Opinion

There are a lot of grand festivals that are celebrated in India, but it is a humble one that I treasure the most. It is not Diwali with its lights, gaiety, and splendor. It is not Holi with its splash of color and joy. It is not Ganesh Chaturthi with its pomp and processions. The festival I hold most dear to my heart is Ugadi or New Year. I don’t know if it is the symbolism or meaningfulness or the family time that comes with the festival, but celebrating it is one of my greatest joys.

There is an unhealthy obsession with white skin in India. It is like a hidden disease. It infects everyone, is largely undiagnosed and by the looks of will remain uncured for a long time. Unfortunately, the over $400 skin whitening industry in India seems only too eager to play on people’s ignorance and prejudice so it can increase its line of products and profits. In 2010, AC Nielson had reported that this industry was growing annually at the rate of 18%. At a time where we are having critical conversations about tolerance, integration, and multi-culturalism, this growth of the skin whitening industry is a disturbing trend. We need strong social messaging, a conscious move by thinkers and leaders to gently move people away from this thinking. It is not impossible. But it does need all of us to come together and resist.

There are some words which carry within them entire cultures and centuries of thinking. Translating them to another language does not achieve much. It fails to convey the purport, the essence around the word. To truly do that, one would have to relate a story. The word that prefaces this story is ‘Jugaad’ – the act of creatively solving a problem, of devising a ‘hack’. It is the act of sticking a piece of paper into a battery box to push the spring and get the toy to work. It is the act of adding… Read More »A tale of Jugaad

My first experience of a St. Patrick’s Day parade in America was at Chicago in 2002/3. I was studying at the University of Notre Dame – home to the spirit of the ‘Fighting Irish’. A bunch of us decided to make a trip to Chicago to see the river turning green. The weather was crispy, the feeling electric and we gathered with hundreds others decked in various shades of green at various points along the river. A large ship traveled the length of the river mixing ~40 pounds of environmentally safe dye into the water.… Read More »For the ‘Fighting Irish’ spirit

Jan 21st, 2017 – the day of the Women’s March will go down as an important date. Half a million marchers are said to have gathered in D.C alone. Independent estimates state there were more than 3 million marchers in the US. The Women’s March website estimates there were 673 marches around 421 U.S and 200 international cities. It was probably the biggest protest march in American history. Our family of four, comprising one female and three males, also joined ranks with the numerous others to mark our solidarity with the movement. The crowds were… Read More »Why I marched

  As I began researching the economics of getting a children’s book published and distributed, I was surprised at the different elements involved. Most of us don’t know what goes behind it, so thought it might be interesting to know – Illustrations – Unless you are a highly skilled artist yourself, which many of us do not have the good fortune to be 🙂 – Illustrations can be the most expensive (and important) component. Highly professional illustrators will probably do a 25-page children’s book for $5K. That is the low end, believe me. There are… Read More »Why Kickstarter part 2