Category: What’s Happening Out There

Introducing BYOTP : Back-to-Office Town Hall

Single-ply, multi-ply – you decide. All that we ask is to show up in office Mon-Wed-Fri. A conversation with the CEO on the new Bring Your Own Toilet Paper policy.

Disclaimer : All incidents are made up, none of the featured characters are human etc. AKA I hope I don’t get fired.

In Conversation With the CEO

Welcome and thankyou for yet another year of great performance and stunning margins. First things first, in keeping with the times, my title will be modified from Chief Executive Good Boi to the more inclusive CEO.
I presume you’ve all read my Back to Office email, I appreciate you showing up here today, we sure are one goodlooking pawnch. (There goes my one and only dog-pun).

Now we have an exciting announcement in store based on feedback we received from you. Before that – Sam, could you run us through the top-voted response to our Back to Office story?

Sam : “Of course. With 578 upvotes, top comment by HoomanIsBae with an o-o reads- “Didn’t we exceed expectations working from home these two years? Not looking forward to returning to the single-ply office TP that tears off after 2 pulls. A puny feline couldn’t work with 2 sheets of that abomination -”

“Thankyou Sam, I thought you’d be giving us the TLDR. Anyway, to answer the question which appears to be of chief pertinence – I understand your sentiments about returning to office.

And we see you being independent, responsible adults here – walking on the grass like it’s nobody’s business, picking up after yourselves – we see all the good work. I ASSURE THAT WE SEE YOU. (It’s a security problem if we don’t and I’ll have I.T. fix the CCTV cams).
And we’d love for you to continue the Good Work! Which is why we have news for you!”

Necks craned, pupils dilated across the room in anticipation and hope as Mr. CEO continued.

“To address what was pointed out from YOUR end, we are initiating a BYOTP policy. Whether you’re furry, bald or thick-skinned, Bring Your Own Toilet Paper!
Single-ply, multi-ply – you decide (and you buy, obviously). All that we ask is to show up in office Mon-Wed-Fri.“

The clumsy, rhyming lines appeared on the large screen behind him. Audience exchanged quizzical looks while a few loyal tails wagged ferociously. Clearly he’d missed the point HoomanIsBae and 578 others tried to make, or did he not and was this the best he could do? Corporates are a mystery to me.

“Second row, raising your paw – You have a question for Mr. CEO?”

“So you’re rewarding us by removing Toilet Paper from washrooms?”

“No, we’re rewarding you by letting you bring your own.”

“Erm sure, how about Bring Your Own Bidet (BYOB)? The Afghan Hounds and Asian Shepherds feel 73% more at-home with it. We just ran an audience poll in the last 20 seconds.”

Okay this was tricky and as they say, any stat ending in a 3 must be true.

“I hear you… Let’s start with BYOTP and we’ll get to BYOB eventually. One step at a time, together.”

Awoo’s rose to the ceiling. An Indian Pomeranian wiped their happy tears, nodding, “What a leader.”

“Let’s hear another one, Sam. I know we definitely saw some folks excited about the Return to Office.”

Sam : “Here we go again. StopAskingMeToFetch69 with 6-9 in numeric says – SO GLAD to be back in office, I missed the Chipotle. But now there’s less steak in my burrito cos of long lines at the counter!”

“I’d like to commend StopAskingMeToFetch69 on diversifying to human styles, but my limbs are tied on Chipotle. It is what it is.”

Scattered boos permeated the conference room. “Well now you sound just like John, nobody likes John,” a wizened Husky from the front row flailed and dropped her arms.

John?

“The HR, he no longer sends us bowl treats and our bonus this year was meat flavored gummy bears. We love those but it doesn’t begin to cover inflation.”

Jeez, his own bonus wasn’t gummy bears and even that didn’t cover inflation. Mr. CEO glanced at the floor briefly.

“I see we’re at time so I’ll ignore that completely unless you want a generic managerial response from me. We’ll take one last question.”

Husky wasn’t done, “Can we atleast have a Bring Your Human to Work day? I worry for my human when I’m at work.”

