Don’t tar the teens

That the web is but a microcosm of the world has been my working hypothesis in the 15 odd years of being online. Whatever happens or occurs in the world is bound to be found on the web. Likewise it is best if we observe the rules of common courtesy that apply in the real world.

The blogosphere however is an evolving universe with its own peculiarities. Is it an agora where dissent is bound to be heard sometime but since it is a public space, one must not, can not control it? Is it a public house or an old time cafe where anyone can speak their mind but the publican can throw you out for being disorderly? Is it one’s drawing room where only a few are invited and the rest are cold-shouldered ? I think for those who use free publishing tools like WordPress, the drawing room analogy definitely does not apply. Inasmuch as people can post rejoinders and opinions and link to the views they disagree with, this is not really a publican controlled space either. That leaves the agora analogy on the table, unless the readers of this blog can come up with more exciting ones.

Whatever analogies we use, words are the currency in the blogosphere. Notwithstanding the old adage about sticks and stones, there are plenty of occasions in the blogosphere where words easily seem to hurt many. Every time, any words I floated into the blogosphere go wrong, i.e. are deemed rude, or are ascribed intent other than intended, I have to wonder if my “the web is a microcosm of the world” hypothesis holds good. But then I stop wondering because just like in the real world, unsubstantiated opinions, prejudices etc also abound on the web.

Yesterday, I came across a post that identified itself as a “thought, not an opinion”. I shall leave aside my struggle with the epistemological difference between a thought and an opinion in a medium where all opinions are allowed and published. (See Disclaimer below.)

The said blogger made a great deal of effort in collating her observations made at Indian teenagers’ blogs. Amongst things that seemed to upset the blogger were teenagers discussing sex and sexuality, complaining about the inanity of parents, making fun of teachers, “bad habits” (the blogger’s description of smoking), suicidal notes, racism and bad language.

The only reason why I thought the post was worth a comment was that I do not stand for wholesale tarnishing of entire groups of people - whether by gender, race, religion or as in this case, age. Nor do I stand for wholesale moralising by the same adults - us - who have set the world to be a place where racism, bullying and other ills exist. I fail to understand why we should be surprised at teenagers being racist or bullies when our daily press and our lives are punctuated by adults engaging in exactly this behaviour in the name of politics, office work and so on.

I left a comment that the blogger deleted, saying it was very rude. Here is the comment to which I have added italics to clarify some points.

Most of us, who wore punk hairstyles and clothes, have grown up to become reasonable adults. Just because they (the teenagers today) do not have a childhood similar to ours does not mean there is anything wrong with them. Any sort of -ism reflected in their writing is something that saw in the world shaped by their adults. Any feelings of despondency, curiosity (sexual or otherwise) and “hard man” acts are all par for the course too.

I have engaged with several teenagers and young adults who looked disruptive and disrespectful to other adults, but who responded well when spoken with, not talked at, when empathised with, not judged, when people saw them as persons at a certain age, not just a member of a tribe of a certain age. We as adults need to know what signals *we* give out as well.

I despair of a world full of adults who have such low opinions of the future generations. Perhaps we need to go and ask our ‘Uncles and Aunties’ what they thought of us when we were teenagers. If they do not lie through their teeth, we may learn a few home truths about ourselves.

So let’s be fair to the youngsters and they will show themselves worthy of the trust we can place in them.

The blogger responded by adding that I was rude and that as a future parent, she feels the challenges faced are very different to those faced by our parents. My next comment is, of course, held in moderation but here it is anyway:

It is your blog so it is your privilege to delete anything you deem rude. My comment was not meant to be and not worded to be rude at all. But since it is no longer here (on your blog), other readers have to go by your assessment of it. Such is life. This is also the reason why I wrote this post because as a blogger, I engage with many extremely smart bloggers, none of whom, with two exceptions including this instance, have had to label me rude or anything else just for dissenting with them. I am vexed by the presumptions of intent although I find it amusing that some people think theirs is the only point of view.

The reason why I said we were also like the current teenagers is simple: unless parents and future parents remember that (their own teenage), they will not understand what goes on in a child’s head. Isn’t this another way to interpret ‘child is the father of man’?

As such the challenges remain the same as our parents’ generation namely how to empathise with your child even when he/she is not talking to you; how to make the children understand - without snooping on their every mood and move - that even if they shun you, you will still be around in case they fall flat on their faces; how to assert parental authority without encountering total rebellion.

I have to laugh as I re-read the post I responded to and my own comment. My friends, who have children, all seriously believe they are the first women to have children. This, in the face of an earth on which over 6 billion walk, suggesting that at least 6 billion children were produced before! Parenting is truly as old as mankind.

It is lame to think that parenting challenges are any different now than they were before. Saying such a thing betrays an inability to conceptualise one of the most important things in life. It also is grist to my notion that few enter parenting with any thought, but plenty of emotion. (Note to parents: save your brickbats. I am inured. My views are expressed as a hyper-cognitive and hyper-analytical person, two traits that most of my regular blog-readers already know. Thanks.) Each generation has to come to grips with some new technology or the other - it would be fun to ask the parents of those, who were teenagers as the pill was being made available on the market - but to suggest, that the web somehow poses a greater danger than ever before, is a tad naive. Why, the web is even a goldmine for those parents, who cannot otherwise deal with a child’s incessant questions and who do not have access to a godmother like me. Ok, that last remark was in jest. I have no more vacancies for god-children.

As I set aside my weekend for my god-son, a profound, sensitive and extremely intelligent child, who has the smartest and most wonderfully engaged mother, all this is food for thought for me. And just for that, I may have to thank the blogger, whom I cite above.

Disclaimer: I am aware that I have not linked to the blogger in question. One reason - no desire to give her either free publicity or more dissent. If you are keen, let me know and I can direct you to the post.

Related reading on parenting:

Alice Bachini-Smith’s down-to-earth posts - Not Mother’s Day, Sensible Parenting #1, The difficulties of growing up.

Paul Graham on Lies we tell kids (long essay!)

My favourite song on the parent-child interaction.

Meme: Table Talk

Alice, over at The Mad Housewife, has tagged me to continue a meme that Jackie Danicki started with inspiration from the Guardian.

And this is a novel and creative one! Here we go.

What’s your favourite table?

The island in my kitchen.

I am not a prodigious cook but my limited repertoire is getting better with practice. When not used to eat at (with friends and family folk), the table gives me a place where I read, spend my off-line thinking and writing time and listen to the radio while reading the news or cooking. It also serves to show off my frequently-received flowers.

(c) picture taken by me, on my Nokia N95, May 2008: Fragrant Lilies

What would you have for your last supper?

Unlike Alice, I would definitely eat a last supper.

It would have at least Tom Kitchin’s cold pea soup amuse-bouche, a small slice of foie gras, a coconut macaroon, California Café’s bento-box, a dollop of La Porte des Indes’s tamarind sorbet, one coffee flavoured Luxemburgerli, an alphonso mango and incredibly enough, a small glass of sugar-cane juice with lemon and rock salt a l’Inde.

How will this be made possible? Well, if I am dying, surely family and friends love me enough to do something for me.

What’s your poison?

Mangoes - a variety called Dasheri and another called Alphonso.

If any readers from India feel pity for my apparent deprivation, and wish to send me a box of mangoes, please let me know and I shall be very grateful and happy.

Name your three desert island ingredients.

