Fueling Thoughts

Ushanka-The Iconic Russian Hat a.k.a. The Russi Topi Out of the blue, I was contacted by a Russian chap I had once met at a conference. No prior message, no email—just a straight video call from his car. No apology, no excuses, or preamble. He claimed it was common practice for them, and immediately looped in a colleague. Since nothing about Russia—or Russians—surprises me any more, especially when it comes to their business culture, or the apparent lack of it, I didn’t react. From unscheduled calls to blunt emails and bullying tactics used during meetings, it's all part of doing " Bizness wiz Mazeer Russha. " It was evening, I was free, so I let it slide. He had called for the unlikeliest reason— not one I could have ever guessed—they wanted to discuss the scope of sourcing construction workers from India. They first grumbled about how hard it was to get labour import quotas, pitched it as a “great opportunity” for me, even gave me a peep of Lubyanka —former KGB, now FSB...

In my class section in high school, there was a group of boys who weren’t particularly good at anything - not academics, sports, music, looks, not even cracking a decent joke or spinning a convincing yarn.    Yet, they were united by one habit:  Booing anyone and everyone who, in their view, dared to step out of line. Many of them were Boy Scouts as well, though not everyone. Told early on that they are a chip above the rest, with badges to proved it, they had an innate belief that they could lecture anyone. Same with delivering condescending comments to outright insults all in the name of greater good, and playing the victims when the tables turned. A trait many carried into adulthood, and by all evidence it still hasn't eroded for some now in their 50s.   Though the two of the worst offenders were not scouts, they just played the role of being too cool to be a part of anything except Booing Cheerleaders. With my outspokenness, sometimes unusual and often outlandish...

    " La noche oscura del alma " is a poem by the Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross, which translates into English as "Dark Night of the Soul." A period of immense crisis of faith, one of unanswerable questions posed to the self and the world, and mental turmoil. It's characterized by a deep sense of meaninglessness, apathy, isolation, and despair. A transformative experience that may lead to spiritual awakening, a deeper understanding of oneself and the world, a renewed sense of purpose — or a fall into the abyss of depression, apathy or worse. It’s not taught in management schools, by accelerators or mentors. If the Valley of Death is an obstacle to gaining market traction, the Dark Night of the Soul is the deeper, more personal crisis — one faced by founders who are inventors, builders, and problem-solvers. Those who pour their life and soul into their solutions. I am yet to meet a single deep-tech or appropriate-tech innovator who was motiv...

    Ever wondered why are some Western European nations so predictably loud in their support of Israel? It's not what you think. It's not about some collective guilt — that ship sailed generations ago, if ever. The truth is simpler and uglier: they just don’t want the Jews back. All it costs them is a few hours of prime-time posturing, sobbing crocodile tears under perfect lighting and lacquered hairdos, and maybe a few billion in aid and arms packages. Cheap price, really. With the US, it's messier. Since the 70s, the pro-Zionist lobby, later rebranded as the Neocons, completely hijacked their foreign policy. But let’s be honest — American policymakers weren’t innocent babes in the woods, either. They needed a local thug to intimidate the neighbourhood to secure their oil interests. Enter Israel: arrogant, eager, armed to the teeth, and drunk on its own supremacist delusions by booting out unarmed Arabs and Palestinians from their ancestral land. They control...

The game is always rigged. My father’s disdain for the arts far exceeded his indifference toward my dyslexia, forcing me, a numerically challenged person, to study commerce. A subject I quickly developed an equal disdain for. What college didn’t teach me, despite being about trade and commerce, was that the game is rigged and the dice is always loaded. My first proper job selling cars in Kolkata seemed like a dream for an idealistic auto lover, till it quickly fell apart. I learned that most of the gruff, uncouth buyers who booked ₹6 lakh cars (in the 90s) did so only to sell the allocations at a premium. Concurrently, seeing how a nonchalant young plain-Jane at the bus stand, hopped into a van full of sleazy guys after a brief chat, catapulted my moral and sexual innocence to oblivion.  We learned that our rival dealer outsold us five to one. He was a well-heeled Marwari businessman who was related to, or knew all the who's who in town, and even the car manufacturer...

