I am a 22-year-old woman who has very recently entered the world of work. My...
Half Half None
The following blog has been co-written by co-fellows Daraab Saleem Abbasi and...
How I Came To Believe In The Wonders Of A Smile
I frequently discover myself being mesmerized by happy faces. 7,000 different...
Going Back To, Through Sundays
After two years of not knowing what day is what, Sunday now has some...
My Small Win With Chai Shots
At MANAVLOK, the organization I am a part of as an India Fellow, the entire...
Viel, No Viel: Why Hate?
A Malayalee growing up in Gujarat has certain perks. Locals do not understand...
Exploring Relationship With Religion
I am not a religious person. However, by virtue of growing up in a religious...
What’s On Your Mind? [A Poem]
They show me the bulging veins,On your forehead and across your...
The Butterfly Effect
A butterfly flutters its wings on one side of the world and causes a hurricane on the other side. This concept knows as 'The butterfly effect', which was initially used with weather predictions (Lorenz's Chaos Theory), gradually gained popularity among theorists to...
In Praise Of The Shower In The Night
Of the many cultural differences between my upbringing and rural parts of the north of the country, the one that I am reminded of everyday is when I have to shower in the morning; to not repel the children from the school where I work. I am obliged to keep up...
The City Of Dead Dogs And Hearts
Ages and ages before Adam Smith came up with his theory that revolutionized how humans produce things together on a mass scale through industries, and also the act of production to become super-boring for the individuals involved, humans were already using the concept...
The Fellowship Epiphany
If you listen to the experience of a person who has just escaped death by drowning, this is what they will tell you – “At first you throw your hands and feet in all the directions frantically, only to realize that it’s not helping, slowly you notice the deluging...
Sight-Seat
I live in Bhuj now. Not exactly, but I live in Mankua, a village on the outskirts of the city. I have started working with an alternate-learning school called Sinchan and have been provided an accommodation in the above mentioned village. The school name is not based...
A Multi-hued Monoculture
Monoculture – not the most common of words, but one which you do hear nowadays from time to time, usually in texts about the present consumerist culture we live in. Sounds fancy, doesn’t it? But what does it really mean? On the face of it, this seems obvious: mono =...
The Efficient Market Hypothesis
Sir George Mallory, O.B.E. stepped off the plane and immediately had to shield his eyes from the sun. It was the height of the Mexican summer and even before he got into the waiting car at the tarmac, he was sweating. Once again, he wondered why he was here. Then he...
Materialism
If words had reputations, then ‘materialism’ would be the poor, misunderstood sod walking home alone at each night after being turned down by every girl at the bar. And yet, I call myself a materialist – and proudly so! I come from arguably the most spiritual country...
Love
Love is in the air at India Fellow! Indeed, not even my previous fellowship can match the rate of romance here. We really ought to use this as a branding tool – "Join India Fellow! Get a girlfriend/boyfriend!" I imagine we’d have to hire some extra staff just to...
Warping Time
Warping time is equally an old concept as much as it is new. Modern times' way of warping time is quite limited in its scope, and does not really enter into our lives as much as the old concept used to and can. Their purposes are widely different. The new way of...
Letters To Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi : Part 2
Subject - Organization, Ideology And Work Mohan Bhai, Did you hear the term social enterprise yet? This concept of social enterprise and social entrepreneurship has received much attention since late 70's. What is it that is so explicitly social about any...
Letters To Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi : Part 1
Subject - Death Of Swaraj Dear Gandhi, Today we visited an Adivasi community in a village called Phala amidst the hills of Udaipur. The idea was to understand the lifestyle of the villagers by interacting with them. The village had 13 mohallas, the one we visited was...