as ‘hard...
All that SAREGAMA fails to address
‘Where on earth are pa-dha-ni-sa?’ asked a friend and because I wasn’t aware if he was really talking about musical notes, I asked, ‘What? I mean, are you into music now?’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘I am talking about the Saregama Caravan, that expensive gadget that I now call digital waste.’ A couple of hours of...
The wrong sort of traveler
A few years back we were trying to fall in love with the treacherous landscape of Spiti and had our bookings in home-stays in the villages around Kaza. Places like Dhankar, Tabo, Hikkim, Demul, Kibber, Langza, and Komik are well about 4000 metres, the air is rarefied and breathing isn’t easy, and the houses are...
Facebook – terminator or just another trend?
The social media is the new eco-system where businesses are both the flora and the fauna. Now if you think this is the new-age Garden of Eden, you’re probably about to drown in severe misconceptions because this el-dorado has its own set of predators. One of these is Facebook. So yes, if one rubs a...
Reasons why we must not hate corruption
Look around and try and spot areas where corruption has been in the headlines and is most talked about. From our judiciary to the police, from civil society to legislation, from natural resources to public services, from land administration to tax administration, from individuals who yield power to those who are powerless, corruption weaves them...
The easier alternative is to reimagine correctly
We always have a choice between easy, easier, and easiest. Well, what about hard, harder, and hardest? Or simply impossible? No, nothing is either hard or impossible. So long as words like ‘can’ and ‘do’ are willing to go along with ‘us’, ‘we’, and ‘our’, in a broader perspective, the possibility of magically transforming everything...
