When Hamid Ansari returned to India in 2018, it was a matter of great public interest. He disappeared in November 2012, and wasn’t heard of until Pakistani authorities accused him of espionage. The then External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj also took an interest in his case and helped in his restitution.
Hamid Ansari’s mother Fauzia Ansari is the vice-principal of a Mumbai college, and his father Nehal Ansari is a marketing manager in Bank of India. Hamid had completed a degree in engineering and had gone to Dubai for an MBA internship. He did a lot of voluntary social service work with the Rotaract Club, often teaching at regional-language schools, helping students from weaker sections of society, cleaning the streets, etc. Through this club, he became friends with exchange students from Japan, Hong Kong, Afghanistan and other countries. That was how he met Hamdan Khan, from Afghanistan, who offered him a place to say should he ever visit the country.
In November 2012, the then 27-year-old techie told his parents he was going to Afghanistan to interview with an airline company. But a few days after landing in Kabul, Ansari went missing.
Hamid||Hamid Ansari, Geeta Mohan
Ansari went to Pakistan on what he strongly believed was a humanitarian mission. Fiza, the woman he wanted to save, lived in a part of Pakistan well-known for honour killings. Hamid met Fiza on an online chatroom. They became friendly soon, but Fiza’s family was already bent and insistent upon Fiza getting married. Given the beliefs Fiza’s family held, it was a near impossibility that anything would come of their relationship.
But one day, Fiza’s brother shot and killed a boy in their neighbourhood, and shot at his own father. Her father took the blame, but as retribution, the jirga (local tribal council) decided that under the wani custom, Fiza was to be married off to an elder son of the aggrieved family as compensation. There was no space for negotiation in the matter. The word of the jirga was binding.
This turned Hamid’s world upside down in many ways. Jatin Desai, an activist spearheading the mission to get Hamid released, had said that the first time he met Hamid was around six months before he disappeared. Hamid had met with Desai asking for help in acquiring a visa to Pakistan. Hamid had been told by his friends later that he could find an easier passage into Pakistan through Afghanistan. His appeal to the Pakistani High Commission through the Rotaract Club had been rejected after great delay. Having received no communication from Fiza herself, he decided to try entering Pakistan through Afghanistan.
Meanwhile November 14, 2012 onwards, Fauzia stopped receiving any news from Hamid. She checked airline passenger lists and went to the consulate but to no avail. Hamid seemed to have well and truly disappeared.
He was arrested in Kohat, the city where Fiza lived. In all probability he was set up by the people he had trusted, who had taken him to the hotel where he was staying, and promised to take him to Fiza. He had been suspicious of sudden last-minute changes in their plan, but he was also and illegal entrant in a foreign country with dubiously made fake identity cards, he didn’t speak the local language, and he looked conspicuously out of place. He was completely at the mercy of the people he had initially trusted, people who would later make him deeply regret his decision.
Indians and Pakistanis alike worked tirelessly for his release. The story of Hamid Ansari is also the story of individuals caught in the faceless vortex of state power. It showcases individuals as human beings first, and nationally divided citizens after. Activists rallied for him on both sides of the border, Fauzia worked day and night, and Zeenat Shazbadi, the Pakistani journalist who worked his case throughout was also later detained for her links to Ansari and was subjected to ‘enforced disappearance’. Everyone put their lives at stake to fight through this situation. Above all, Hamid is a story of strength and resilience through the most hostile circumstances possible. It gives us activists, lawyers, parents – ordinary people – who are actually heroes in the real world, and it narrates the life of a man who survived impossible conditions dauntlessly, because he believed in the innocence of his cause.
The past year has been indelible in terms of the challenges it presented to humankind. With the unprecedented COVID-19 virus slowly clutching every part of world in its grip, people have increasingly found themselves feeling lost and hopeless. In times of crisis, however, the right words emerging from the right source can prove to be life-changing.
Today, we are presenting to you 10 such unforgettable quotes by His Holiness The Dalai Lama that will act as a salve for you during these difficult times, filling you with optimism and cheer. These thoughts can be found in The Little Book of Encouragement, a specially curated companion volume in which His Holiness shares words of encouragement to deal with new realities in a pandemic stricken world.
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1. It’s not enough to pray for one’s peace of mind; one must examine what disturbs their mind and eliminate it.
2. Each religion has certain unique ideas or techniques and learning about them can only enrich one’s faith.
3. When this blue planet is viewed from space, there are no national boundaries to be seen. To solely concern oneself with a nation is outdated.
4. I am just one of the seven billion human beings alive today, and as such, I try to promote human compassion based on the sense that all human beings are one.
5. To the young people who are protesting and are desirous of change; to those who are struggling against systems that they see as oppressive, remember—the world is always changing.
The Little Book of Encouragement || His Holiness The Dalai Lama
6. The planet does not need more successful people; the planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, storytellers, and lovers of all kinds.
7. Learn through listening and reading, come to an understanding through reflection, and turn that into experience through meditation.
8. We must ethically re-examine what we have inherited, what we are responsible for, and what we will pass on to the coming generations.
9. We must recognize that we are not individuals who are alone. We depend on our community and are a part of it. No matter how rich your family is, without the community you cannot survive.
10. Our life depends so much on others that at the root of our existence lies a fundamental need for love.
Not Many, But One combines knowledge from Sree Narayana Guru’s Advaita philosophy and the latest findings of modern physics, astrophysics and life sciences to tackle some fundamental scientific and philosophical issues. Here is an excerpt from the second volume, which explores how Sree Narayana Guru revived the Advaita philosophy.
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In India, religion and spirituality are used very often as synonyms. While religion is more to do with rituals, spirituality has more to do with one’s self or, the spirit. In India, spirituality and religion are inherent parts of the day-to-day living of people in all walks of life. In India, people belonging to all the major religions of the world coexist in harmony for centuries. We begin with Hinduism since it is the dominant religion in the subcontinent.
