I wrote this for The Times of India in July 2019, about how first names convey social status and even class capital amongst middle castes in India today. Link to the Times of India post.
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A few years ago, in a Facebook post that is now offline, poet and activist Meena Kandasamy encouraged upper caste Indians to drop their surnames. These surnames, she said, had considerable caste capital …
I maintain an excel sheet, since 2004, where I track the books I have read annually. This year I read only 13 books, my lowest count in all these years (2016 was the highest with 39 books). That said, one of the books I read this year, and perhaps enjoyed the most, was Sacred Games, which at 947 pages, is like 3 or even 4 books in one. So …
This was originally published in The New Indian Express.
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Around 20 years ago, my father, a South Indian working in a South Indian bank, received his obligatory North India posting to Delhi, something he and my mother had been dreading. Those first days in Delhi were incredibly trying, as my parents negotiated with plumbers, electricians, maids, milkmen and every person you interface to set up a home. Each of …
I have been writing regularly as those of you who follow me on twitter / linkedin are aware, but I have been a tad lazy in not updating this website with the links. So here goes.
For Arre, for their special on India’s 71st Independence Day, I predicted what India would look like in 2089, another 71 years hence. I made three predictions: one each about society, tech & …
This was originally published in The New Indian Express on 18 November 2018.
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In Indo-Anglian circles, no topic gets as much importance as education or specifically higher education. For it is education that creates and defines us Indo-Anglians and remains a key marker of identity. In my (Indo-Anglian) circles, with our kids now reaching teenagehood, talk quickly veers these days to career and college options. Increasingly these days …
(From September to December 2018, I wrote 3 posts for the New Indian Express. It was to be a monthly column giving a glimpse into the Indo-Anglian hive mind, or the world of the elite English-speaking Indian. I couldn’t sustain it – there were multiple reasons. For one, no feedback at all from anyone. Not sure how many were reading it! Then the fact that i had to fit …
I have been, for long, a keen student of the startup / venture ecosystem in India and outside. I find startups particularly fascinating, because to me, startups are the most obvious signals we get from the future. For each startup is but a hypothesis about the future manifested physically. I have satiated my interest in this space somewhat partially, through my writings and occasional pro bono advisories to startups. But …
Let us say you are a smart, sharp ex-strategy consultant from the Big 3, now working in the Strategy Office of a print major. The company, facing digital headwinds, is muddling its way through. Business is on a gentle decline; that said, the job still pays well, the people are interesting and comfortable to work with, and best of all, there is no …
TL;DR
No, he can’t! The Indian Constitution doesn’t have a provision for him to ban alcohol overnight, thankfully. Yes, he can try to amend the constitution to acquire the right, but this will be challenged by Indian States, for whom from liquor sales are a big revenue stream. The resulting dispute will reach the Supreme Court, who will likely side with the states. I detail why below. Finally ,my essay …
Sometime around 2012 or ’13, my daughters stopped speaking in Konkani, our mother tongue. It isn’t entirely clear what provoked it; perhaps it was a teacher at their Mumbai school encouraging students to speak more English at home. Or perhaps it was something else. It doesn’t matter.
What did matter was that our home became an almost exclusively English-speaking household, with the occasional sporadic Konkani conversation. We were not alone. …