Reflections

  In the millennia before the 1700s, 1800s and early 1900s there were large families. Not only were people living in joint families, parents had 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 children and more. What that did was it these two factors, the joint family system and large immediate families, parents with large number of children built a strong interconnected family structure. The effect of this was compounded by the gotra system wherein the relationship was supposed to be maintained over the past five generations; after five generations you could intermarry because then it was considered that the blood relationship had broken. Now in this contextual background it developed a society which was deeply interconnected and it developed a family system which was deeply interconnected. People cared about each other not just real brothers and sisters but even cousins. That is why when marriages took place entire villages were involved and a lot of people came because there were a lot of interconnecti...

The location was not a place where you expect to learn a life lesson – it was the SILC Center in Pune, at the Learning & Development Rendezvous, an event of the L&D Global Pune Chapter, on the 8 th of October; on the menu was an eclectic mix of a Power Negotiation Panel Discussion and a Leadership Masterclass; these are not things that lead to such esoteric things as Life Lessons – nonetheless, the surprise item floored me, and touched my heart… The Meeting With the founder of Snehvan A SOFTWARE ENGINEER ON A DIFFERENT PATH What do you do when you are a software engineer? Especially if you are from village? You go to the rarified environs of a Software company, and earn money and create a better material future for yourself and your family; even going abroad in a few cases, perhaps leaving India for good in some cases. These are stories you have read ad-nauseum in the news; you have read of the CEOs of American companies who left India, plastered all over the m...

BUILDING AN ASPIRATIONAL HALO AROUND LOCAL SUCCESSES One of the most surprising aspects of our collective behavior, as collectively expressed through the organized as well as social media, is the ever-present phenomenon of the Abroad Dream… the dream of at least some Indian parents and children alike, to go and settle abroad, or work abroad. Another aspect of this is the penchant to give undue importance to NRIs / PIOs in our media; a third aspect is the near-devoted tracking of PIOs success-stories, especially in the realm of politics… the fact that the Media gives prominence to these is mute evidence of the fact that we, the people, give importance to them THE POLITICAL NRI… Let us consider the third case, and examine it a little more clearly. It is near-certain that having a number of prominent PIOs in positions of power has been of benefit to us in the realm of Business, wherein it is a win-win situation… the PIO is better aware of how to do business in India, and ca...

There is an urgent need for history to be re-written, at least in India, and the real story to be told of India and its past – glorious as well as otherwise, one that so-called educated Indians call Fiction, which is in reality pure fact. The deleterious impact of the bullshit being absorbed by our citizens is there for all to see, and needs an entirely independent discussion. But the need for a retelling is now more acute than ever, given the half-informed trends in evidence regarding partition as well as our Vedic Past. Furthermore, the completely jaundiced and ridiculously one-sided view of India from the West { as well as our religious and political internalities} which tends to propagate  stereotypes and incorrect views and fears needs to be met head; firstly these have manifest real world problems that arise from them. Secondly, this one sided view going unchallenged in Academia as well as popular discourse gives an incorrect impression of us as a people, as well as p...