Not Many But One Volume I||G.K.Sasidharan
For the study of Indian spirituality, it is essential to understand the basic tenets of Hinduism, a rich, complex and deeply symbolic religion. Hinduism is otherwise known as sanatana Dharma, or the eternal truth/tradition/religion. the Vedas are considered as superhuman-divine revelations, revealed to sages and seers in higher states of communion with ‘the one’—the Absolute. the Vedas are believed to be the world’s most ancient scriptures.
The Absolute is understood in three ways: one, as Paramatma or nirguna (unattributed) Brahman (the unattributed, all-pervading aspect of the supreme); two, as saguna (attributed) Brahman (the supreme soul as the aspect of God within the heart of all beings); and three, as Parameswara, the Absolute in the Jagrat or visual feature.
The entire universe is an illusion, a Vivartha (reflected image) of the absolute reality. the absolute reality can be seen only by turning inward as if it is you or inside you. the Indian philosophy differentiates between ‘belief’ and ‘faith’. A belief may or can be true, whereas faith can never be so; though faith is very often used to mean acceptance. For example, in earlier times, the earth was believed to be flat (belief). now, we know precisely that the earth is spherical (faith). According to Hinduism, experience is the key to faith.
The mother, father and the guru are akin to God. Ahimsa or non-violence to all forms of life is a basic principle. nothing is considered bad so long as it is within limits and the body accepts it. Hinduism believes in the following aspects: An absolute ‘one’, all-pervading supreme being both immanent and transcendent, the creator of un-manifest reality, though it is the only ‘Reality’.
According to Karma, the law of cause and effect, each individual creates his own destiny by his thoughts, words and deeds. Karma is not fate; for man, his deeds create his own fate. God does not punish anyone; one reaps what he sows. the effect of his acts makes him take several births until all the debts of his deeds—good and bad—are returned. still, prayer and nobility give Divine Grace. Man is not a born sinner. Divine grace is equal for all. Hindu philosophy believes in equality of well-being for all— Lōkā Samasta Sukhinō Bhavantu.
Reincarnation (where the soul evolves through many births) continues until all Karma is resolved. then only one attains Moksha or liberation from the cycle of rebirth. this destiny is common for all souls—the existence of divine beings in unseen worlds, temple worship, rituals and devotion lead to communion with the ‘Devas’ or gods in other worlds.
Not Many But One Volume II||G.K. Sasidharan
The history of spirituality and religion in India extends back to the end of the Palaeolithic period. this is evidenced by early traces of it excavated from different parts of India. there is evidence of ‘fire worship’ and ‘mother goddess’ worship as early as 10,000 BCe to 30,000 BCe. In Baghor situated near Kaimor escarpment Medhauli village in Madhya Pradesh, the excavated triangular stones and altars of fire worship seem to be 30,000 years old. A triangular stone was found incised with triangles, marked in red ochre, at an altar for a goddess. even today this practice continues in many villages in India, where similar stones, smeared in red and incised with triangles are offered to village deities. the triangular shape is generally taken as the basis for creating yantras, which are used for the worship of various deities. In the Indus Valley civilization (Harappan civilization) Kalibangan proto-Harappan age (3500 BCe–2500 BCe), they practised worship of the mother goddess, phallic worship and worship of a male god.
The new ideas of spirituality built up through the last couple of centuries, combining Western materialistic ideas with mystical traditions of Asia; especially of Indian religions. the ultimate endeavour was to find the truth of the individual’s entity ‘I’. With the advent of translations of Hindu texts in the West, mostly during the last century, transcendentalist thoughts started influencing Western thought, which led to the endorsement of universalist ideas and to Unitarian Universalism.
The theosophical society that searched for sacred teachings in Asian religions contributed to the major influence on model spirituality. It was influential on several Asian religions, especially on neo-Vedanta, the revival of theravada Buddhism, and Buddhist modernism, which adopted modern Western notions of personal experience and Universalism and incorporated them in their religious perception.
The perpetual philosophy of Asian tradition furthered the influence on the Western model of spirituality. An important influence on Western spirituality was neo-Vedanta, also called neo-Hinduism and Hindu Universalism, a model interpretation of Hinduism which developed in response to Western thoughts and oriental thoughts. the Unitarianism and the idea of Universalism were brought to India by missionaries and had a major influence on neo-Hinduism. this universalism was further popularized and brought back to the West as neo-Vedanta by swami Vivekananda.
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The translations, explanations and commentary given in the two volumes of Not Many, But One are simple and conceivable by ordinary readers who may not be well equipped to grasp the complexities of the intuitional spiritual findings of Advaita and hypothetic conclusions of quantum physics-but without compromising on the authenticity of the works.
It is deeply unfortunate that it took a pandemic and its damage to make us realise what we should have known from the very beginning – we owe our environment sustainable and responsible use. No man is an island, and certainly not when it comes to the natural world. Deanne Panday, in her book Balance, takes a deep dive into the climate crisis and the depth of human complicity in the destruction of our natural world.
The climate of the world has seen a drastic global change merely over the past few decades. We have arrived at a point in the Anthropocene where the damaging impact of human footprint has become irreversible. The increased emission of carbon dioxide has increased health risks and long-term respiratory damage. One living in a metropolitan city is no stranger to this – checking the AQI levels of our cities and towns fills us with dread, and yet this dread remains insufficient in motivating us to radically change our lifestyle.
The increase of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane has resulted in heat waves, where days are getting hotter. Extreme heat can lead to more droughts and hot, dry conditions can, in turn, spark off wildfires. We have recently seen devastating fires in Australia and California. Heat waves lead to drought, which would translate into food scarcity and eventually famines especially in countries reliant largely on agriculture.