Lemon, passata, water (can drink or cook with).

What would you put in Room 101?

McDonald’s and other similar places (I love burgers but I cannot stand the stale smell of meat cooking); black pudding; fishy smells; pre-made cooking sauces (esp so that the annoying Loyd Grossman advert on TV could end forever); that red colour that Bangladeshi-run Indian restaurants in the UK consider obligatory and universal ingredient. Shall I go on?

Which book gets you cooking?

Raymond Blanc and Vatcharin Bhumichitr.

Otherwise, I do what a friend of mine calls ‘memory cooking’. I replicate without the help of cookbooks, the flavours that linger on my tongue’s memory.

What’s your dream dinner party line-up?

Peter Drucker and Howard Gardner for smart conversation, Quentin Tarantino for the quirk, Ogden Nash for laughs, Tenzin Bob Thurman for balance (and I would ask him to bring his daughter along too, for a touch of ethereal beauty).

I would add more but the island in my kitchen is already full.

What was your childhood teatime treat?

A snack made with onions, peas and tomatoes, with added cumin.

What was your most memorable meal?

Two - both in Edinburgh - one at Tom Kitchin’s and the other at Martin Wishart’s.

What was your biggest food disaster?

Making poha - an Indian snack made with rice flakes, onions, tomatoes, potatoes, peas along with cumin, turmeric, grated coconut - with more peas than poha flakes. Just the once was enough because those, who ate it, have never let me forget it.

What’s the worst meal you’ve ever had?

See above.

Who’s your food hero/food villain?

I have strong feelings about food, as some of you already know.

My food heroines: MFK Fisher and Ruth Reichl for writing about food in a way that helps conjure life and food in the settings that they experienced and documented.

My food hero: I love watching Floyd’s easy style of cooking on TV but I hear he lives in penury for all his skills. I would help him if I could.

My food vamps and villains: You can probably guess who these people are - a smarmy matron on TV telling us how to shell eggs; an over-fed woman on TV licking cooking implements suggestively; a past cooking guru whose recipes somehow involve throwing the whole cupboard of spices into every dish; all out-of-shape TV chefs, who give food a bad name in general, except Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall who is listed here, because I think his driving around in a beat Land Rover is environmentally foul and faux posh.

Nigella or Delia?

Neither. See above, under vamps and villains.

Vegetarians: genius or madness?

Like Alice, I really do not care. Just do not try lecturing me especially when I hold a snail up on my fork to examine before ingesting it.

Fast food or fresh food?

The question reveals false assumptions. Some fast food can be good. Steaming hot idli with a bit of malaga-pudi anyone?

Who would you most like to cook for?

Erm, nobody in particular. There are better cooks than I in the world.

What would you cook to impress a date?

Cooking on a date is not my idea. Most guys need dispossessing of gender roles, and a date is the right time to start.

Make a wish.

I wish Alphonso mangoes would grow on my Sycamore!

I tag :

Usha, who wrote recently about mom’s cooking;

Fëanor, who recently called me an epicure, not in the archaic sense but who deserves to be called one too (notwithstanding his story about gulab jamuns);

Worth, whom I have not seen a while because it is only fair that after Alice, we have another perspective from Texas;

Prerna, who I hope will say something about good foodie things in Delhi;

Shreyasi, who has been too busy to write, of late;

La Belette Rouge, new blog-friend, who I think will have a quirky French view on this whole thing;

Nikhil and Poonam because I am curious to hear what they will say.

Thoughts on electing BoJo*

It was perhaps appropriate timing, not because New Labour has stuffed everything comprehensively in recent months, but for many other reasons. Perhaps Ken Livingstone, the candidate, who professed multiculturalism to the point of pandering to weirdness and extreme political correctness, who made friends with Hugo Chavez and trips to Cuba to show his ‘red’ credentials, who was backed by the party representing, allegedly, the proletariat, should have won the election on May Day. But it must be the sign of the times that an avowed Tory - with a Russian mono-name, no communist sympathies in sight, a fairly global family and birth history, Eton and Oxford education or in other words, your regular toff - snatched an easy victory from him. People of the world, we have a new Mayor of London! His name is Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, who also goes, like Madonna, by a single name - ‘Boris‘.

A few days ago, in an unusual conversation for a first business meeting at a major firm, I explained to my host that all women would probably vote for Boris. He was surprised and wondered why. Amongst the shallow reasons I listed Boris’s unruly blond mane and his careless appearance that make him look like a child having a tantrum with himself; his eclectic and eccentric sense of irony and ready sarcasm peppered with references from the classics making for a truly erudite sense of humour, if there is such a thing. In other words - blond, cute (yes, that is a subjective assessment) and funny. I am afraid I had no deep reasons to offer except that the electorate were bored with New Labour and someone had to give Ken Livingstone a drubbing; and that as the editor of Spectator magazine, Boris had shown some leadership in turning around the magazine and increasing both its profile and its circulation. I was also willing to concede that both his ex- and his current wives have been from families with traditions of liberal politics, which signals something conciliatory and bridge-building about a conservative politician. I did know that logically, it was a bit difficult to justify voting for a man who had cheated on some of his journalistic jobs as well as, allegedly, on his wife, and who had never had a real job with serious budget management - the Mayor of London manages some £12 Billion, yes, that’s a Billion with a ‘B’ - and administrative responsibilities in his life. I was one of those people, whom Boris later described as those, whose pencils hovered uncertainly before marking an ‘X’ in his box.

But all said and done, Boris Johnson will be the new Mayor and I am strangely happy. Not that I am dying to drive into the City in my Porsche without paying a hefty congestion charge, nor am I overly keen on bendy buses being out or the Routemaster being brought back, having rarely used a bus in London. I would be happy to see more bobbies on the beat, but I know that realistically Boris has no control over hiring and firing in the Metropolitan Police so a larger number of community officers - uniformed civilians supporting the Police and usually identifiable walking in twos, chattering with each other - are more likely than a larger number of bobbies. 

And yet I am happy. Simple reasons, really. 

Sometimes a change is as good as a vacation. Especially when it is harder and harder to distinguish the liberal politics of yore from the compassionate conservatism of today, personalities do sway decisions of the most cognitively inclined voters. And yes, every vote counts, so long as the Homo Politicus turns up in enough numbers. 

But above all for the reason that within hours of victory having been proclaimed, Boris, who was remarkably well-behaved in his campaign, complete with a haircut that seemed to have tamed his mop - Schade! - seems to be back on form. And the associated joys are back.

In his inaugural speech, he said that until such time, as his predecessor Ken Livingstone hands him the keys, he “imagine(s) there are shredding machines quietly puffing and panting away in various parts of the building, and quite right too“. A few drinks down, he then let his view of the media - and why leave readers like us blameless? - as being “like some ravening Hyrcanian tiger which has been deprived of its mortal prey — a Johnson blooper” be known. 

Call me odd if you will, but there is something strangely appealing about a politician who can cite classical references without missing a heart-beat and who can be eloquent right off the bat. And a laugh-a-day politician is immensely welcome to make light of the economic and political mess the UK finds itself in right now. What Boris will eventually achieve remains to be seen. But after a week of torrential downpour, today is a warm day in London, and I am determined to be hopeful, just like the 1.2M or so others who voted Boris in. 

Additional reading on this blog:

What price your vote?