“No, and that’ll be all.” Mr. CEO stepped to the edge of the podium. “To close, we know you had fun at home these 2 long years. Now we let you have fun twice a week. Isn’t that fun?!”

As the crowd walked out, the Pomeranian wiped their eyes still wet from animated glee.

“You know, I might just bring my bidet to work anyway. He told us to have fun at work, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, I’m not leaving my showerhead at home either. Hopefully his cameras don’t work.” LadyBird winked at Jessy, the IT admin.

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Every Person On Instagram

Inspired by folks I’ve seen on Instagram, this article isn’t intended to offend but if you think it’s you I’m talking about, it probably is. The list is by definition incomplete so please don’t be offended if you were skipped (or were you?).

  1. The News Feeder/Faye D’Souza Lite
    At one point when the world was falling apart, they shared worldly updates with diligence. They have continued to stay in character and can’t seem to find a good time to stop.
  2. The Feelings Surrogate
    This is the person that exhausts you with the endless issues they pick up on keyboards. Global warming, education, animal rights, human rights – you carefully skip their updates on a bad day. But you’re glad they exist, for they feel the hard feelings while you sleep peacefully in the knowledge that somebody cares. Roles might switch, or be transferred.
  3. The Liberal
    Their favorite quip is Everyone has a right to live the way they want. No, not like that. Having metamorphosed into worse than the conservatives they abhorred, others quake at their judgmental gaze. We asked if they had a response, Let me check Twitter to know how I feel about that was all we got.
  4. The Fun Content Dude who lives with a Fun Content Family
    They allegedly work hard, they also play hard and it’s for the world to watch on Reels. Of course we don’t believe them for a minute, but life’s hard and I just downed a whole carton of no-pulp orange juice to numb myself after a Wednesday, so trust me to string along as your body descends into a pool on camera with gay abandon.
  5. The Hack
    That content creator whose career and followers’ welfare depend on the favorable angle their camera is fixated at.
  6. The Warrior
    A purist commenting This isn’t pure Kathak under a video of Alia Bhatt promoting Ghar More Pardesiya.
  7. The Defender
    The one replying If you want to watch pure Kathak you need to go elsewhere, triggering a heated debate on Instagram rights and justice.
  8. The Canadian Sun
    They put an end to the thread with Let’s appreciate her for learning the dance in 3 days, it maybe a sh*t show but the show did go on.
  9. Boomers
    Their minds will be blown away as they discover Reels feature in 3..2..1
  10. The Offended Woke
    They are the reason why Comedy Central didn’t air The Office’s diversity episode and whom Pick your battles goddammit was originally directed at. They’re currently on a mission to guilt-trip me on behalf of non-English speaking horses who apparently cannot get humour.
    NOT TODAY, Satan.
  11. The Cat/Food/Photography/Workout/Lurker person
    Honorary mention.
  12. The Conflicted Artist
    They were traditionalists on social media until recently, when they relented to deluging content.
    Sometimes, they add #poetsofinstagram to their poem while shrugging at life-choices that led them there. Sometimes, they unweave what could’ve been a satirical drama into a lazy list. And they definitely cringe every time they share an Insta story announcing their own post.
  13. The OG – You Gotta Do What You Gotta Do Squad
    Toughened by time and lessons learnt on the “gram”, these professionals are the antitheses to the Conflicted and serious about giving their audience what they want. The kitchen sinks in their background have just enough dirty dishes to make them appear human, if there’s any more it will include a small write-up on being human. Of course it’s no easy feat to keep at anything twice a week, and we love them for being reliable.
    In short, their unprecedented success is why I have annoying folks on my feed performing Bollywood trends under #foodporn, in hopes of going viral.
  14. The Humble Brag
    They share erudite arguments that lack any context and jokes that need a preface, leaving us hanging and feeling a little dumb. You always vow never to return to their smartest person in the room updates. But like they say, genius needs an audience, and we all need a genius.
  15. The Good Samaritan
    You – when you sit and click through 79-odd canyon stories posted by a lovable friend who doesn’t yet know they’re boring because they have equally sweet friends that won’t skip nor tell.
  16. Instagram
    A monster that’ll make you accidently hit like on your ex’s ex’s picture but somehow your crush who sits through every one of your stories won’t. This is obviously a personal grievance, I’m sure you can think of your own reasons why Insta is the real monster (apart from Reels).

