Prolog

I started my career in Mumbai in what seems like eons back. The city will always be seared in my memory for teaching the basic tenet of being a professional – being dependable. Mumbaikars will go to office in such pouring rain, that in any other city would be considered an emergency flood situation. But that is not why I remember Mumbai fondly.

Signature Foods

During one particularly lazy weekend, one of my friends told me that i have to go eat Bhel Puri at Vithal’s Bhel Puri shop near VT  - considered to be foundational to the chat phenomenon that has taken over the country. Then the list extended slowly over time to  Sardar Pav Bhaji, Haji Ali Juice Center, Karjat Vada Pav, Parsi Dairy Kulfi and so on..

Ever since, i have been on a quest to discover the “Signature Food” of every city of the world i visit. Once i went to Madurai (in Tamilnadu) and discovered Raja Barley’s Macroons – they have been making that stuff for 100 years now per the shop keeper. I was surprised to later find that many of my relatives who hail from Madurai had never heard of Raja Barley!

When we were in New Jersey, myself and my wife Priya Raju used to hunt down the signature foods whenever we could – H&R Bagels’ signature bagels, Lombardi’s Pizza…

What started this particular Signature Food trip down memory lane, was my recent visit to Pune where i made sure i brought a huge package of Chitale’s Bakarwadi. I also had a chance recently to visit Hyderabad and got the famous Karachi Biscuits for my family. Yummy stuff.

Googling

As is customary, i did some research to see if someone has talked about Signature Foods in detail. I found this excellent quiz on Signature Foods of various American Cities. I also chanced upon this nice article on the qualities of a Signature Food. On the whole, it appears, from the somewhat sparse Google results compared to other popular topics, Signature Foods aren’t top of the mind for people.

“Social” Signature Foods

As a passionate Social media advocate, i was thinking about how Social Media could make the quest for Signature Foods easier. Maybe one of the hot location startups like Foursquare, could introduce a new “Signature Food” feature, which will notify  you of the city’s signature food(s) as soon as you check-in to any location in that city. Wouldn’t that be cool?

Epilog

What are your thoughts? What are your favorite signature foods? Which cities are those from? Please chime in.

Prolog

It has been a while since i wrote on this blog. Thankfully Abdul Fakhri and Priya Raju have been doing a wonderful job of picking up the slack. 

Fine Tastings

Since this section has not been carried in a while, i decided that it may not be wise to list all the links i liked, many of which i share on my twitter account. Instead i decided to recommend 2 books that i read recently that have had a huge impact on me. The first one is world renowned executive coach Marshall Goldsmith’s What got you here won’t get you there. Marshall has plenty of free resources on his website that you can take advantage of. I am indebted to Sanjay Radhakrishnan for bringing this book to my attention. The second one is Carol Dweck’s @#$%ing brilliant book Mindset . We have been searching for the Soul of Success on this blog  . I would say Carol Dweck has captured the soul of success in her  book. I am indebted to Rajkumar Ravindranathan for recommending this book to me. If you are a parent or a leader, you must read both these books. 

Blog Milestone

I am so happy to announce that we completed 5 years on this blog on June 27, 2009. What a tremendous feeling it is to see this baby that myself and Ganesh hatched grow into a fine sparkling child.  We have now logged a whopping 5,071 comments as of today with 552 posts published.  Compared to last year, we added nearly 2,300 comments in the past 1 year, which is nearly the amount of comments we logged in the previous 4 years combined. The amount of learning that i have received through this blog and the career impact it has had dwarfs the previous 37 years of existence on this planet combined.

My informal surveys amongst the twitterers showed me that blog traffic through RSS is significantly down for the twitterers. I was worried that our blog traffic may have gone down significantly. Fortunately, that is not the case, the traffic pattern seems to be at the same levels when we hit the million page views.  All of these accomplishments would not have been possible without all of you the readers/commenters. Special thanks to commenters –  Subba Muthurangan, Senthil, PK Karthik, Vamsi Poondla, Saraswathi..  

Thank you to all the bloggers specially Abdul Fakhri, Priya Raju, Ganesh Vaideeswaran who have written some fantastic posts in the past 1 year. Hopefully, our not so active bloggers Sreedhar, Sujatha, Sultana, Sibu will blog more this year.  I am also happy to announce that Kumaran Anandan has expressed an interest in contributing to this blog. We look forward to his posts. 

Special Thanks to John Keegan and the Pressharbor team who do a fantastic job of hosting this blog.