Balance||Deanne Panday
The ozone layer has not been an exception in the damage done to the natural environment of the planet. While in the stratosphere it absorbs ultraviolet rays from the sun, the story changes closer to ground. Ground-level ozone is emitted from industrial facilities and electric utilities, motor-vehicle exhaust, petrol vapours and chemical solvents. Breathing ozone can result in chest pain, throat irritation, coughing and congestion. More ozone is formed in summer because there is more ultraviolent radiation from the sun then. It has been estimated that ozone mortality will be more pronounced in India and China, eastern United States, most of Europe and southern Africa.
Covid-19 is not the only that will plague our lives. Other climate sensitive diseases like cholera, malaria, the West Nile virus etc are expected to magnify. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the rise in temperatures, along with an increase in population, could put many more people at risk of being infected by it. The reproductive, survival and biting rates of the Aedes aegypti mosquito species, which carries dengue, are strongly influenced by temperature, precipitation and humidity. Mosquitoes are cold-blooded creatures and seek out warmer environments to regulate their body temperatures.
Greenhouse gases also have an impact on the spread of infectious diseases, since they affect rainfall and temperatures. Higher greenhouse gas emissions also impact nutrients in food – A higher carbon dioxide concentration reduces nutrients such as proteins, vitamin A and folate, which are already in short supply for lakhs of people around the world.
Fertilizers are also responsible for several health disorders. Algal and cyanobacterial blooms produce toxins that are harmful to wildlife and humans. Warmer ocean temperatures and precipitation promote their growth, and their main ingredient is nitrogen. The heavy use of nitro-based fertilizers to grow our food causes a range of illnesses in human beings, such as headaches, vomiting, diarrhoea, numbness and tingling.
The planet we inhabit now is vastly different from the one that existed even thirty years ago. The deterioration has been incredibly rapid. At this point, where restoration might be an option anymore, it is high time we at least begin the process of mitigation instead of myopically pursuing personal comforts.
Few holidays induce as vastly differing reactions as Valentine’s Day, or stir up such a storm of emotion. Whether you’re floating on the throes of first love, nursing a broken heart, enjoying the calm fulfillment of your own company, or simply prefer fictional romance to the messiness of the real thing, we have the book for you!
Our Ultimate Valentine’s Day Book List will give you the perfect book to celebrate love and friendship across the spectrum through the most passionate prose and lyrical longing.
Memory of Light || Ruth Vanita
If there was place and time truly meant for romance, it was 18th-century Lucknow, a vibrant city full of musicians, poets and courtesans, of languorous lovers and lilting poetry. Amidst this milieu Memory of Light weaves the exquisite tale of the love between-two women courtesan Chapla Bai and young poet Nafis Bai as they exchange letters and conversations feeding each other the heady fruit of desire.
French Lover || Nasrin Taslima
The greatest and most basic necessity for a healthy relationship is to be able to know and love oneself. French Lover is a young Bengali woman’s search for love and independence in a strange city. Stifled in an unhappy marriage, Nilanjana’s long road to self-discovery is initiated by Benoir Dupont, a blond, blue-eyed handsome Frenchman. In her passionate, sexually liberating relationship with Benoir, she finally begins to have an inkling of her own desires.
Undying Affinity || Sara Naveed
You’ll fall in love as much with the city of Lahore as with the book’s protagonist in this simple yet touching romance by Sara Naveed. Caught between her childhood friend, Haroon and handsome professor, Ahmar, little does beautiful, spoiled Zarish know that one individual can completely change her perspective towards life. Packed with romance, drama and tragedy, Undying Affinity will stay in your heart forever.
The Beauty of the Moment || Tanaz Bhathena
There’s nothing quite as intense or as memorable as the pangs of first love and this delightful YA romance truly celebrates the thrilling ‘beauty of that moment’When sharp and driven ‘new girl’, Susan meets ‘bad boy ‘ Malcolm, sparks fly. The ways they drift apart and come back together are testaments to family, culture, and being true to who you are.
The Rabbit and the Squirrel || Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi
The critically acclaimed and delightfully illustrated fable for contemporary times is perfect for lending a dash of elegant whimsy this Valentine’s Day. Lit with longing, and tender questions of the heart, The Rabbit and the Squirrel is an ode to the enduring pleasures of friendship, traced through the poignant love story of the eponymous Rabbit and the Squirrel who against all odds are fated for togetherness.
The Penguin Book of Classical Indian Love Stories and Lyrics || Ruskin Bond
When modern vocabulary fails to evoke romance for you, this extraordinarily lyrical compilation of love stories and poems from the classical literature and folklore of India will come to the rescue. Curated by the master of nuanced emotions, Ruskin Bond and set in regions of great natural beauty where Kamadeva, the god of love, picks his victims with consummate ease, these stories and lyrics celebrate the myriad aspects of love.
An Extreme Love of Coffee || Harish Bhat
If you think of love as life’s greatest adventure that hits you like a caffeine kick An Extreme Love of Coffee is your cup of (not)tea! This faced paced mystery romance follows Rahul and Neha who embark upon a quest for treasure, after drinking a cup of ‘magic’ coffee, discovering their passion for warm frothy concoctions and each other as they race from the plantations of Coorg to Japanese graveyards!
Half Torn Hearts || Novoneel Chakraborty
Sometimes Valentine’s Day is a time to reminisce and to dwell upon the fact that first cut is the deepest. Half Torn Hearts is both a thrilling suspense story and a coming-of-age tale of three layered individuals coming to terms with their first loss, which bares the devil that we all possess but are scared of encountering and which eventually becomes the cause of our own ruins.