#19 Postcard – Rewiring the brain, Making the bed

How do you build habits? Is it possible to change the way your brain is wired, is it decided by genetics, or is it malleable? Can behavior drive thoughts, or is it always the other way around?

After my writing workshop, our cohort was inducted into the Clear Writing community, and we each gave a brief introduction of ourselves. A few touched upon their untapped writing potential (and we take their word that its exists, we’re nice that way) – and their being okay with it staying untapped as other priorities took precedence.

Some also wrote about how they led rather mediocre lives (their words, not mine). Of course at no point does anyone define what a spectacular or even a non-mediocre life might look like.

It has been a running theme in my conversations with my mother, on generally unproductive days, that my father’s gene pool has taken over and that my laziness can’t be helped, my brain’s just wired that way. Now we bypass the discussion about genes and slap wiring onto a lot of things, including messiness.

At one point, it bothered me to see my bed empty. I think it might have hit my mother that believing it’s Nature is easier, so she gave up after two decades of asking me to make my bed. When I moved into this apartment the first thing I did was throw some books onto the naked mattress to give it some semblance of occupancy and home.

Then, three months ago I listened to the Make your bed speech and started making my bed the next morning. And now I cannot stand it if it isn’t neat. Last week I listened to this podcast about rewiring the brain, and I think I figured out why or rather how the change in habits happened.

Intention to change is only half the story.

In the episode, Dr. Andrew Huberman talks about neuroplasticity – the ability of brain to change and adapt – and in my tug of war between If you can then why shouldn’t you and But I’m happy this way (I know a few others who struggle with this dilemma), I’m sure you see why I listened to the whole 2 hour podcast. There’s two steps to neuroplasticity – deep focus and deep rest (and sleep, WHY DIDN’T THEY TELL US THE REAL REASONS WHY SLEEP IS IMPORTANT) – which I’ll try to tackle another time.

The one thing he explains about changing habits is how writing or talking or thinking about it is not as effective as just doing it – that behavior can and should be allowed to drive thoughts, it doesn’t have to be the other way around. This is antithetical how I thought I lived my conscious life. I’ve had trouble going with the flow and even in doing things I dislike or didn’t actively choose for myself. But on inspection I realize I have done it too.

I started making my bed the next day after watching that speech, and I sort of took upon it as a goal, because some of what the Navy Admiral said made sense to me. It’s one of the few times I fast-tracked to behavior first instead of brooding over the purpose of the action or getting stuck in thought. And when I wake up and make my bed every morning, I feel good from the minor accomplishment. In Huberman terms, it gives me a dopamine hit because it’s a goal achieved, and that primes me for the rest of the day – almost like working out before you dance.

And if it’s not making the bed, it’s something else that you attach a mental if unconscious goal to – it might be lighting a lamp for somebody, putting on tea for another.

When he said When you do one thing it becomes easier to do another – it really is because of this dopamine hit that Huberman describes. Because once you get your first hit, you then want to get the next one, which makes you proceed to another task because that’s what dopamine does – it makes you crave for more. A lot like social media validation makes you want to share more posts.

I’m glad I took to it, and I’ve kept doing it since it feels good. Because there are days when it’s a physical labor to get out of bed, but folding my blanket does make me feel more ready to start the day. I can’t tell if it’s more physical or mental, it’s probably both. Obviously the bed also looks nice when it’s tidied up, and I say that without shitting on my previous self that thought a messy bed looks just as fine 😛

So rewiring really is a choice, from the little I’ve understood. I’m sure there might be science behind how choices work as well, but let me wrap my mind around this dopamine thing first.