Career Milestone

I turned 42 last month and I have been in the midst of making some life changing decisions, in part inspired my Dr. Randy Pausch . After 21 years in the industry, and 14 years in the current firm, i have taken up a part-time role in the same firm as SVP/Head of Innovation. No words of gratitude are enough to thank my management for allowing me to do this.

During the past 3.5 years, i served as the CKO and had the once in a lifetime opportunity of bringing a breakthrough innovation Cognizant 2.0 to production - thanks to a brilliant idea that  my team mate came up with. The teams that i worked with have some of the best people that i have ever seen. They are definitely going to accomplish bigger and better things. I will of course be watching with delight from a small distance away from them. The affection and kindness that my teams showered on me last month is something that will be seared into my memory. Again, mere words are grossly inadequate to thank everyone. 

What Next

While i continue work part time in my current firm, in the other part of my time, i want to chase some of my dreams. One of them is to help Priya Raju with the social entrepreneurial venture she started recently.  The second one is to work on researching the Indus Valley Civilization. I have joined a local research group – Indus Research Center, which is part of the Roja Muthiah Research Library.  There are some passionate people working in that group. I hope to contribute to the initiative and hopefully see that the Indus Script is deciphered soon.  Please wish me luck, as i pursue something that is so far away from my skillset/educational qualifications/work experience.  

Epilog

This is something i always ask every time i do a celebration post. What else can we do to improve your blogging experience on this blog? Please fire away your comments. 

OH, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth!
The Ballad of East and West —- Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936)

Time and again, Kipling’s Ballad of East and West comes to life when people adopt intransigent positions about culture(s). Numerous critics have also taken a pause to look beyond what had been analyzed as Kipling’s prejudice and imperialism. Slowly, it emerges that the East-West realities get replayed not just in the lands of the previously colonized but also in Euro-American societies. This is because significant Afro-Asian migrant populations and their subsequent generations have emerged to challenge issues of race, identity and multiculturalism.

I arrive at this question through the demise of the legendary pop star Michael Jackson. The news of his death was uncannily received in the same manner as the passing away of Princess Diana, Rajiv Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto. Time seemed to stop for a second as the news sunk in globally. While they were all celebrities and some had more in common with the others lives, it is how regardless of one’s own cultural background they felt that they had lost someone they knew very well. Such was the power of the images of these personalities.

Michael Jackson is however distinct among these icons. He was a pop star, musician, dancer and composer, had millions of fans across nations and continents, truly a trans-national following. Jackson’s performances have been aped reverentially by artists across the world including India. Numerous members of the Indian film fraternity paid tribute to the departed artist. In the global adulation that followed his death, how do we sift what Kipling had referred to as the East-West conundrum?

While several from the East did actually sit up and take note of the star’s passing away, in his lifetime they frowned upon his music. It was not ‘ours’ they argued! These are several whom one would term otherwise ‘broad-minded’ people who take objection to people from the ‘East’ taking an interest in ‘Western pop/rock’ music. I have come across some instances myself when a compatriot in a worried tone asked me ‘how can you listen to Madonna?’ I beg your pardon. What is the problem in listening to Madonna? In my compatriot’s analysis, her kind of music was not part of Indian culture. Since his origins were more in north India, he preferred any variant of Hindustani sangeet or even classical Hindi film music. Pass! But Madonna had failed in his perception!

Likewise, I was with another colleague listening to the song ‘American Pie’, the cover version sung by Madonna. My colleague shook her head rather disapprovingly. Her judgement was that ‘there was nothing in this music!’ The inference was that this is indeed inferior music compared to our classical musical traditions. This time the colleague was from the south and she too measured ‘American Pie’ against our Carnatic musical traditions. Madonna had failed again in her perception.

I tried to figure out the reasons for my colleagues distancing themselves from Madonna. First of all, it could be that she is a ‘Western’ icon. Second the type of music. It was clear that my colleagues were unimpressed with the music. The very manner and tradition of western pop seemed to be wrong. Indian classical traditions had an aura of almost religious respectability whereas these pop songs were rebellious to say the least, if not even castigated as downright “vulgar” in some way, at least sometimes their video versions.
I differ with both my colleagues. How can you not lend a ear, even in passing, to numbers such as “Like a Prayer’, ‘Papa don’t Preach’, ‘Evita’ ? How can I not be moved, for instance, by Michael Jacksons  We are the World song written for famine relief in Africa? Did not dozens among our generations grow up on, to name a few,  ’Boney M’, ‘Abba’, ‘Pink floyd’ and ‘Dire Straits’? Is there no ‘sound of music’ in them?