The God of Small Things || Arundhati Roy
Arundhati Roy’s modern classic is equal parts powerful family saga, forbidden love story, and piercing political drama. The seven-year-old twins Estha and Rahel see their world shaken irrevocably by the arrival of their beautiful young cousin, Sophie. With its exquisite prose , it makes for an unusual, but lyrical Valentine’s Day pick.
The Secrets We Keep || Sudeep Nagarkar
This thrilling romance will have you hooked from start to finish following the story of Rahul, an intelligence officer on a secret mission, who falls in love with the major’s daughter, Akriti. But is anyone who they seem to be, or is Rahul about to face the biggest shock of his life?
Eleven Ways to Love || Sreshtha, Sangeeta, Nadika Nadja, Dhrubo Jyoti, Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan, Preeti Vangani, Shrayana Bhattacharya, Nidhi Goyal, Anushree Majumdar, Sharanya Manivannan, Maroosha Muzaffar, D
Love stories coach us to believe that love is selective, somehow, that it can be boxed in and easily defined. With a foreword by the luminary, Gulazar these eleven remarkable essays, widen the frame of reference: transgender romance; body image issues; race relations; disability; polyamory; class differences; queer love; long distance; caste; loneliness; the single life; the bad boy syndrome . . . and so much more.
Till The Last Breath || Durjoy Datta
This deeply sensitive story explores love in the context of imminent death and reminds us what it means to be alive. Two patients, a young brilliant girl fighting to stay alive, and a youthful drug addict who can’t wait to die come together in Room 509. Two reputed doctors, fighting their own demons from the past, are trying everything to keep these two patients alive. These last days in the hospital change the two patients, their doctors and all the other people around them in ways they had never imagined.
Singing in the Dark || K. Satchidanandan, Nishi Chawla
If love is vulnerability, these strange times have made us even more vulnerable. This global anthology brings together the finest of poetic responses to the coronavirus pandemic. More than a hundred of the world’s most esteemed poets reflect upon a crisis that has dramatically altered our lives, and laid bare our vulnerabilities.
You Are All I Need || Ravinder Singh (Ed.)
This collection of touching stories selected by Ravinder Singh is an ode to the myriad facets of love . This book will make you laugh, cry, think and feel, all at the same time with its eclectic collection of love stories that will warm the cockles of your heart!
Prem Purana || Usha Narayanan
No one is untouched by love, not even devas and asuras, kings and nymphs. This collection of celestial love stories from Indian mythology celebrates the love of Ravana and Mandodari, Nala and Damayanto among many eithers. Tormented by passion, tortured by betrayal and wracked by the agony of separation, these stories deify love in its many splendorous forms.
With Love || TTT
The go-to portal for sweet, sharp, heart-wrenching stories brings this collection of letters that celebrates all the different forms of love and bonds we make, spanning the spectrum from family to our childhood homes , from former loves and future husbands. Deeply personal and intimate, these letters are a great choice to peruse on Valentine’s Day.
This Time Next Year || Sophie Cousens
A lovely contemporary romance that will give you all the warm fuzzies. Quinn and Minnie are born on the same day, but their lives follow completely different trajectories even as fate conspires to bring them together. This moving, joyful love story, This Time Next Year explores the way fate leads us to the people we least expect–no matter what the odds.
The Time Traveler’s Wife || Audrey Niffenegger
This book is a hugely popular modern classic for a reason, its heartwarming, innovative and a moving depiction of the effects of time on love. Henry is a time traveler–cursed with a rare genetic anomaly that causes him to live his life on a shifting timeline, skipping back and forth through the years with no control. Despite the fact that Henry’s travels force them apart with no warning, and never knowing when they will be reunited, he and his wife Clare try to lead a life of normalcy based on an abiding and passionate love.
The Fault in Our Stars || John Green
One of the most popular and moving love stories of our times, this brilliantly explores the funny, thrilling, and tragic business of being alive and in love. Despite the tumour-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel’s story is about to be completely rewritten.
Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda || Becky Albertalli
An incredibly funny and poignant, coming-of-age, coming out story—wrapped in a geek romance! When an email falls into the wrong hands, sixteen year old and not-so-openly-gay Simon finds his secret is at risk of being thrust into the spotlight. Now Simon has to find a way to step out of his comfort zone without fumbling a shot at happiness with the most confusing, adorable guy he’s never met.
Indian civilization is an idea, a reality, an enigma. In the riveting INDIANS: A Brief History of a Civilization, Namit Arora takes us on an unforgettable journey through 5000 years of history, reimagining in rich detail the social and cultural moorings of Indians through the ages. Enlivening the narrative with the idiosyncratic perspectives of the many famous foreign travellers who visited India over millennia, local folklore and his own inimitable insights, Arora guides us through six iconic places-the Harappan city of Dholavira, the Ikshvaku capital at Nagarjunakonda, the Buddhist centre of learning at Nalanda, enigmatic Khajuraho, Vijayanagar at Hampi, and Varanasi.
Read on for a glimpse into the exciting churn of ideas, beliefs and values that unfolded among our ancestors through the centuries.