Thinking about turning into a morning person would never work for me, I’d have to start with behavior/action there as well to rewire. Okay, this has gone too far, that’s enough Huberman talk for the day.

The comma,

The beauty of the comma lies in all it stands for. Comma is hope, just like semi-colon is (the better) alternative to a full-stop. It’s an appeal to pause and to look around, to not get lost in details when it gets too much, to not lose track of all that makes life beautiful.

I was watching 13 Reasons Why (again) and realized, If I had to get a tattoo today (maybe I wouldn’t get it or maybe I would, but if I had to) I’d get a comma.

The semi-colon has received its due, sure, but what about the comma? Not enough has been said about it. What if an impending full-stop was not your issue, what about getting through every day?

I hate talking in metaphors as well.

Comma, we’re taught, is a pause in the sentence. It’s often a necessity. At other times it’s yet another device to structure your writing, your sentence, to convey your tone.
And they’re mostly harmless.

I like trees, flowers and life.
I like trees, flowers, and life.

I wanted a pause after flowers– maybe that gave it a rhythm in my head, maybe I was pensive or maybe I’m just obsessed with adding unnecessary punctuation that infuriates the shit out of readers.

But the beauty of the comma lies in all it stands for. Comma is hope, just like semi-colon is (the better) alternative to a full-stop. It’s an appeal to pause and to look around, to not get lost in details when they overwhelm, to wait and remember all that makes life beautiful.
Because there’s always details, all day everyday. And when they appear larger than life, remember to ,

For instance, this whole year I’ve wondered how in the big picture I’ve spent my 25th year on earth without eating good meencurry while staying away from people I love. I ask myself everyday, is anything worth that? For now all I have are questions. Also I think that was a bad example.

My brother and I talked about (terribly) longer sentences the other day – how they often creep up in my writing, how he thinks the work is badly edited when he comes across one in a news article/report, to which we discussed and decided (or I did :P) that it’s cool if it isn’t formal writing, and it’s cool if the statement is still coherent.
I have stretched out so many sentences into whole paragraphs made possible only by the comma – and maybe a hyphen. 😀

And while it might sound so much like an inferior sibling to the semi-colon, in a lot of cases, comma suffices. It gets you through. It’s for daily use.

And it does its job pretty damn well too, no?

Virus

I watched Lady Bird for the first time on 26th March.
I remember the day because I had woken up to my phone buzzing with messages from concerned friends and family – US had overtaken China on the Covid dashboard the previous night to hit 85k cases, and the world was slowly waking up to that in different places. I’d been attending online classes from home for a week, it was a sunny day and most importantly, I had to get a drug test taken at Emory that morning for my summer internship.

The lady at the empty lab was aghast at the sight of me until I told her I was there just for a pee test. Through the two hours that I was out, I was super stressed out and worried shitless, wanting to be anywhere but outside.

I returned to my apartment to find Whole Foods bags delivered outside the door. Bless Amazon. I took all the stuff inside, washed my face and hands, wiped the surface of my phone with hand sanitizer (is that what you’re supposed to do?), threw everything I wore including socks into the dirty laundry cardboard box because who knows what the virus might’ve hooked on to?

I then took a shower, got to my bed, emailed HR that the drug test was done, wondering if the virus was already inside me, all the while thinking about the bus driver on my way back who wanted to know if we’d be back in college by Easter like the President said.

Probably not, I told him (Do you want us to die?). We need to keep things open, you know. It’s just depressing to see the world shut down. Speak for yourself, I wish I weren’t out right now. He was actually sweet and friendly, but I also knew I was going to constantly monitor myself for symptoms for 2 weeks thence. No it wasn’t all that bad then, I was just super paranoid.

US reached 100K cases that evening while I was watching Lady Bird on Prime. The President was talking about opening up localities where cases had slowed down. Blame capitalism and us for letting it feed off us; Amazon, Apple and their sweatshops across the world. Did I still not interview in these places? Yes, sure, but only to prove a point, I guess the competition was too high for me to get to my point. Anyway.