Additional reading from around the web:

Mark Mardell’s Euroblog comment on Boris and European trends albeit with an over-the-top title 

Rachel Johnson, broadsheet hack and Boris’s sister, on her brother, the Mayor of London

 

* BoJo = Boris Johnson, if you are still wondering.

 

A game of tag

Ruhi has tagged me so I better do this one quickly.

1. Last movie you saw in a theater?

I think it was Fast Food Nation in Q1 or Q2, 2007; I recently watched Darjeeling Limited on-demand in California. If I cannot recall anything else, it probably was unmemorable.

2. What book are you reading?

It is always books with me, not one book. So here goes: HL Mencken on Religion; The Canon: The beautiful basics of Science by Natalie Angier; The Toothpick: Technology and Culture by Henry Petroski

3. Favorite board game?

Scrabble although I now mostly play Scrabulous on Facebook. I also like playing Ludo and Snakes&Ladders with my friends’ little kids.

4. Favorite magazine?

The Economist, although it calls itself a newspaper; if I can find it in an airline lounge, I also like reading Vanity Fair, which has the most grey cells amongst glossies.

5. Favorite smells?

A few: musk, verveine, lilies (fresh, not in a bottle), rosemary, sandalwood, lavender, cinnamon, black pepper corns, fresh coffee grinds.

6. Favorite sounds?

Silence and early morning birds.

7. Worst feeling in the world?

Being sick and having to lie down.

8. What is the first thing you think of when you wake up?

Three things to be done first today.

9. Favorite fast food place?

This is a UK thing - Nando’s Chicken; they make grilled chicken with piri-piri hot sauce and serve it with rice or chips or corn-on-the-cob. When in Cambridge, I like Dojo Noodle Bar.

10. Future child’s name?

None; a dog is more likely and will probably be named … That would be telling.

11. Finish this statement. “If I had lot of money I’d….?

… give it all away. I have everything I need already*.

12. Do you sleep with a stuffed animal?

No.

13. Storms - cool or scary?

All weather phenomena should evoke a proportionate response from humans, so neither.

14. Favorite drink?

Water.

15. Finish this statement, “If I had the time I would….”?

… write more of the books in my head, get a haircut and travel more.

16. Do you eat the stems on broccoli?

Yes, and so should you Preferably eat with a glass of orange juice to increase the bio-availability of the iron therein.

17. If you could dye your hair any color, what would be your choice?

I would not like to, but my own hair colour is pretty good so anything that matches it will be fine.

18. Name all the different cities/towns you’ve lived in?

20 cities, 3 continents. Will notch a few more if I can manage time.

19. Favorite sports to watch?

F1, rugby, football if I am pushed.

20. One nice thing about the person who sent this to you?

She is very smart.

21. What’s under your bed?

Nothing!

22. Would you like to be born as yourself again?

Yes.

23. Morning person, or night owl?

Morning person.

24. Over easy, or sunny side up?

I do not eat eggs.

25. Favorite place to relax?

Varies.

26. Favorite pie?

Apple pie, but in the form of tarte tatin.

27. Favorite ice cream flavor?

Ben and Jerry’s chocolate.

28. Of all the people you tagged this to, who’s most likely to respond first?

I don’t know. Probably Fëanor because he has a time-zone advantage over the others? Wait, Kalafudra has advantage over all others here… Let’s see.

Tagging: Deja Pseu, Alice, Fëanor, Kalafudra and Amit.

Late addition: Respective locations of the tagged folks are Los Angeles in California USA, Austin in Texas USA, London in England, Vienna in Austria and Boston in Massachusetts USA. Kalafudra has demonstrated that time zone thing definitely works!

* “Luxury is a necessity that begins where necessity ends”. - Gabrielle Coco Chanel

Globalisation = Mockery of political oppression?

Police in Southern China’s Guangdong district were alerted by a factory of their inadvertent manufacture of colourful, ‘Free Tibet’ flags for export. The workers did not know what the flags signified until they saw them on television protests. 

It is a rare thing that makes me laugh out loud this early in the morning. So, Globalisation and Oppression, I thank you!

Passing the baton: Building the story of a family

I started writing this post on my mobile phone way back in January 2008, when the last of my Uncles on my father’s side passed away. I still have not found the courage to telephone his sons, my cousins, whom I dearly love and with whom, I have so many memories of my childhood. In a recent post, I had pledged to redress this grave misjudgment, but my frailty - some may call it the limitation of my emotional intelligence - prevails.

My father, one of my aunts and my step-mother are now the only keepers of their generation in our lives. Accordingly, we cherish them even more.

But somewhere I fear that the stories, the links, the memories will fade and vanish over time, if they were not to be captured in time. As the baton of keeping relationships alive passes to my generation - my older cousins, my siblings and myself - I am keen that we capture as much of the family’s history as we can. Even as I write this, more history is being made as my nephews and nieces get married and have children. I am already great aunt to at least a dozen kids, if not more!

A tangential conversation on Kalafudra’s blog has finally sparked the amber of this ambitious idea into a flickering flame. I hope it stays strong.

Why is there a need for this repertoire, aside of a personal ambition?

That is a good question, which I have asked myself a lot. After all, in India, this is how it works. When a Hindu person dies, his or her ashes are taken to one of the holy rivers for dispersal. In the process, one can consult one or more of the pandas (a holy man of sorts, who also keeps the records of families) and one can find out names of one’s ancestors and other details of their birth and death.

Another traditional practice in some communities emerges when a marriage is being arranged. Both families open their vamsha vriksha (family trees) to ensure that the groom and the bride are not related. This usually requires that the branches of the two families, even if they are the same caste or community, separate out at least 7 generations earlier. Which means many families keep much information on their ancestors and their married relatives going back to 7 generations.

But my point is not to build a vamsha vriksha (family tree). It is to capture the colours of the leaves on that tree, to hear the stories they witnessed, to know of the fruit they bore. So all the foregoing data is useful but it is just the foundation of a substantial structure.

What will this project entail?

Well, definitions first.

Traditionally, in the patriarchal societies in India, a person belongs to the ‘khaandaan’ (’family’ is not the right translation; I cannot think of the right word although ‘clan’ may come close) of one’s father’s side of the family. Accordingly, girls (sisters, cousins) would get married and have kids but they do not belong to the same ‘clan’ as them. However, guys (brothers, cousins) get married and their children add to their ‘clan’. For the purposes of this post, I shall set aside my usual social commentary on this practice. Suffice it to say, I have bigger things on my mind, such as the sheer number of cousins and siblings, who shall have to agree on the definitions and then work on creating the Story. The challenge is to be as inclusive as possible, yet keep it manageable.

Next stop, boundaries.

I cannot think of juicy stories right off the bat, but I am sure our family has its fair share. Should we write about them or not? My family might differ, but I think we should, mainly to build a context of the lives of our ancestors. We might even find things we did not know.

What will we capture?

In addition to information such as who was married to whom and sired/ gave birth to whom, where and when, I am keen that we capture interesting stories, build a photographic record, and find how various members of our family contributed to their respective times. I want to understand what all this can tell us about their lives and times, and what it tells us about our future. For instance, there is a strong maths and science streak in this side of the family which has manifested itself in music as well.

What tools?

I am not sure but I do know I should set up a Wiki. Many people’s technical abilities - and their free time - have to be kept in perspective, so something easy to use and upload photos and text to would be essential.