Do we need the fine data or the historical weight of the classical musical compositions to appreciate music? Is it not just the discerning ear and the appeal of the music to the heart and mind that makes for a catchy number? Tastes indeed differ but I refuse to be snobbish about someone else’s popular music traditions. As a friend described, what my colleagues missed noting was that both music (and dance) are universal languages and both classical and popular genres can help build bridges. Even within the Indian pop music scene there have been several cross-overs where classical musicians have rendered some very popular hits.
I have the greatest adoration for our cultural traditions. Our musical heritage (both classical and popular) is a source of inspiration. All I know is that what is different from my very own or what one may call ‘their very own’ does have some value. Perhaps great value. Each tradition, Each culture and Each performer/performance bring something unique to us. I suggest that we own that up. We do so in such a manner that people are ever in doubt about Kipling’s lines and perhaps he always gets disproved.

Perhaps the development of Indi-pop, re-mixes and numerous such variants both in India and the Indian diaspora is the answer to Kipling’s challenge. Besides the jazz-yatra’s, there have been numerous attempts at fusion music between the homeland and its diasporic population, a form of reverse export to the Euro-Americas. Take, for example, the attempt of the South Asian migrant populations in Britain in the form of the ‘Asian Underground‘ to blend elements of western dance music and the traditional music of their home countries.  As a result of their efforts, South Asian music began to influence the UK’s pop mainstream. So, music is like a mighty river flowing both east and west! ***

Again, several are scandalized at the very mention of ‘re-mix’ music as to what it seems to have done to the original but is that not how ‘tradition’ lives on as fusion and synthesis of diverse strands from multiple imports/sources of origin. It ultimately boils down to the listeners choice but lets not narrow down those choices in the name of our tradition, culture and heritage. Precisely because these have been very absorbent and all-encompassing and richer for it. Its not the exclusion of musical traditions that we need to think of but their ‘complimentarity.’ For each tradition has its time, place and meaning.
Michael Jackson’s memory will continue to live on. His music will inspire generations of youth to come. It will cross national, religious, racial and several other cultural boundaries. How we respond to it is a matter of choice? In uniting the world through his music, MJ has thrown the gauntlet at Kipling .

If we see ourselves as throwing open the catalogue of world music to our young ones with a deep knowledge of our classical/pop traditions, they will grow with the knowledge of the choices available and the fundamental oneness of melody as that of human creation. Alternately, they will grow up as closed minds confirming what Kipling has charted out. I for one am for the former course. The floor is open. Lets turn on the music and the dance begin. R. I.  P. MJ !
- – -

*** Some interesting readings:

The dawn of Indian music in the West[music]: Bhairavi
by Peter Lavezzoli
(New York: Continuum, 2006)

Indian music and the West
by Gerry Farrell
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997)

Updated 20 Apr 2009: NR Narayana Murthy has published a book as well. He talks about giving access to inexpensive English education and computers to everyone. Exactly Sir. 

Updated 10 Apr 2009: Imagining India links to this review on their site. Thanks Imagining India.

Managed to read the recent book Imagining India by Nandan Nilekani – one of India’s top entrepreneurs.  Judging from the title of the book, i had imagined that the book would be some kind of a glorified story of Infosys. What can i say, i was completely wrong.

Nilekani has produced a 485 page magnum opus covering the key ideas that have shaped independent India in the spheres of politics, science, education, food, poverty, power, water, economics..  Interspersed in this sweeping discourse are some futuristic but practical ideas, that could take India to the next level [If only our politicians read this].

Within just the first 100 pages, Nilekani’s in depth research as well as the sheer breadth of the topics shines through. I could not help admiring the amount of work that must have gone in to write this book. Even those, that have been following post-1947 India closely, will benefit from reading this book, thanks to the extensive research done by Nilekani.

Nilekani’s  ability to put ideas in perspective is worth appreciating. For example, in the chapter titled “The Phoenix Tongue”, he explains how English became the key language in Southern India, thanks to Tamilnadu’s vociferous opposition to Hindi imposition and the embracing of the English language by the South Indians.  [I am also of the view, that if not for the anti-Hindi agitations, the whole of India would have abandoned English completely foreclosing the rise of the Indian IT/BPO industries which are now the engines of the Indian economy. By the same token, the Hindi belt states, by abandoning English, could not participate in the IT/BPO industries and prosper.  I hope the Hindi/Tamil and other local language chauvinists take note of Nilekani's points].