INDIANS || NAMIT ARORA
Still, the lack of loud and clear indicators of war or standing armies, so commonplace in other civilizations, is a striking feature of the Harappan Civilization. Further, Harappan cities have not revealed monumental, or even humble, temple structures, a great puzzle for scholars. There aren’t any equivalents of the temples and pyramids of ancient Egypt or the ziggurats of Mesopotamia. Some say the Great Bath of Mohenjo-Daro had a religious purpose but this is highly speculative. Or perhaps the Harappans built religious shrines and large sculptures from perishable materials like wood. In any case, while there are hints, we have no clear sense of Harappan gods and rituals, or whether they had any temples or priests. Scholars have offered divergent interpretations of seals with possible religious content: a handsome seven-inch sculpture of a man named ‘priest-king’, who could well have been an aristocrat; a seal named ‘proto-Shiva’ that depicts a multi-headed, seated figure in a yoga-like pose, one of ‘several other yogi images in the corpus of Mature Harappan materials’; another seal that shows a female (deity?) standing under a Bodhi tree with its heart-shaped leaves, a figure kneeling before her in supplication and seven standing figures watching them; other seals that depict mysterious objects and rituals before a unicorn; the swastika motif appears often; some female figurines have a paste-like substance along the middle parting of their hair; a stone object in the shape of a phallus has been identified; two terracotta male figurines have erections; a small terracotta object in Kalibangan resembles the familiar Shiva lingam. All this is very tantalizing. There can be little doubt about cultural continuities. Harappan beliefs clearly shaped later religions of the Axial Age in the subcontinent. Quite possibly, Indian ideas of meditation and even renunciation have Harappan origins. But it’s difficult to draw firm conclusions about this, or about what the Harappans themselves believed, at least until the script begins to speak. Scepticism is essential: The deciphered Mayan script revealed how wrong many scholars were about the beliefs they had attributed to the Mayans (such as being peaceful). The Harappans did not build monumental sculptures, such as of kings or gods, as did the Mesopotamians and the Egyptians. This doesn’t make them any less complex than others, writes Possehl, rather it’s an alternative way in which a civilization, with a ‘highly complex sociocultural system, has expressed itself’. They did make fine miniature art, as in seals and beadwork. And while their figurines aren’t notable for their artisanship, they still evocatively depict their people ‘in great variety, with many poses: sitting in chairs, lying on beds, holding babies and animals, kneading bread, and other things that people do to round out their existence,’ writes Possehl. Animal puppets, in which a bull might shake its head or pull a cart, reveal a playful sense of humour, perhaps designed to amuse children. There are some fantasy creatures too, but ‘on the whole, the Indus peoples in their art, as in other aspects of their lives, come across as people with a practical bent, a tendency to deal with and represent the real world as they [and we] see it’. That said, what jumps out as the Harappans’ greatest monumental work is the city itself, a marvel of urban design and engineering, city- wide sanitation systems that include the first indoor toilets in the world and sophisticated water management. ‘Probably not until later Roman times did people devise so many clever construction techniques to deal with comforts and discomforts related to water.’ They also excelled at shipbuilding and long-distance trade—another reason to think that they had centralized authority and bureaucracy to mobilize labour, develop trading networks and organize long-distance shipping expeditions. Harappan cities of the mature period (2600–1900 bce) had some walled neighbourhoods with larger buildings and better provisions, suggesting that an elite class resided there. But not everyone agrees. There is ‘no justification’ or archaeological support for this presumption, says archaeologist Jonathan Mark Kenoyer. In fact, in certain stages, the ‘citadels’ in Dholavira and Mohenjo-Daro were hubs of artisanal– industrial activity. There is no evidence of royal palaces; homes differ in size and provisions but not by much. Sanitation and water wells were available to all. Based on the bones of the dead, the rich and the poor seem to have enjoyed similar access to nutrition. Their burials too display a narrow range in their sizes and types of funerary objects. However, as noted earlier, burial practices may have varied across individuals, or social groups. That the Harappans had a social social class hierarchy is clear enough. What’s remarkable is that this hierarchy seems so much flatter than in other ancient (or modern) civilizations.
Moni Mohsin sat with us for an absolutely delightful chat, and we just can’t get enough of her (and her book The Impeccable Integrity of Ruby R of course!)
South Asian literature has historically been seen as heavy and weighted, so do you feel a little more liberated working with a freer style like satire?
MM: It’s not that satire is lighter per se because you can go to really dark places with satire too. I choose to write social commentary that allows me to portray my society as accurately and as truthfully as I can while also exploring its more comedic side.
If you had to pick five desert island reads, they would be:
MM: Ah! This is a difficult one not least because my essential reading keeps changing, but if I have to give you top five today they would be:
George Eliot’s Middlemarch because it is so wise, profound and capacious.
Digging to America by Anne Tyler for its wryness, humour and subtlety.
The Complete Works of Shakespeare because God knows when I’ll be rescued.
Some David Sedaris to lift my spirits.
Nuskha-e-Wafa by Faiz Ahmed Faiz so I can keep myself busy by learning all of his greatest ghazals and nazams by heart and stunning everyone with my brilliance when I finally get rescued.
How have you been spending your days indoors?
MM: Editing, writing, recording my podcast ‘Browned Off’ and watching tons of Netflix. And eating chocolate!
If you didn’t pick satire, what would be another narrative style that you might consider?
MM: I’d write funny romances and whodunnits.
Do you think social media can have a positive impact in a field like politics, or is that too positivist? In theory of course yes, it is possible, like anything else, but do you think the system and political structures create politicians and workers on ground level who could actually wield it as a constructive tool?
MM: Of course social media can have a positive impact. Many activists use it for just such a purpose: they speak truth to power and set the record straight. As with everything else, in using social media too there is a choice involved.
What would Ruby do if she were embroiled in today’s South Asian politics? Do you think she would play the system like a fiddle or is the current situation maybe a bit too much even for her?
MM: She would do exactly what she does in the novel: she’d start off believing she is doing good. But very soon, in order to prove her loyalty to her party, she’d find herself peddling misinformation and abusing anyone who disagreed with the party line. And she’d still believe she was doing good.
There is a general despondency that seems to have settled in amongst people, with the pandemic and the general world-politics vortex where something goes wrong every day. We find ourselves once again in an age of anxiety. Do you think satire has the potential to push society towards introspection at such a time? Or is it consumed more like page 3 entertainment because people are too tired?