I am open to suggestions and ideas. If any of you has a similar project going, do share your experiences and advice.

Meanwhile, unusually enough, I am sending this post to all my siblings and cousins, their spouses, and their children (where applicable, of course). Some of them do not know that I write a blog. Well, now they will.

And my cousin will finally know that I am just a coward when it comes to confronting sorrow which has a tone of finality to it.

Technorati Tags: family,project,wiki,generations,society,history,genealogy,culture,technology

Random observations

Between R and S

One recession just a few years into one’s career is bad luck, but a second recession, bordering on stagflation, within 7 years of that first one, starts to look like carelessness.

- My thoughts on the predictions on the state of the market in 2000 and in 2007/8

On poverty and profundity

Discussions on materialism are somehow deemed incomplete if the word ’shallow’ does not appear somewhere near ‘materialism’. I wonder if this also implies that poverty is inherently profound.

Observation would suggest that there is nothing “profound” about being poor or living a bottom-of-the-barrel existence. A poor person is so taken by the business of sheer survival that in effect, he/ she too is focused on materialism. But at the other end of the money spectrum, i.e. on having materially enough so as not to have to sell his/ her soul, although that too comes to pass for some. A Sanskrit adage goes: “Bubhukshitah kim na karoti paapam” (or: “what sin a hungry man may not commit!”). So there lies a not inconsiderable danger arising from extreme or relatively considerable poverty.

Eventually, what satisfies us is a function of how we define our life. Most get caught in their peer group comparisons; many do not. Nothing to suggest the latter is holier or more profound, just materially less attached. After all a shroud has no pockets!

On Mobile Luddites

For all the technology in Silicon Valley, I do not understand why drivers do not use bluetooth headsets while driving.

It is positively nervous-making to see drivers negotiating turns and intersections, in their huge tanker-like cars while holding a phone in one hand and steering with the other. It is worse if the other hand is holding a drink and is also simultaneously negotiating the steering wheel.

Nerds, handsfree thyself!

- My thought on observations made while on a recent holiday in California

On living and dying

If you think life is hard, have you considered how hard it is to die - voluntarily? In most countries, euthanasia is illegal; in some countries, attempted - and failed - suicide can lead to criminal action against the person who wished to die. In most countries, trying to die voluntarily will mean your dependents never see that life insurance money whose premia you paid all your life for the precise time when you were dead, and they weren’t.

Someone, who survived a suicide attempt, told me that those who survive and live to see the next day always regret the attempt, because they never get out of it unscathed, physically or mentally.

Point to ponder. Enjoy life while it is here.

- Snippets of a conversation with a friend, 36, who does not wish to live beyond 50s

Related reading from around the web:

Stagflation cometh by Joseph Stiglitz

The smiling professor

A thick skin protects against fear of ageing

To take notes or not

Ben Casnocha, whose blog is one of my favourites, has written an interesting post on whether one should take notes, during a chat, a discussion or a meeting. While I urge you to read the post for yourself, the summary of his post is that while it may be odd in some social contexts, and may even create a subtle power dynamic between the dispenser of the wisdom, as it were, and the note-taker, it is by and large better to take notes than spend time trying to recall a pearl of wisdom or kicking yourself for forgetting something that had struck you in the discussion.

I agree with him by and large, but here are some of my tips on note-taking:

1. There is a time and a place to take notes. But decide for yourself.

I always ask the person in front if he or she minds my note-taking. Most don’t; many are flattered and some - not all - even pace their speed of talking to match my writing.

During my Ph D research, I had to refrain from recording some of my interviewees for various reasons. I took notes. There was no other way. In some cases, I had to keep up with their speed of talking.

More recently, I met with a very senior executive to whom I was referred by someone who does not make introductions for people willy-nilly. The executive in question was doing me a huge favour because I wanted to know about his firm and their industry. We had coffee, and he spent an hour explaining things in great and candid detail, fielding my questions. I did not take notes. I was meeting him for the first time, I was also keen that he judge me as a person because I was hoping for further references and introductions from him so eye contact and body language were important.

2. If you do not take notes, follow it up.

The chat over coffee, mentioned above, was very successful. I followed our meeting up with an email summarising the main points I have understood and he wrote back saying he was pleased I went away with the right impressions and information. He also judged me favourably and has made further introductions which are slow-burn but during which I have had the chance to forge better relationships and open offers of further exploration.

In case of the Ph D interviews, I verified their quotes before inclusion in the the thesis. This is the right way to do things, especially if one expects to be taken seriously in future interactions with a community or person.

3. Don’t worry about the power dynamic in an on-going relationship, even between peers. And don’t take your own notions of power too seriously.

Chances are you already have a power imbalance, but in a multi-faceted, long term relationship, it is probably balancing out anyway. Otherwise the relationship would not survive.

A friend of mine from business school, who is now a partner at a well-known strategy consulting firm, recently reviewed my CV. We had a telephone conversation. You could say the power imbalance was in his favour in more ways than one. I took notes, copiously because without them I could not incorporate the changes I found valuable into the CV. He knew I was taking notes. Is he treating me differently now? No.

For the Prince’s Trust in the UK, I mentored a young woman entrepreneur. Whenever we met, I took notes but she did not. As a result, after some meetings, I knew more about her business plans and prospects than she did. At this point, I nudged her to start taking notes. And she listened. Did the note-taking dent the power balance? I don’t think so.

4. As a corollary to 3. above, remember your own objectives and that sometimes signalling is important.

I serve as the trustee of a non-profit foundation focused on the arts and culture. The co-founders, who are also executive directors, are widely known artists. They are bubbling with creative ideas but they definitely are not the notes-taking type. Which is fine.

In our meetings and discussions - you guessed it - I am the person taking notes. There is no raising the question of the power balance here. But as a trustee, I happen to have fiduciary responsibilities with dire consequences for failing them. Having done much work in the non-profit sector, I am all too familiar with the effects of the failures of governance on the part of disinterested trustees. Additionally the act of note-taking signals that I am taking my job seriously and they should, too.

So all this brings us to the how-to.

I only speak for myself, but I am never found without a notebook with blank leaves, and a working pen, which I never lend anyone. Some others use their stylii/ fingers and take notes on their PDAs/ iPhones. Yet others, although admittedly fewer, will record entire proceedings which may not be completely legal, especially if one is doing this at a business conference or worse, a meeting held under the Chatham House rule.

Being prepared is important. Even for soi-disant serendipities. Lost opportunities can be really terrible. On the day of the Champions League final in Paris in 2006, I was standing in a queue for taxis at Gare du Nord, just ahead of Mihir Bose, BBC’s Sports Editor. He is a good writer and I follow his columns regularly. We got talking. I gave him tips on visiting the Isle of Skye in Scotland. I also thought he would be a great speaker for the cricket oriented charity programme that a friend’s firm had just launched. So I asked him for his number. My usually trusted pen was no good for the glossy pages of the book I had in hand. He wrote his numbers on the book at my request. I saw later that they got smudged. I was unprepared. I feel bad. My friend was never told about this missed opportunity and fortunately, he does not read my blog.

To end, I paraphrase a line spoken by a character from a book much lauded globally: Anything can happen any time, it is better to be prepared.