A friend took his teenage son to the GNR concert in Mumbai. His neighbour asked him if he managed to get free tickets. I’ve never been much of a concert-goer—even in my younger days, the thought of thousands of crazed, doped, smelly minions crammed into a stadium still makes me gag. But I get asked a similar question whenever I’m invited to speak at an overseas conference: “So, you managed to bag yourself a free foreign trip, heh heh,” —always with a tinge of envy. When I tell them it’s an online event, or that I’m paying my own way, their expressions relax into a strange mix of relief and mockery. A few days ago, my morning began with me telling a wheeler-dealer friend to buzz off. He wanted intel on a niche tech—something I only have peripheral knowledge of—and was trying to coax me into researching and sourcing it. As usual, he was pitching the “huge opportunity” angle. I told him straight: no pay, no work. And reminded him why I gave up consulting in the first place— freeloade...

        The first thing I saw upon logging into LinkedIn was an old video of an ISIS operative gloating about the number of people he had killed and the women he had raped, followed by the usual chorus of comments about Muslims being terrorists and the inherent evil of Islam. As an atheist and no apologist for the faith—or any other—I acknowledge that this monster may be real, but could just as easily be another propaganda tool playing a role. What struck me, however, was how none of the commenters seemed remotely interested in digging deeper into the murky origins of ISIS—how it was propped up, armed, and financed as a counterweight to Iraqi Shia militias. No mention of the Western nation and its vassals responsible for the carnage and chaos in the Middle East, their infamous torture school (renamed but still operating), their illegal prison camp in Cuba, or the secret black sites scattered across the world. Moreover,  if we were to stack every I...

    I woke up to the ding of a WhatsApp message at around 3 AM, only to find a YouTube link sent by a friend in Russia—a former proponent of a laissez-faire economy, a citizen of another country, but now a fervent, born-again Putinist. It was barely a couple of hours after the White House fiasco involving Trump and Zelensky when I discovered that all of Russia was in the throes of an orgiastic frenzy, rivaling porcine orgasms in duration. I won’t delve into global politics or take sides here but will focus on two key elements: Zelensky’s two big mistakes and the keyword—“disrespect.” It is apparent that the American side had set the stage earlier to create a media circus, though not at Zelensky’s expense. Possibly taking a cue from his Indian friend who blames Nehru for all the world’s ills, “Do-lund Trumph” and his team sought to use the opportunity for some crass Biden-bashing aimed at domestic audiences. Here was Zelensky’s first mistake: he should have know...

The first day of the year brings symbolic "new beginnings," but in reality, it's just another date on the calendar. Unlike the winter solstice, January 1st lacks any astronomical or religious significance. Across major cultures, there are at least five different New Year dates. This one owes its existence to a Roman-era calendar, later corrected in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII after the Julian calendar had accumulated ten extra days. Interestingly, the Orthodox New Year, celebrated by believers of the Orthodox Church in Greece, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, the Balkans, and Ethiopia, is also known as the Old New Year. According to the Julian calendar, it falls on January 14 in the Gregorian calendar. This festival coincides with the Hindu Makar Sankranti festival in North India, Pongal in the South, and Bihu in Assam, in India's northeast. Astrologically and astronomically, this is the day the Sun moves from Sagittarius to Capricorn, heralding midwinter and the approach of ...

  Like many in my generation, I grew up under the stern, steely, daring, all-seeing eyes of Bruce Lee! He was everywhere—staring down from the walls of friends' bedrooms, roadside eateries, garages, and barbershops. In the late '70s and early '80s, he was the omnipresent aspirational icon in northeast India. Regular fights in the serpentine queues outside theatres screening his movies rivaled those in his films. With a large section of the population having Mongoloid features, teenagers and young men imitated his look—sporting haircuts that resembled bristles on a wild boar’s back, maintaining perennially scowling expressions, and joining martial arts classes. Even those who didn’t join such classes still acted like Kung Fu or Karate experts. Meanwhile, traders made a killing selling Jalandhar-made fake Chinese nunchaku, pirated or original copies of Kung Fu Weekly (complete with the inevitable Bruce Lee poster), and Tao of Jeet Kune Do or Official Karate magazines, whic...