On a related note, he points out in the chapter titled “The Awakened Country”,   that the Green Revolution, the White Revolution and the IT Revolution, have all passed by the BIMARU states (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh) [my view - Thanks to ignoring English].

He rails against the subsidy economy – giving subsidies for power, food, oil etc. Given his IT background, he advocates a smart card based system where the Government can give the benefits directly to the deserving citizens instead of subsidies which are indirect and almost never reach the intended recipients in full. Brilliant idea. [During my stint in America, i admired their use of Food Stamps, using which poor citizens could shop in regular grocery stores like everyone else. Why couldn't we do that in India - where Public Distribution System stores distribute rice, wheat, sugar, cooking oil etc at an enormous cost to the taxpayers with corrupt employees siphoning off the goods into the black market leaving the recipients with rotten stuff. The entire cost of maintaining the PDS can be given away as direct benefits].

His criticism/appreciation of both the UPA and the NDA governments is quite balanced. The telecom policy introduced by NDA govt which gave rise to India’s mobile revolution gets the praise it deserves and so does Manmohan Singh’s, P. Chidambaram’s (UPA) economic policies.

Overall, i found myself nodding my head for many of his well-researched view points on eGovernance, Power issues, Green issues, Education issues, Water issues etc. Nilekani analyzes the mistakes India has made and at the same time presents potential solutions which are quite practical instead of some pie-in-the sky idealist dreams.

I totally loved Nilekani’s statement that is at the very end:

This is why I believe that the only way to push changes through and safeguard our economic future is to create a safety net of ideas. It is imperative to ensure that our ideas transcend political agendas and are endorsed and demanded by a large number of people. if we can do this, we will insure our future against instability, slow growth and inequality.

My prediction is that Nandan Nilekani is entering politics. I hope for India’s sake he does enter politics. He certainly gets my vote.

(On the occasion of Gandhi’s birth anniversary, I dedicate this post to the memory of late Rajnarayan Chandavarkar among the finest sons and historians of India. Raj was based at Cambridge, England.)

“We can help make the world safe for diversity. For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal” – John F. Kennedy

I have a fetish for bridges! I have been puzzled by it myself: whether its those small structures across our very own Cooum , the Thiru.Vi. Ka bridge across Adyar or the Napier Bridge near the Madras University or the Howrah Bridge in Kolkata or the Laxman Jhula in Rishikesh or the Blackfriars bridge across the Thames or the San Franscisco Golden Gate. Recall the movie the ‘Bridge over the River Kwai’ or the TV ad zooming in on the magnificient Tower Bridge of London?! Bridges have me all excited and thrilled. For a long-time I thought this was a fascination promoted by TV and Cinema.

Until I came across this book by Ivo Andric titled the “Bridge over the Drina” It is a fantastic book and clearly ranks as one of the greatest pieces of world literature. Over a period of 300 years, the destiny of the town and the individuals and communities living near the river Drina get inextricably interwoven with the history of the bridge. The bridge becomes a metaphor for the life around it. Andric’s masterpiece documents the unities and challenges between ethnicities and faiths, Bosnians, Serbs, Jews, Muslim and Christians and their relationship with the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires. The bridge is a silent witness to the history of Europe over centuries.

Cut to the chase. I turn to the contemporary developments across the world including our country. It seems as if some storms are causing bridges to break down and the chasms widening. There seems to be a growing passion for hate! Horror of horrors. Why would anyone want to have a passion for hate? Nicholas Fraser in his book ‘The Voice of Modern Hatred’ sets out the contours of this problem in Europe. This is truly a global problem. Hate is like a ‘malignant tumour’. Young innocent minds have been poisoned to dislike entire cultures through the sustenance of stereotypes. This is because increasingly one can notice a gross distortion in the way entire cultures, communities and identities are being represented especially in the electronic media mainly because of the violence of terrorists. There are other kinds of institutions and organizations too that indulge in violence but that is a separate subject.

I find myself very concerned with the manner in which society and media creates ideas and images of groups of people and their impact. These images to cite a few often take the form of ‘Muslims’ versus ‘Hindus’, ‘Maharashtrians’ versus ‘north Indians’, ‘Hindus’ versus ‘Christian’, ‘Dalits’ versus ‘upper-castes’, ‘Sunni’ versus ‘Shiah’ , ‘Sinhala’ versus ‘Tamil’ and ‘Christianity’ versus ‘Islam.’ The stereotypes and caricatures of ‘us’ and ‘them’ seem to be on the increase. The blame game as to who is responsible for what mess goes on endlessly.