Related reading:

Secrets of an obsessive note taker gone bad by Penelope Trunk

Cultural cross-wires: To tip or not to tip, and how to tip

A stereotype plagues the British traveller in America - that of being a stingy tip giver. This probably means that the average Briton tips less than the expected 15-20% of the bill in a restaurant, the $1 per drink at the bar or other less clear expectations such as those of a bell boy in a hotel, a parking valet or attendant etc. Even in states with a minimum wage, such tips are expected to be given as appreciation of the service received. Perhaps the lack of numeracy amongst the British people is gaining notoriety too, because on my most recent trip, I noticed that at least one restaurant bill had, at the bottom, suggested the sums for tipping at 15% and at 20%.

Back in Britain, we are just plain unsure whether to tip and if so, how.

This is a conversation I had yesterday with the lady from the store (LS) from whom I am expecting a bulky piece of furniture to be delivered today.

Me: The delivery guy says he will not bring the furniture upstairs. He says kerbside delivery only. I am a bit disappointed. I cannot arrange help at such short notice.

LS: Hmm. The thing is that he cannot be told by his employers to bring the stuff to first floor* for health and safety reasons. But usually if you slip him a fiver, he will do it. He may even unpack it for you.

Me: Oh that is simple enough. Thank you! I will do just that. You know, I have lived in Britain for over 10 years, and I am still unsure of the etiquette of tipping.

LS: Trust me, I understand. I have just come back after living abroad for many years and now I have no idea how to behave in tipping situations.

Me: The trouble with London is that there are so many different cultures that one is never sure whose rules are applicable in a cross-cultural transaction.

LS: (laughs) Nor is one sure in whose culture, one’s gesture of gratitude may be interpreted as an insult.

And now this is a conversation I had with a friend (M) early today about how to go about giving this tip.

Me: So, what do I do? When I say hello and shake hands, do I give him the money then?

M: No. Let him finish the work and then when you say thank you and bye, say ‘here you go’ and give him the money.

Me: Oh ok.

M: I mean you do not have to say ‘here you go’. Well, in cabs, I normally ask for a receipt and then extend my tip while taking the receipt.

Me: Cabs are easy. I give a larger note and say ‘please give me such and such sum back’ which is a signal that the balance is the fair fare (thanks, Michelle) plus the tip. The cabbie usually says ‘thank you’ at this point.

M: Hmm. Never thought of that but that is a great idea.

Whatever we do and wherever we live in the world, I think other people will remain the biggest mystery, the toughest puzzle, the most perplexing quandary.

Or in the more pointed words of Jean-Paul Sartre: Hell is other people.

* Second floor to Americans

Related reading on cultural cross-wires:

Working internationally? Avoid reductionist tips…

In search of an identity

What price social cohesion?

Etiquette and manners

On having gone AWOL (2)

As promised in the last post, here is a collection of Lines And Signs that I saw and clicked in my recent trip to Silicon Valley.

I admit I was not always ready with my phone/ camera, so here are some gems that do not have photographic record but are worth a mention.

Not all dumbs are blonds (sign on my friends’ neighbour’s car)

The night doesn’t end; it just pauses for daytime (Volta Vodka tag line seen in the women’s loo of Los Gatos Brewing Company - you cannot fault me for not being ready with a camera!)

Life is short; eat cookies (seen in the window of a bakery in Los Gatos)

But then again, there were times when I was ready and the photo-op presented itself. Here are some pictures from such fortuitous moments.

In a globalised world, a South Korean firm sponsors the Beijing Olympics Torch rally.

(c) Picture taken by me, on my Nokia N95, April 2008: Seen on the side of the SFO Cable Car

All along the Caltrain tracks, I saw this sign until one day, the train stopped at Millbrae station right in front of this pole, presenting an excellent photo-op.

(c) Picture taken by me, on my Nokia N95, April 2008: There is help. 1-800-SUICIDE

I saw this sign in the window of a small shop in Half Moon Bay. Voted the ‘best place in town to pick up chicks’ alongside ‘kid-friendly’. I am reminded of Hugh Grant targeting single mothers in About A Boy.

(c) Picture taken by me, on my Nokia N95, April 2008: Seen in a shop-window in Half Moon Bay

Walking from CalTrain station to SFMOMA, I came across this sign in a bus-shelter on 3rd Street in San Francisco. What a message of hope it is to many! And how Californian too!

(c) Picture taken by me, on my Nokia N95, April 2008: Sign in a bus shelter on 3rd Street, SFO

Interesting number plates abounded but this one is truly worth a mention. This was seen at the back of a Porsche. Read the fine print!

(c) Picture taken by me, on my Nokia N95, April 2008: An ironic take on ‘my other car is a Porsche’

And finally an aerial shot of the GGB, as the return flight took off from SFO. There were clear advantages to having chosen to sit on the right side of the plane.

(c) Picture taken by me, on my Nokia N95, April 2008: A view of the Golden Gate Bridge from the flight, just after take-off

On having gone AWOL (1)

About 10-12 years ago, I could not imagine being off-line for any extended period of time. Now, as the past fortnight shows amply, I have no such dependencies. Thank you to all those who wrote in to ask how I was! I am sorry, I was having too much fun to write sooner, but I am back now with glimpses from the past few days.

Where was I?

Umm, when not soaking Californian sunshine, I was soaking my feet in the Pacific. And collecting stones and getting unwittingly whacked by waves.

(c) Picture taken by me, with my Nokia N95, April 2008: Waves washing at my feet on the beach at Ano Nuevo

What did I not do in America?

I did not enter a Starbucks during my entire stay. Considering there were 3 within an arm’s reach where I stayed, this is an achievement of sorts.

Was being a beach bum all I experienced?

Not really.

I also feasted my eyes on the numerous supercars that seem to populate the Silicon Valley. Not far from where I was staying with friends, there was a Lamborghini showroom and another that flogs Bentley and Aston Martin marques. I stopped there often, engaging in profound discussions about why people buy canary yellow Lambos. I saw so many Porsches that I lost my appetite for them. And needless to say, Corvettes abound in America. This is also uniquely a place where BMW X5 is dwarfed easily by many humongous pick-ups and similar objects masquerading as cars. Yet co-existing with these were the numerous Minis running amok (there was a time when my friend’s Mini Cooper S1 was one of the very few in the Bay Area but all that has changed now), BMW Series 1 cars and several smaller European cars. Possessing a European car seems to be seen as an automatic ticket to being ‘classy’ in America, although class, as we all know, cannot be bought.

Here are some classically beautiful ones I clicked.

(c) Picture taken by me, with my Nokia N95, April 2008: This Grand Old Lady was seen in Los Gatos Old Town

(c) Picture taken by me, with my Nokia N95, April 2008: Stunning Classic Jaguar seen near Hyde Pier, SFO

Lest you should think this was my first visit to the area, I hasten to add that it was not. But I seem to have experienced it more consciously this time, documenting in text and photos more of the ordinary life, la vie quotidienne if you will, than I did on previous visits.

Being a culture vulture is never far from my agenda. A return visit to SFMOMA was therefore in order. On the menu in this trip were - Gabriele Basilico’s photos From San Francisco To Silicon Valley and Lee Friedlander’s photos. The curiosities that caught my eye included two things. One was Janine Antoni’s Lick and Lather sculptures, which are busts of women made of soap and chocolate, the latter licked into shape by the artist (or too much information, as my hostess friend said); and the second was British-born Simon Evans’s work ‘Different Design’. Unfortunately SFMOMA does not allow photography and I cannot find a link to the latter piece.