The Impeccable Integrity of Ruby R||Moni Mohsin
MM: I don’t really know. I think for satire to act as a catalyst for reform, there has to be some consensus on morality – on what we deem to be right and what we believe to be wrong. But in today’s deeply divided world I’m not sure we have that agreement any longer, if we ever did. My own ambitions as a writer are more modest. I am pleased if I can make someone smile when they read my work or recognize something I’ve written as being truthful.
Power and age very easily sway younger, more impressionable people. It happens with Ruby as well, who listens to one speech by Saif Haq and completely discards her reservations about a figure like him. Was the affair between Saif and Ruby a conscious narrative choice from the very beginning, considering it echoes the #metoo movement very closely, or was it something that born later out of the sequence of narrative events?
MM: It is not just the young who fall prey to the false promises of the powerful and the privileged. The affair between Ruby and Saif, while it is an actual thing in the book, is also meant to function as a metaphor for how we the public, who should know better, allow ourselves to be seduced by celebrity and by the intoxicating but divisive rhetoric of populist leaders.
Saif is said to have been modelled on Imran Khan, although he is an echo of several public figures we have seen. Did you have any specific figure in mind when you wrote him or is he more of an amalgamation?
MM: In creating Saif Khan I channelled the arrogance, entitlement and charisma of several populist leaders who are prominent in the world today.
The heightened focus on integrity in a field that obviously seems to have none is a very striking anomaly through the novel. In India for example politics seems to have given up on pretences and external polish. Do you think perhaps that morally bankrupt politicians are more effective when they work with the façade of integrity, parading the importance of being earnest? Or is the scene changing in that regard?
MM: I don’t think that Indian leaders have dispensed with their soaring rhetoric about purifying their country and returning to some mythical golden age while simultaneously stepping into a glittering future. Populist leaders never tell their adoring public the truth: that they have no quick fixes and that meaningful change comes only through hard work and sacrifice. The best they can do when their hypocrisy or incompetence comes to light is to either blame others (the opposition, or minorities, or bad neighbours or hostile super powers or the ‘lying’ media or whatever) or else, conveniently ignoring the truth.
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The Impeccable Integrity of Ruby R is an exciting satire on the life and times of our current politics.
Who do we laugh at and who do we laugh with? Avay Shukla, an ‘unserious’ writer, has a clear vision of what has been going off-track in India in the past decade. And he says it all with clarity and a biting humour. Here is an excerpt from his book PolyTicks, DeMoKrazy & Mumbo Jumbo: Babus, Mantris and Netas (Un)Making Our Nation.
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I belong to a generation that was weaned on the Reader’s Di- gest feature “Laughter, the best medicine”, MAD comics, PUNCH magazine, Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Groucho Marx and quotations from a mysterious “Confucius” (“a man who be both a fool and an arsehole is an ignoranus”) who bears no resemblance to the original sage. Armed with the understanding of human character acquired from these astute observers I have gone through life realising that humour is the ultimate gift of expression that relieves, criticises, elevates, weeps, embraces. But most important, it always teaches, whether it be by the understatement, the mimicry, the pun, the satire, the suggestio falsi, the paraprosdokian or even the humble limerick. There is no more effective (but civilised) commentary on the times, and no more perceptive (but amiable) assessment of individuals. Societies and civilisations which espouse humour are tolerant. sensitive to public opinion, unbigoted and open-minded. By the same definition, those which seek to curb humour, either by legal fiat or street violence, are just the opposite, destined either for fascism or anarchy.
PolyTicks, DeMoKrazy & Mumbo Jumbo||Avay Shukla
India today seems to be headed in this latter direction. Powerful groups – both state and non-state actors, to use a preferred phrase – who brook no criticism, and mis-guided bleeding hearts or seekers of the two minute fame appear to have launched a war against all forms of humour in this country under the specious banner of “political correctness.” It began with Sashi Tharoor’s “cattle class” comment: in the ensuing din it is still not clear who was more offended – the champions of the poor who did not like the poor being “bovined”, as it were; or the Hindutva brigade who resented the disparaging reference to the cow.
Then came the arrest in Mumbai of the cartoonist Aseem Trivedi who dared to publish a caricatured version of the Ashoka Pillar, in order to show how our polity had been debased, distorted and corrupted over time. Cases were slapped against him for sedition and under the provisions of the Information Technology Act and Prevention of Insult to National Honours Act. One could be forgiven for thinking that he is a member of ISIS! Some time later a once-glamorous member of Parliament complained in the House how lawmakers were being made fun of in the media, and demand- ed steps to curb this tendency – she received a bi-partisan support that has not been seen since. Thereafter the Information and Broad- casting Ministry wrote to all TV channels not to make light of the Prime Minister’s sombre image, and to show more respect for his position. Last year this intolerance continued as criminal cases were registered against the entire team of AIB (All India Bakchod) and the presenters for staging the “Roast” show. There was even a demand to rope in some of the more prominent members of the audience. And this when everybody who watched the show had a rollicking good time and no one had complained!
And things are getting worse. Just yesterday a comedian, Kiku Sharda (a regular on the Kapil Sharma show) was arrested and sent to jail for mimicking – hold your breath – Baba Ram Rahim Insan of Sachha Sauda fame! The charge? (Hold your breath again) – hurting the religious feelings of his followers! (Sec. 295A of the IPC). It’s bad enough when this antiquated law is applied to any of the 33 crore Gods in the Hindu pantheon; now it is being used to protect even so called God men. Asa Ram’s lawyers must be watching these developments keenly – maybe the same argument can be used to spring him from jail.
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Avay Shukla is a much-needed contemporary voice. His book tackles difficult topics with nuance and an acerbic sharpness.
The decade leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic witnessed the rise of platform business models as they drove stock market gains and extended their influence across economic and political activity. The pandemic has accelerated these platforms further.