I drank an entire Tropicana bottle that day to buff up my immune system.
Then I hyperventilated once every 3 days until the 2 weeks had passed, suffered some 13 episodes of self-diagnosis followed by panic, and finally began getting out of my apartment two weeks ago once my deadlines were done and summer vacation began.

I haven’t used the bath tub here ever, only the shower. Not even during fall break. Well I’m glad summer is here.

I was trying to learn a choreography today (been all week), and I’m tired and sweaty and my frothy fragrant bath awaits me. One of the positive impacts of a regular physical activity in my life is tire from exhaustion rather than the lack of sleep that I’m used to. My worked up body eventually leads to better hygienic practices, some kind (and frequency) of food intake and even sleep, all of which I’ve been missing these days.

I take inside the bathroom our short stool to have my tiny Bluetooth speaker closeby. I also make sure everything I may need – shampoo, gel, scrub, etc – is handy on the counters to not ruin my upcoming experience.

The water is warm and the bubbles are friendly, and I can see my feet up on either sides of the running faucet. Much like in Lady Bird, different context though. My flatmates aren’t home (haven’t been since spring break), Ae Hairathe Aashiqui reverberate within the bathroom walls, the door is locked from the inside so even if somebody breaks in they could never enter or I could buy time to dial 911. All is good. I could fall asleep right here, eyes closed, the warm blanket reaching upto my neck.

So the other day a girl in my LinkedIn feed thanked Jeff Bezos for inspiring her, only the previous day news had come out about a VP quitting over firings. More than 50% of LinkedIn posts are infuriating anyway.

I open my eyes. The fact that every single item surrounding me was from either Amazon or Walmart hit me. The speaker was Amazon, my shampoo was Amazon, the razor and everything else was either Walmart or Target. I sink further into my blanket.

This is old. You would think an active mind is where thoughts creep up, thoughts and no action of any consequence. How about leave my worn out system alone to doze off on the tub?

I should worry more about the orange juice without pulp that I bought yesterday. Like someone said, I could make a difference to that. I should also try the Lady Bird thing some time. Too exhausted for it now.

So lying in the tub, I decided to not check the numbers today, and I don’t want to know what Trump is saying, I cannot bear to look at migrant laborers’ pictures and stories in my feed, not for another two days, and not knowing seems better than curling up every third day.

I resume my bath, close my eyes again. Radha ragasiya is amazing in the bath tub or even for the shower. I need to do this more often.

I forgot I also have kanji payar waiting for me for when I’m done, ravenous as I know I will be. This will be a good night after all.


Some days, I cannot decide if this vacation is all that bad. I keep my bars low and that helps.

Where numbers come from

So one day last year, three of us were discussing about the rise of BJP in India. The conversation mainly revolved around their proliferation despite outright communal agendas and intolerance.

P1 : But I mean, who votes for these bigots? I don’t expect a remotely sensible person would vote them to power.

Me : I can only speak for myself. Now I may bark liberalism in the workplace and about freedom of expression etc among my social circles, yet when I enter the polling booth – sorry but the Hindu in me is aroused and I vote for thaamara (lotus). Not sorry. (*wink* intended)

P2 (pleasantly surprised) : YEA I KNOW RIGHT! SAME HERE! Same happens with me! Wonder why that is…

P1 & Me :

ആാാ!

Of Fabindia, mismatched blouses and pseudo-liberals

SATIRE: How to come across as urban, classy, refined, English-educated and well-grounded with the Indian way of life. Also be identified as an Intellectual.

I’ve been rummaging my mother’s wardrobe for hours in search of a blouse to go with my Fabindia Kota saree. I need the two to be glaringly mismatched, like that Carnatic singer-cum-mini celebrity on my Instagram feed. My mother doesn’t seem to get the idea though.

 

My initial impression on Fabindia was made when at a literature fest in Delhi, I saw their brand worn by seemingly well-read women and girls ladies. I knew I was moved for life as I watched similarly dressed others on national television express vocally their critique/opinions on issues of the nation-state.