I also did some touristy stuff this time. A ride in the cable car right down to Hyde Pier and then back up was a highlight of this trip.

(c) Picture taken by me, with my Nokia N95, April 2008: One of SFO’s crazy streets from the cable car

(c) Picture taken by me, with my Nokia N95, April 2008: A view of the GGB from Hyde Pier

Trips to Napa, the Pier, Sausalito and Alcatraz had been scored on earlier visits. However this time around, I visited some new beaches - Santa Cruz, the surfers’ paradise and Ano Nuevo that I mentioned earlier.

The day after Ano Nuevo was the trip to the Lick Observatory, located some 4200 feet up on Mount Hamilton and the route to it is a winding road. I found it necessary to knock myself out with an anti-emetic so I cannot describe to you in any detail the vistas on the way. Suffice it to say that the destination makes one realise why it is called the Silicon Valley! Temperature dropped from 88F at the starting point to 47F at the destination.

The Lick Observatory is a live University of California observatory where families live and work. A very nice woman gave us a tour of their 36″ telescope and I apologise for being groggy most of the time.

I also indulged a bit in the great American sport of shopping, even notching a trip to Costco on my first day there, admittedly with friends doing their grocery shopping. Hah!

My usual sins include books, which are always different in other countries because of how stores merchandise and what they promote, and stationery. I brought back plenty of both this time too.

And as usual, food featured highly on my list.

Even in America, it is possible to find sublime food, cleverly and appetisingly presented. For better prices than in Britain. And one has got to eat, so why not? Most meals I had this time were memorable but it was not always appropriate to take photos, as you can imagine.

Over my many trips to the US, I had never eaten sliders before. These are mini-burgers the size of a small clementine, with one portion comprising three such mini-burgers. The best place for them turned out to be Los Gatos Brewing Company, a micro-brewery-cum-restaurant in Los Gatos.

(c) Picture taken by me, with my Nokia N95, April 2008: Los Gatos Brewing Company’s sign over the spit

On another occasion, I was particularly impressed by California Café’s lunchtime offering of a clever bento box. The contents change every day and when it was my turn, it contained an arugula/ strawberry/ blue cheese mini-salad with a port wine dressing, a open ham and cheese mini-sandwich, angel hair pasta and a small lamb chop served on a bed of sublime potato mash. It did taste as good as it looks. Seriously. And it was a steal at $15.

(c) Picture taken by me, with my Nokia N95, April 2008: California Café Los Gatos’s lunchtime bento box

They also serve some enticing and sensibly sized li’l bite desserts and one evening, I chose from the list. I had an elegant chocolate mousse, with fried banana slices and berry coulis on the side. It melted in my mouth and the size was small enough to get that hint of a good after-taste yet big enough not to feel stuffed and queasy. And yes, that was fried banana and yes, my PhD work was in obesity. I did sample another chocolate mousse at the Left Bank in Santana Row, San Jose but for all their ambition to be très Française, their mousse was dry and stodgy compared to the one at California Café.

(c) Picture taken by me, with my Nokia N95, April 2008: California Café’s li’l bite chocolate mousse

One dinner was had at Mountain View’s Nami Nami, a Japanese restaurant that serves in the style of nouvelle cuisine. Our choices from their delightful menu comprised duck with mango and red peppercorns, wheatcakes, kobe veal with rice and a heavenly mint and cherry icecream. The restaurant serves seasonal menus and this was the Spring menu. The red peppercorns were a jolting surprise in Scoville stakes, yet the combination with mango was oddly appealing.

(c) Picture taken by me, with my Nokia N95, April 2008: Nami Nami’s duck with mango and red peppercorns

My list of good meals will be incomplete without a mention of Mango, a Carribean restaurant in Palo Alto. Ordering was simple because I chose a Jamaican goat curry - called Mi Good on the menu - served with rice and vegetables, and a mango drink. The place is simple but the food was very tasty and not expensive.

The walls are decorated in all manner of joyous masks, paintings and artefacts. This painting of dancing women caught my eye. Look closely - some women have left the frame and are dancing on the wall!

(c) Picture taken by me, with my Nokia N95, April 2008: The Dancing Women on a wall in Mango, Palo Alto

I could of course tell you how many times I frequented Powell’s Sweet Shoppe in Los Gatos but that would distinctly change the tone of this post downward. Suffice it to say that crossing the threshold of the store will make the most serious of adults turn back into a child. Their ice-cream is delightful and they are generous with their scoops. For very small prices. I recommend the mocha and the double chocolate flavours with great enthusiasm.

What else?

This time, I purposefully collected a portfolio of lines and signs that tickled me. I shall share those in a separate post.

Meanwhile I hope this little photo-post will help you all forgive my long absence without leave.

Dr White speaks on the ‘Browning of America’

… at Pace University.

If you are inclined to disbelieve this and dismiss it as a cruel and racist joke of some kind, then you need really to see this link.

As a brown person, I resent any likening of the growth of population of my ‘kind’ to a function on a toaster or a broiler.

Disclaimer for those with a sense of humour bypass:

This is not racist, just an unfortunate coincidence, with enormous power to upset some highly sensitive people and to cause enormous mirth to others.

This was sent to me by an American clinical psychologist friend of mine, who knows that on this blog, and in life, I derive much pleasure from puns. This is so brilliant that it must be shared with a wider audience.

Oh, and Dr White is not white himself.

L’infra-ordinaire (1)

Kit for pounding the pavement

Fancy trainers - Check

Fancy lycra shorts - Check

T-shirt that says something witty - Check

White, come-mug-me iPod headphones - Check

Training bra - umm, missing on 2 out of 3 women

Water bottle - missing from the gear-load in 3 out of 4 men and women

The point of all this?

The victory of human vanity über alles never ceases to astound me.

Related reading:

The unwanted bounce

Hydration when running

* This post did appear on my Tumble-log some days ago, but I see these things with alarming regularity so it had to resurface here.

Now we are 1!

This blog is my virtual salon, conducted not in my drawing room but in my study. Instead of delicate aromatic teas served in china cups, I serve up ideas and throw up questions. You - the readers - in turn have provided tremendous support, regular readership, superb and well-informed commentary, and a feisty conversation, making this virtual salon a great experience over the last year.

Yes, the last few days’ performance notwithstanding, this regularly-fed blog is 1 year old today. And yes, April Fool is as good a day as any, for a blog to be born.

Here are snippets from the last year:

No of posts: 297

No of comments: 2116, of which about 650 are my responses and some on recent posts, I admit sheepishly, are overdue

Awards: One - E for Excellent given by Ordinary Girl. Thank you, OG!

Commendations: Two - from Worth Reading and from Rambler. Thank you, both!

Memes written: Two - On writing, on eight random things

Memes released: One, on lessons in hindsight

The first post: predictably an About This Blog page

Most popular post: Ten tips on blogging from the father of all blogs (This may have been because this was my only Hawt post in the last year)

The next 5 most popular (or high-traffic) posts:

Book Review: Games Indians play

‘All Hindus are vegetarians’ and other fallacies

Missing Indian girl children

Art or Science?