Platform Scalefor a Post-Pandemic World by Sangeet Paul Choudary explains the inner workings of platform business models and their ability to scale rapidly. Here is an excerpt from the book that illustrates the same.
Scene One: The Pandemic
In August 2020, Apple became the first company to reach a $2 trillion market cap. That same month, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos became the first man to reach a personal net worth of $200 billion.
Even as most companies struggle to cope with the realities of a post- pandemic world, the platform firms—Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook—have performed exceptionally well. Relatively smaller firms like Netflix and Shopify have also generated significant shareholder value.
The impact of platform firms during the pandemic has extended far beyond gains in the stock market alone. Google and Apple have joined forces to launch the Google–Apple contact tracing (GACT) platform, which uses application programming interfaces (APIs), Bluetooth technology and operating system (OS) level changes to assist in contact tracing.
While most supply chains reeled under the effect of the pandemic, Amazon and Alibaba came to the rescue. Even as the US–China trade war heats up, Alibaba’s Electronic World Trade Platform initiative is working with countries like Rwanda, Malaysia and Belgium to create a new infrastructure for global trade.
China’s platform economy leaders—Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent— have also been developing AI-driven solutions for COVID-19 diagnosis, vaccine development, contact tracing and risk assessment. Alibaba’s epidemic prediction solution model is trained on public data gathered from across China and predicts the trajectory of a coronavirus outbreak in a specific region with 98 per cent prediction accuracy. Meanwhile, the Alibaba Cloud hosts a virus genome sequencing application to diagnose new COVID-19 cases and has opened up its computing resources to research groups working on vaccine development around the world.
The pandemic has also highlighted the role of platforms as arbiters of discourse. Amazon took down books that it determined carried medical disinformation from its marketplace. Facebook, Twitter, Medium, Reddit and Pinterest have performed similar judge-jury- executioner roles, limiting search results for certain terms or entirely removing content deemed as misinformation.
Platform regulation was on the rise over the second half of the 2010s, and 2020 was supposed to be the year when Big Government would seize power away from Big Tech. Instead, what we’re seeing is quite the opposite.
The pandemic has accelerated the very grounds on which Big Tech was supposed to be regulated. Data access, privacy and usage laws are being revisited to counter the pandemic through contact tracing and other surveillance mechanisms.
As a final testament to the pervasiveness of the platform economy, platforms have started taking over governmental functions during the pandemic. This sounds dramatic but isn’t without precedent. During times of crisis, private firms often step in and take over activities which governments fail to perform. Platforms, as market mediators, are even more likely to take on such roles. Amazon’s directive to stop accepting non-essential products from third-party sellers who use its warehouses is an example of a private firm stepping in as a market regulator.
The pandemic has reinforced the importance of the platform economy. In the 2020s, we will see the platform economy gain further strength as the post-pandemic world uncovers new value pools for platforms to exploit.
Scene Two: The Post-Pandemic World
As we emerge into a post-pandemic world, we are already beginning to see the first signs of massive value migration.
More broadly, the post-pandemic world will see shifts in power across value chain actors. Platform scale and the ability to aggregate large and engaged user bases in order to attract other actors around your business will play a pivotal role. As an example, consider the rise in demand for online streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video during lockdown. These two brands may not use an open ecosystem of producers as other platforms do, but they benefit from many of the same drivers of platform scale that we explore subsequently in this book.
One might argue that things will return to normal post-lockdown. But it’s quite likely that they won’t. This seemingly transient shift in demand-side behaviour is driving a shift in negotiation power in the value chain.
With the pandemic-induced closure of major theatre chains, studios are breaking what’s known in the industry as the ‘window’— the three-month period between when a movie hits the big screen and when it’s offered for rentals or streaming. This window protects theatre revenues.
But with the pandemic, studios have been launching their films directly on streaming channels, eroding the window. Universal, with Trolls World Tour, announced that it will make movies available at home on the same day as their global theatrical release. In response, AMC Studios barred Universal from ever launching a movie in their theatres. Meanwhile, with AMC Theatres struggling, Amazon was looking to acquire its assets as of June 2020, further driving the consolidation we see during such periods of value migration.
In India, Amazon secured rights to premiere Bollywood movies, originally scheduled for a theatrical release, directly on Prime Video. Pre-pandemic, Amazon was getting into online sales of movie tickets to gain bargaining power over movie theatres and possibly negotiate the release window. With the pandemic, this balance is likely to further tilt in Amazon’s favour.
The post-pandemic world will also see new revenue models emerge. China’s Huanxi Media partnered with Douyin, a streaming platform by ByteDance, to launch its movies and TV shows direct to streaming on a new business model involving a combination of a licensing deal and a share of the advertising revenues. As studios like Huanxi Media test the success of releases on streaming platforms, they will likely use that data to negotiate with theatres post-lockdown. Theatres won’t go away, but their bargaining power may decrease. The combination of demand migration and a shift in bargaining power will likely create a permanent shift in power towards Amazon and Netflix. The longer the pandemic- induced changes last, and the greater the number of hit films and shows released direct to streaming, the more likely such a shift becomes.
The pandemic has induced a similar shift in the food retail value chain. With many countries moving into lockdown during the pandemic, there’s been a significant shift towards e-commerce in food retail. This is further reinforced by the disruption of food supply chains, a supply- side effect. A combination of these demand-side and supply-side effects has driven value towards online grocery platforms that can best harness these shifts. Demand has been increasingly centralized, with a few large online grocery platforms that can use centralized demand data to better predict demand patterns, improve stocking of fulfilment centres and better inform their supply chains. Post-pandemic, supply chain inspections and quality control requirements are likely to increase, and this will again favour larger players. This combination of demand- and supply-side effects will strengthen large grocery platforms.