That’s when I decided I too would paint my life not with H&M or colors of Benetton. I was ready to embrace the Fabindia life – not only elegant, in vogue (and ridiculously overpriced) but also a sign of brains, wisdom and good taste. I mean, sure you’ve to wash them separately in shampoo but I don’t mind as long as I distinguish myself as an intellectual. The JNU kind.

The sari of course must be draped carefully to look careless enough. That somehow lets everyone know I stand for Indian culture and ethnic produce. And my solidarity with impoverished artisans.

All those ajrakh prints in indigo and maroon that are expensive enough to kill, but worth it because they announce my elite upper class or at least upper middle class status. Urban, classy, refined, English-educated and well-grounded with the Indian way of life. (Because I have an enriched vocabulary with phrases such as impoverished artisans etc).
To be worn with mismatched blouses – not because I can’t afford to match them (are you kidding me?) but because that’s the brand.
You know, that Fabindia look.

The stuff goes great with shades so I can step in and out of my (armchair) liberal look whenever I want to. You can stop judging me, at least I care about equality. And human rights.

Also, I paid for this shit.

I mean, this isn’t your 200/- kurta that was bought on a bargain off the streets, this was available only in 4 sizes catering to international standards, the smallest size available was still GIGANTIC for the native me to fit into but I still took it. I deserve some respect.

It’s almost sad how some alter them though – hand them over to tailors seated behind rusted sewing machines. If all you wanted was for the clothing to fit, you might as well have shopped at Max. But of course I support individual’s right to choices (now that I don my liberal attire). One should shop wherever they want to.

My Fabindia style was also inspired by a certain left-leaning uncle, who happens to be a women-empowerment evangelist. Back in the day he had my aunt quit her job to feed his insatiable stomach three times a day. I mean, food is important you know? Fabindia hangs loose and comfy against his throbbing skin on blood that’s boiling for (other) women’s rights.

I haven’t been to Sarojini Nagar since I got my first fat paycheck – the chaotic air and the crowd slathering their sweaty bodies against mine isn’t worth it, I realized. Again, I’m too busy attending the meet-up/litfests I mentioned before. Now I’m one of them.

Although I admit I have heard awful things being accused of the Fabindian style – ‘not everybody can afford it’. But come on it’s affordable for almost all, I cry.

All except the impoverished artisans. And you.

I mean if everyone could afford it, I would go unnoticed in a sea of kalamkari weaves and ajrakh prints – that isn’t the status symbol I pay for. I seem to have mentioned classy, make that class-marker, shall we.

The other day, an ambitious junior walked into my cubicle while I was browsing through the website catalog on my PC. “That seems like a reasonable price for a Fabindia kurta. I can finally afford one myself”, she seemed delighted.

“Dear”, I tell her, genuinely apologetic and squishing a fly that as its final bad decision landed on my 9k Kota sleeve. “That’s the price of the dupatta the model’s wearing with the kurta, not the kurta itself”, I had to explain to the poor girl (no pun intended).
Thank god Fabindia upholds its values.

Hopefully she knows she can buy an entire wardrobe at Sarojini market for that money (make that four).
The dyes from both places are going to run out when you wash their clothes anyway.

I hit “post” on my new Instagram picture captioned “Couldn’t find a blouse to match but this doesn’t look too bad does it?” hashtag ethnic hashtag handloom hashtag Indian fashion.
Afterthought : I feel qualified enough now to add hashtag human rights. Another picture, maybe.

 

But why aren’t we cashless yet?

after all we’re the nation of Ramanujam and Aryabhatta and an array of astonishingly great GDP figures. Surely if nothing else we should be able to produce good numbers, no?

[I run the risk of coming across as cynical, pessimistic and negative by this post – I’ve been accused of being each of the three in three separate circumstances by three different people. So kindly send better adjectives my way].

I consider myself privileged to have been alive the day India decided to go cashless (November 8, 2016). With no TV set in my room, I only knew when my roommate arrived around 9:30pm exultant and jumping “I’M SO HAPPY NOW ALL MY IAS UNCLES ARE GOING TO JAIL”.