Of Mice and Men in Hindu mythology

Funniest incoming search strings: ‘Indians are the most intelligent people’, ‘career meat-eating women’, ‘the negotiable cow’,  ‘only fat white women marry hindu men’, ‘diagrams of vegetarians’

Saddest route to this blog: The WordPress female foeticide tag

Top 2 traffic-bringing searches: La vie quotidienne (surprisingly!) and Games Indians Play

Top referrer after WordPress: The Indian Economy blog, where I am a guest writer

Not directly related to this blog, but the blogger: Check out this WordPress tag

My favourite posts: Quite a few, but it would be more interesting to hear about what posts you liked as readers

Thank you to all the readers, who contribute their time, well-informed commentary and book recommendations!

Just do it!

Some of this blog’s readers probably know of my excellence at the art of procrastination.

My procrastinating usually hurts me. For instance, in the face of a pile of client work and deadlines, I forgo eating. Because I prioritise others’ welfare and expectations over my own. But sometimes my procrastinating can potentially hurt others. One of my uncles passed away 3 months ago. I have not yet had the courage to call my cousins to say how sorry I am, even though I think about them several times a day. Because I prioritise my action-orientation and focus on the futility of a phone call over the enormity of their loss and sorrow.

I even procrastinate when it comes to sharing good tidings. Since my PhD viva, my father has urged me to call the principal of my old school in Gwalior, India. It was a unique school, ahead of its time in many ways. It was a prep-cum-finishing school in one, with really small class sizes (think 5 pupils to a teacher!), highly personalised attention and a single-minded focus on our all-round development. Thanks to my school, I have never been hamstrung by real or imaginary inadequacies in myself, nor have I been short of self-confidence, social skills and poise to deal with life’s various and very real challenges.

Coming back to the point, over the years, my school principal and my father have remained in touch occasionally discussing my progress through life. A photo of mine, aged 7 years, in the school’s unusual royal blue pinafore uniform with my trophies all in front of me, still sits on my piano. Despite that daily reminder, I could not get myself to telephone her.

However after receiving an unduly stern enquiry from my father yesterday, I finally telephoned my school principal today.

Her husband picked up the telephone. I had barely finished giving my name and the years I was at school when he said, “Oh, Shefaly, we have been hoping to hear from you. We are so proud of you and were hoping you will get back in touch!” I spoke with him and my school principal for a good 25 minutes, their tone suggesting that in their heart, I never left.

I found words inside me to express my gratitude to her and her vision, and to articulate how no institution I attended thereafter gave me the sense of belonging that my school did. She was gracious and very kind, just as I remember her. I have now their electronic contacts with me and I have promised to visit them on my next trip to India.

The best thing I heard in a long time? She said that she had not retired because she was hoping for someone like me to come and carry her vision forward, someone who could embody the spirit in which the school was created and that she still had not found that someone.

This really touched me. Much more than the story that a teacher, from 20 years ago, had dug out a photo of mine from a debating competition for my father and asked after me. Much more than the story that a friend visited my father’s town and found my contacts by locating my father through a complicated community group in the town without even knowing my father’s surname and just by talking about me (I do not use the family name as my second name, so it truly is not that easy to locate my father in the usual manner).

Sometimes, it is not worth it doing the arithmetic of time zones, or hiding behind ‘why would they possibly be interested in all this’, or counting back to the year you left (1980, in my case).

Sometimes it is worth just doing it. And I am glad that amid all the client work, pressing deadlines, priorities and emergencies, I found the time and courage to get over myself and just do it.

Second outing, sort of: Does ‘disabled’ have to mean ‘invisible’?

A post by reader and fellow blogger, Feanor, addresses an interesting question of the language that soi-disant ‘normal’ people use for communicating with the physically disabled.

Although his point is mainly about verbal communication, I am tempted to leverage my observations of the world into extending the point to include non-verbal communication. I am ashamed each time I notice how a non-disabled/ abled/ ‘normal’ person’s voice becomes shriller as he/ she speaks with a disabled person; I cringe when I notice non-disabled/ abled/ ‘normal’ persons ignore a person in a wheel-chair or talk over or about him as if he weren’t there; I want to die and be swallowed by the earth each time I see non-disabled/ able/ ‘normal’ people staring at someone with a physical deformity or an obvious physical disability. Of course, clubbing deformities with ‘abnormality’ or ‘disability’ is a widespread enough phenomenon.

I wrote a post on disability last year as a guest writer on the Indian Economy blog. Those, who may not have read it the first time, are urged especially to read the comments, for the fascinating conversation that emerged. This is what I wrote:

I have worked in India and in Indian organisations abroad for a large part of my professional career. However when I think back I cannot recall more than 2 physically disabled colleagues during that entire time. Mind you, I am a sociable kind of person so my visual - and conversational - range extended beyond my own team, department and floor.

If you work in an average corporate environment, and if you were to conduct a similar exercise in recall and in observation, you will probably come up with a similarly small number.

Does this mean disability of all kinds have been eradicated in India? Clearly not, because at every traffic light stop, we have all experienced a mix of feelings at averting our gazes from disabled kids dragging themselves perilously between cars to make a few paise. But for the sake of this post, let’s narrow our focus again, just as we avert our gaze from those disabled begging kids.

But before we move forward, here is a working definition of disability which I will draw upon for this post:

“A disability is a condition or function judged to be significantly impaired relative to the usual standard of an individual or their group. The term is often used to refer to individual functioning, including physical impairment, sensory impairment, cognitive impairment, intellectual impairment or mental health issue. This usage is associated with a medical model of disability. By contrast, a human rights or social model focuses on functioning as an interaction between a person and their environment, highlighting the role of a society in labelling, causing or maintaining disability within that society, including through attitudes or accessibility favouring the majority. Disabilities may come to people during their life or people may be born disabled.”

Even though it is hard to find reliable statistics on disability in India, most smart people can see that both the commonly cited estimates - 18.5M disabled people according to the Disability Survey of National Sample Survey 2002 and 21.9M disabled people according to the Population Census 2001 - are rubbish.

Why?

For starters, the 2% figure is way off the numbers from other developed nations worldwide. In the UK for instance, nearly 15% of the population self-declares disability. About 18% of the population in the US is estimated to have some form of disability. With these comparators, it is evident that poor data collection rather than real low incidence of disability makes for this low 2% figure.

Further if we take a random piece from data about mental health in India, nearly 4M people in India suffer from schizophrenia, which implies that some 14-17M account for all other disabilities! A headline number of 18-21M is quite easily misleading and an age-based breakdown is even less reliable.

Back to the workplace then. Despite a raft of legislation aiming to protect access - including a National Policy for Persons with Disabilities dating back to 1993 - the participation of disabled people in the workplace remains poor. Even if we were to run, for argument’s sake, with this 2% figure, only an estimated 34% of that are in any kind of employment, excluding almost 2/3 of our disabled population. In this matter, India has plenty of company amongst the developed nations though the percentage of disabled people excluded may not be so large. But that is hardly something to be proud of.

What does it take to make a workplace embrace disabled colleagues, assuming all hygiene factors of work related skills and education are in place?

I think there is a threefold approach which can guide and shape our strategies to be inclusive of our disabled population. The shorthand is APT:

A: Awareness and Attitude
P: Policy and Process
T: Technology

I believe awareness would shape attitudes, and this remains the toughest mountain to climb in this area.

Here is an exercise for you. What is the first visual that pops up in your head when you hear the word ‘disability’?