In the post-pandemic world, we will increasingly see aggregation of demand with a few large players. With centralized and aggregated demand as a control point, large platform firms will be able to effectively orchestrate the entire ecosystem to deliver value to consumers and will be best positioned to harness value in these new value pools. As this book illustrates, leveraging technology—often commoditized—to orchestrate connected users towards new and efficient value-creating interactions holds the key to the business models of the future.
Platform Scale for a Post-Pandemic World serves as a maker’s manual, helping executives design and build platforms, and provides a lens to analyse the shifts currently underway and their implications for future platform-scale businesses.
The world today is facing a looming crisis in leadership. Ruchira Chaudhary’s book Coaching: The Secret Code to Uncommon Leadership makes the crucial distinction between controlling from a position of power and coaching from one, which often make the all the difference between success and failure. Here is an excerpt:
‘You are failing us. But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal . . . You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say we will never forgive you. We will not let you get away with this. Right here, right now is where we draw the line.’
A visibly emotional Greta Thunberg, the teenage climate activist, berated and excoriated world leaders for their inertia over the climate crisis. Her speech at the United Nations summit became symbolic of her generation’s demand for a better world. She has constantly provoked world leadership, demanding ‘how dare’ they not do more for the environment and for the future generations.
Would we—the current leadership of the business world— have to be similarly answerable to our younger colleagues one day for leaving the corporate world bereft of good leadership?
There is a massive leadership shortage in the world today even though there is enough talent, according to leadership gurus James Kouzes and Barry Posner. There are potential leaders out there who have a lot of talent. People who are eager, passionate and keen to succeed. And yet, we find ourselves in the midst of a leadership crisis when looking to steer the organizations (and nations) of tomorrow.
By 2025, 75 per cent of the workforce will comprise of millennials. Yet organizations around the world do not feel they have an ample leadership pipeline for current and future needs. About 86 per cent of the respondents to the latest World Economic Forum Survey (WEF) corroborate the view that we are indeed experiencing a leadership crisis. Companies believe they do not have enough leadership bench strength and the demographic shifts are creating more demand for exemplary leadership than the supply.
They go on to ask that if the need for leaders is so high—why aren’t we developing enough leaders? Why is the pipeline so bare, despite the knowledge that having the right leadership is critical to thriving and surviving in the future?
What holds true with the environment can also hold true for business.
Building sustainable leadership for the future is complex and unfortunately not enough of a priority, yet it is critical to the vitality of future businesses. As with the environment, the choice to act rests with us. We can bridge the leadership gap by nurturing and coaching our teams and our emerging leaders now, creating a much stronger pipeline of future leaders, ready to hold the rudder of the economy, when the time comes.
According to leadership scholar Jack Zenger’s research on the topic—this shortfall is fuelled by inadequate preparation. Potential leaders are simply not ready to lead others and most leaders are not getting adequate training. Not surprising, considering that the average age of a manager who goes through any leadership programme was forty-two!5
Just as you would not seek medical treatment from an untrained physician or allow an untrained mechanic to fix your new car—why would you let untrained, unprepared leaders steer your organization?
Why then aren’t we building enough leaders especially in light of such alarming statistics? Why aren’t organizations, educational establishments and governments spending more time, effort, energy and resources in developing this next line of leaders?
That’s because our approach to building leaders isn’t working!
Organizations (societies and nations) are often run according to ‘the superchicken model’, where the value is placed on star employees who outperform others. The model refers to ‘interactions among chickens’ observed in a study by Purdue University evolutionary biologist, William Muir, and explained later in this section.
As we saw in the case of Dr Big, Sachin and Travis—we are instantly drawn to our best performers, our stars, and there is a natural assumption that these superstars will morph into superstar leaders.
We’ve assumed that success is achieved by picking the superstars, the brightest men, or occasionally women, in the room, and giving them all the resources and all the power. The reality however can be very different says Margaret Heffernan.
The idea that top performers can be selected for desirable characteristics has a long pedigree. Charles Darwin, himself, relied upon animal breeding practices to explain how nature plays the same role as the farmer. During Darwin’s time in the mid-19th century, it was widely assumed that creating a better society was a matter of selecting the most able individuals.
This was the basis of an experiment conducted in the 1990s by Dr William M. Muir, professor of animal sciences at Purdue University. The purpose of the experiment was to increase the egg-laying productivity of hens. The most productive hen from each flock was selected to breed the next generation of hens, and so on and so forth, inevitably resulting in a flock of high-productivity chickens. In this model, scientists at Purdue University set out to build a flock of successful chickens by selectively breeding the best of the flock.
According to a Forbes article, ‘Muir left the chickens alone for six generations, expecting to see the super chicken flock turn into a breed of productivity thoroughbreds. But that’s not exactly what he found. The first group—the average chickens—were the same as before . . .’ These were plump, well feathered, healthy and actually producing more eggs than they were at the start of the experiment. ‘The super chickens, on the other hand, weren’t exactly fat and happy. All but three were dead. The individual superstars had pecked their kin to death.’
What should have amounted to a breed of ‘superchickens’ ended up producing a strain of hyper-aggressive hens that incessantly attacked each other.
Muir’s chicken experiment has become legendary among social scientists because it’s a kind of a parable—window into human behaviour and the way we work, and maybe also a lesson on how we could do better. It is not a surprise that these superflocks seem like an apt comparison to organizations of today. As Margaret Heffernan shares in her TED Talk, ‘Forget the Pecking Order at Work’, superchickens in the workplace can cause super problems.
…The superchicken model tells us many things about teamwork, collaboration and, most importantly, that being a star performer or being naturally gifted at your craft is sometimes not enough. These performers need to be nurtured and their craft honed if we want them to lead with the same panache and excellence.
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Coaching: The Secret Code to Uncommon Leadership is a must-read for leaders, aspiring leaders and especially those that wish to transition from being just good leaders to extraordinary ones.
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