If you think this is going to be yet another article slamming the demonetisation-drama-debacle (come on, it came in a package), then no. Too late for that. And I know even the people that only scroll down their FB feed had enough of it. The trolls felt distasteful after a while, probably on account of mocking a mockery that was playing out in real life. I mean it’s all funny until you run out of money yourself.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for less-cash economies. But if you’re anything remotely Indian or have really visited this place (and not just prosperous pockets of it), you’d know we’re lightyears away from a cashless economy, SO WHO WERE WE KIDDING? (Who was kidding who might have been a better question but I hope all questions have been appeased by now).

Casual fun fact about me: My stomach can’t digest beef. Now that casual lynching’s been crossed out, read on knowing that the author’s still alive.

Anyhow, this post is to share MY FAVORITE NEWS ARTICLE from the past one year. I guess it took a while to make it to the blog, mostly because there were trolls, satire and what-not being churned out everyday on the topic, and I generally dislike commotion.
I copypasted in case you didn’t want to left-click on the link. It happened in Delhi.

‘Digital’ village asks what’s netbanking – The Hindu (09/02/2017)


‘Digital’ village asks what’s netbanking

DE09_DIGITAL_MAIN

Around 10 days ago, a team of Delhi government officials handed over two PoS (point of sale) machines to kirana (grocery) store owners Surat Singh and Ramesh Kumar, both residents of Surakhpur village in Najafgarh, on the Delhi-Haryana border.
The officials taught the two how to use the machines. On Wednesday, when The Hindu visited the village, where the front walls of most houses are plastered with cow dung cakes, it found Mr. Singh’s machine “safely” locked inside a drawer in the shop. Mr. Singh (60), who runs the store his wife Raj Kor, said, “I run a small shop. People come here to buy basic items and the bill amount is usually low. For other necessities they go to ‘Delhi’.”

‘Who will bear cost?’

He said initially some curious customers tried to use the machine, but now there were hardly any requests for online payments. Mr. Singh does not know who will pay the Internet charges for the machine whose plastic cover is still intact. Also, the Internet connectivity is poor in Surakhpur. “Most of the time the server is down,” he said.

The approximate population of Surakhpur is 1,500 and the nearest bank and ATM are around 3 km away in Mitraon village. This effort to promote cashless transactions in Surakhpur started on December 26, when Sub-Divisional Magistrate Anjali Sehrawat, along with her team, inspected the area. A camp was set up and people were asked to get their Aadhaar cards made and fill up forms for opening bank accounts. “The purpose was to ensure that in each household at least one person has a bank account. Surakhpur was chosen for this pilot project due to its less population,” said Ms. Sehrawat.

Two workshops

The officials held two workshops at the chaupal, a meeting place for the elders, and taught the villagers about netbanking and e-wallets. LED screens were installed for the demonstration. After providing the PoS machines and opening bank accounts, the project was over.

On Tuesday, the Delhi government officially declared Surakhpur as the first village in Delhi to be “fully digital payment enabled”. But most residents here, particularly the women, are clueless about the project.

The literacy rate in the village is low and not everyone uses a smartphone. Meenakshi, a 22-year-old mother of two, said she had never been to a bank. “I don’t think any woman here knows how to withdraw money from ATM, leave alone making payments through phone.”

Like Meenakshi, most of the women The Hindu spoke to said they did not have bank accounts or smartphones.

Ajit Singh, a retired central government employee, was surprised over the announcement.

“How can they declare our village cashless or digital when the work hasn’t even started,” he said.

Water woes

Another resident, Amit Kumar, said he doesn’t know if Surakhpur is a “cashless” village, but it is definitely a “waterless village”. The residents still rely on water tankers despite a pipeline being recently laid. The villagers said the piped water is contaminated.

Some residents even contested the claim that each household has a bank account holder. A resident, who didn’t wish to be named, even wrote to the Prime Minister Office on January 16 after the bank in Mitraon village refused to open the accounts of 19 residents whose documents weren’t in order.