In this madness, where are innocent, peace-loving people to go? Whom can they turn to for solace? Most sober people have adopted the posture of “Forgive them, O’Lord for they know not what they do!” The less said about the political class the better. Of course, there are always exceptions among them. What about the intellectuals? We are reminded of the ‘Prophet of Gloom’ in the form of Samuel P. Huntington who is (in)famous for his theory of the ‘clash of civilizations.’  His theory of clashes found its practitioners in the person of those hawks who promoted the invasion of Iraq and the ‘war-on-terror’ with all its attendant disastrous consequences. Such hawks made the world a more dangerous place. As for me, I draw solace from my favourite subject ‘history’ which would indeed judge these hawks and their global disciples very unkindly.

History is a great teacher. The problem with us is that we are poor students of this subject. The common refrain is that our teachers made this subject boring for us. Alas, if life were to accept such excuses, then everything would be a cakewalk. We would have often heard that those who forget history are condemned to repeat it. I would like to add repeat it at a huge cost to themselves and everybody. I wonder why anybody in their right mind would want to incur these costs. My friends and colleagues often ask me ‘what is the solution to all this? I wonder when an individual falls mentally ill, we escort him/her to a shrink. When a whole society falls sick, what do we do? Which physician knows how to treat ‘collective schizophrenia’? As I write this, there has been terrorist violence in Delhi and attacks on Christians in Orissa and Karnataka.

We are now faced with an epidemic of hate of sorts. Those who believe in religion say that these are signs that the world is coming to an end. Yet others attribute the problem to primordial sentiments and say that it has always been that way and will continue to remain that way. I refuse to buy any of these arguments. I firmly believe that human beings are capable of acting in their self and collective interest in a positive and enlightened manner.

There is still hope for and in reason. I believe that rationality can still play a role in the face of the madness of hate. I believe that millions of people are puppets on a string, or pawns in a chessboard or gullible creatures following the pied piper. It is the ability of ‘vested interests’ (the list is long depending on the context)  to elicit consent from the people to their being manipulated. There is adequate proof in historical studies that masses get easily and unknowingly misled through a set of motives different from what is in their interest. And that is indeed what is happening in this world. If there was no perception of threat to each other’s community, several politicians would be called upon to deliver on issues of bread and butter which are far more difficult than pitting one group against the other. This is true of the East and West, North and South, whether its of India or the rest of the Globe. Distraction by peddling hate is a favourite form of politics for those who are desperate for power. We have all seen in contemporary politics, the love for power. We need to show ourselves the power of love!

Now that the picture is clear, what can individuals do? To start with, we can borrow Nancy Reagan’s famous slogan “Just Say No” to hate. To prejudice. To disunity.

We can then build bridges. Bridges of Love. We can all do it small ways.  Begin with our neighbours and colleagues – do we in the first place know who they are? Do they have families and children like ours? Take an active interest in their well-being. Move beyond that to the residential area or the street or the locality in which we live. Can we build bonds of trust and oneness? As Kennedy rightly argues are we not all faced with the same challenges? We wake up, go to work, fend for our families, return take care of our near and dear ones. We all have children about whose welfare we are worried about. We all have elders who in the sunset of their lives need our company as much as we need their blessings and counsel. There are plenty of interstices and intersections where these bridges can be built. We just have to think creatively about it. Festivals, Ceremonies, Family occasions, Music, Movies and so much more are unexplored arenas of building a sense of togetherness among individuals and communities. Can the effort of an individual in this matter? Certainly. Drops make the ocean. Its better to light a candle than to curse the darkness!

The challenge before us is to build bridges -across time and space; across castes, communities, religions, races, languages and not to miss gender. We need these bridges badly. There will always be naysayers. The villains. The troublemakers. Is it not noteworthy that during war, bridges are the first structures to be destroyed to prevent the movement of people and supplies? To those who believe in a God, (s)he made us such: different from each other. Varied and Diverse. Tomes have also been written on the ‘unity of existence’ that brings together all these differences. There is no religion that by itself preaches hate – that religions can be used to create tensions is a different matter. I believe that the ties that bind people with one another are sacred. Let no one undo those bonds of togetherness.

It is the bridges that connect us all. I for one am a die-hard romantic. Its high time that all peace-loving people resisted the stereotypes promoted by the media and thought beyond them. I raise a toast to several friends, colleagues and the ‘common man’ who have rejected these caricatures. I was brought up on the staple of ‘Enlightenment’ with the firm belief of a ‘common humanity.’ I believe friendship and love will prevail. I think we need to take ‘bridge-building’ more seriously than ever before. We have to work at it.