If you said ‘a wheelchair’, congratulations, because in my series of awkward social experiments, to which my friends and family are often subjected, this has been a consistent find and you fit in the middle in the bell curve.

The truth is that mobility impairment is only a very small percentage of disability. Visual, auditory and speech impairments, mental health issues about which I have written before, and multiple disabilities make up the lion’s share of disabilities.

Disability is not just something one is born with; disability can come with age, life circumstance and from social attitudes towards not enabling access and inclusion. Being aware that disability can manifest in many ways can influence policy and shape processes. For instance, when we advertise open positions, do we signal our desire to hire from a cross-section of society? Do we even declare such intent through, say, a disclaimer at the bottom of the adverts? When we have candidates to interview, do we make them welcome especially if they have special needs such as access to the buildings, use of a special screen etc? Do we have disabled employees on board and do we take their feedback on continually improving our workplace not just at the work station, but in our facilities, our buildings and our environment?

The steps that corporate firms can take need not be limited to policy and process. Assistive (including adaptive and rehabilitative) technologies are here, well, to assist those with impairments of vision, hearing, speech, and mobility. Many NGOs worldwide work to fund the development and to accelerate the adoption of such technologies. Many firms too work in this very profitable niche. What is needed is the vision and the leadership in an organisation to deploy these technologies actively to enable and empower disabled colleagues.

Even as I say this, I am aware that discrimination and exclusion of disabled individuals starts much earlier in life, in primary education and sometimes, at home. Besides disability is not by birth alone and it could happen to any of us! All non-disabled people, who are leaders and managers of today and tomorrow, need to consider this issue.

Creating clear awareness and the right attitude, and ensuring it percolates down in society, is something that can start in the workplace. After all, we all go home from work and new thoughts and positive ideas can be contagious. May be it will catch on?

What do you think?

Related reading:

A fantastic blog which will force ‘normal’ people to consider disability in A Different Light

Punarbhava (lit. to be, again), the Indian Government’s first web portal for those with disabilities

Tumbling along

Having spent the Easter weekend in an anti-histamine-induced haze, I am giving myself some recovery time. I have a few things in mind that will find their way here shortly.

Meanwhile, perhaps you would like to tumble along and visit Obiter Dicta?

In search of an identity

When I was a schoolgirl in India, we used to say a pledge in the school assembly every morning. It went: “India is my country. All Indians are my brothers and sisters…”. I could recall the rest if I tried, but I shall stop there because just around the time we became teenagers, we started mumbling that second line. After all, we did not want all Indians to be our brothers and sisters. What about the senior boys on whom we had crushes? What about the people we might want to date and marry some day? Well, at least this tells you one thing - we took the pledge damn seriously.

Americans too have a pledge of allegiance which includes references to the flag, the republic, God, justice, liberty and one nation (What the native Americans think of this ‘one nation’, I best not ask). Not all are happy with the mention of God and some may scoff at the notion of justice and liberty for all, but it is still regularly said in morning assembly in public schools.

To what do British people pledge allegiance? Well, sort of nothing, except at naturalisation ceremonies for new citizens, where one can choose the version without God if one so wishes, but one must pledge allegiance to the Queen. So, sort of nothing - until now.

In a review of citizenship, Lord Goldsmith has proposed a Britishness pledge and a national day. The review was set up the behest of the Scottish-born Prime Minister, Gordon Brown.

While nobody seems to be complaining about one extra holiday, the oath business begs many questions. Does Britishness mean allegiance “The Queen and country”? The Queen? Not to republicans, it does not. One might ask, if it means “the country” to them? Well, which country? One couldn’t really say with certainty, because most people are quicker to identify themselves as ‘English’, ‘Scottish’, ‘Irish’ or ‘Welsh’ than to say they are ‘British’. Predictably a Scottish man’s idea draws hasty scorn from the Scots. Not dissimilar reactions come from Wales and Northern Ireland.

Some pooh-pooh the whole concept of an oath of allegiance as ‘too American‘. What might that criticism mean? Well, if you believe this article, it means it would be like the American oath which is big on sincerity and small on sarcasm, self-deprecation, teasing and ridicule.

Oh wait, does this mean that Britishness is about sarcasm, self-deprecation, teasing and ridicule? One couldn’t say with certainty. In an age of political correctness, many a joke now falls foul of the myriad of laws limiting people from making fun of - or ‘inciting’ - other religions, races, ethnic communities, sexual preferences and age.

Gordon Brown is keen to promote Britishness, but without resolving definitional issues first. That may be because the history of the British Isles is such that resolving definitional issues will require resolving historical issues. The solution? An oath of allegiance and a national day. Brilliant idea! Or Bloody Marvellous, as we say over here.

So does anyone call oneself ‘British’? Well, some do. I have a very dear Scottish friend, who does. Otherwise, being ‘British’ is a naff sort of term that naturalised citizens use to describe themselves, mainly because they can hardly call themselves English or Scottish or Welsh or Irish! ‘British’ or rather ‘Brit’ is also a term that other people call the citizens of this cluster of islands. Being ‘British’ is a nationality identifier used to clump identities of four separate nations together. Being ‘British’ requires belonging to Great Britain, increasingly just Britain, when living in any of Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland gives one very different experiences of life as an ordinary person. So if you ‘belong’ differently, you may not call yourself British. Then again, not for us the double-barrelled identity like British Asian. Actually I had to stop there because other terms such as British Africans, British Afro Carribeans, British Polish, British American etc are not so much in use, nor do they roll off the tongue.

So does being ‘British’ stand for anything in particular? I am not sure.

To my Bertie-Jeeves, Rumpole and Holmes steeped perspective, it could mean a sense of fair play, a love of the underdog, tolerance, free speech, a protestant work ethic, a sense of history and culture, and a stiff upper lip. Behaviourally, it could also mean an abnormal liking of cats over humans, queuing up, 4 o’clock tea and other quirks that mainly the English nation still quaintly uses to promote itself. A look at Britain’s history and it could mean ambition, industry, profit-seeking behaviour on the one hand and sneakiness, duplicity and dirty politics on the other. None of this is definitive or characteristic enough to be labelled quintessential ‘Britishness’.

Britain, it appears, is a bunch of islands in search of an identity. An identity strong enough so that the many nations within might want to belong to it. A bit, I daresay, like belonging to America.

While you smart ones come up with answers, I shall be right back. I am off to pull teeth off a hen first, and then to draw blood from the pebbles in front of my drive.

Additional reading:

My word is my bond on Why Don’t You

British Humour and Bombs

Two-layered Britishness

Citizenship and Apartheid

Late addition:

What some British people would pledge allegiance to

International Women’s Day: March 8

It is here again - International Women’s Day.

This year, the Blank Noise project in India “celebrates” International Women’s Day as a warning to those who indulge in eve-teasing. Eve-teasing is a euphemistic term, used in India, for the continuous sexual harassment - verbal, physical, emotional - that women in India face. In their neighbourhoods, in public transport, in schools and colleges, at the workplace, on streets, in malls, in cinema halls. The theme for the year: I never ask for it.

In the 11-month life of this blog, women were at the centre of many posts. Many of the post themes are good reminders why this day is still important for humanity.

The female foetus gets killed in India in ever larger numbers, so much so that women from outside India now travel to India to get terminations in a bizarre kind of outsourcing.

Of those, who live, fewer than half get schooling and are literate. Yet, many women are prepared to tolerate physical and mental an