Even Ms. Sehrawat accepted that there was still a lot of work to be done in the project. She clarified that Surakhpur is not a “cashless village” as reported by the media. “The literacy rate is poor and network connectivity is low. Our main aim was to provide infrastructure, which we have. Now it is up to the people to make payments digitally,” she said.

I do not know if officials followed a target-based approach on attaining ‘digital villages’, but after all we’re the nation of Ramanujam and Aryabhatta and an array of astonishingly great GDP figures. Surely if nothing else we should be able to produce good numbers, no? A little twisting here, a little tweaking there and we’re good to go.

Nine percent of rural India had access to mobile internet in early 2016. That’s a single-digit-number. It may not seem shocking, but it would’ve had I asked you to guess the figure first. For non-Indians who wonder why this is relevant, seventy percent of our population resides in the villages.

Before we bash or hail decisions, and more so before taking decisions, it’s good to put some perspective in place. But whether it’s reasonable to expect that in a nation of political gimmicks is debatable.

PS : (For the purpose of closure) My roommate’s mom clarified that all her uncles’ cash was invested in real estate, they caught all the non-uncles in the country though I think.

 

Dear UPSC –

IMG_20170626_132622.jpgFrom UPSC Prelims Paper – 2017

When you read Statement No. 3 and wonder :

  • Was that sarcasm?
  • Or maybe it’s UPSC’s way of presenting to students a light-hearted moment in the middle of a stressful test?
  • WAAAAIT, is this a tactic to screen for anti/nationalist tendencies? If so, screen in or out? Omg, has the day come?

Answer is option (a), good to know that was uncalled for. Or maybe it’s a screening out process 😀

For those who want to know how my test went, maybe I’ll write about it in another post. One exam joke is quite enough for a day. Here’s the full paper –

Civil Services Preliminary Paper 1 (General Studies) – 2017

When Global Warming caught up with my school project – the Rise of the Dead

No we didn’t really have projects, we had assignments. But they were ‘project work’ according to the ICSE institution (or was it just my institution?) so yeah we wrote them up in outlined A4 sheets (no you weren’t allowed to get them printed) and attached a front-page titled <insert subject> PROJECT.

In 10th class (2009-’10), our Geography project was on Global Warming. Kavya was the only one I knew who wasn’t relying on the internet for material. Our Geography teacher had a piece of well-meaning advice herself for the class, “PLEASE pick up content from sources besides Wikipedia, I don’t want 45 projects with the same copy-pasted matter on my table”.

Also read as : Ignore first couple of Google search results, take pains to go beyond the first page, if need be.

After several clicks on  >Next, I found myself in that eddyhole of the world wide web with URLs that read handmadeprojectessaysforyourhighschool.com and myawesomespeechthatwonthepulitzer.com – that’s right. I was one click away from unlocking the Dark Net.

Luckily I’m the queen of abstention, so I just carried on innocently with my reading without employing parseltongue. I was on a decent essay, even a good one considering the dubious title of the site. But then I came across this one subheading under EFFECTS OF GLOBAL WARMING :

“Eradicated diseases will reappear” – As permafrost and frozen soil in the Arctic regions thaw, human bodies and animal carcasses will resurface. Hence diseases that may have been wiped off the earth may soon find their way to infect us again.

I thought it was a joke, just the author (probably another teen like myself, I thought) on a lighter note. Of course I didn’t go after research backing it I mean I just wanted some unsame copy-paste okay. So I copied the lines in my sheet, all the while wondering if I’d be summoned to the staff room to EXPLAIN WHAT MY UNSOLICITED IMAGINATION WAS DOING IN THE PROJECT WORK. I saved the link, just in case.

I also mentioned it to my friends and we had a good laugh (‘SO FUNNY right???!!’ ‘yes so weird…funny sure’). If only I’d been held up for it I could’ve forwarded the Current News to the teacher with a dramatic caption (“I told you so”?). But maybe it already was a hardfact then or maybe teachers don’t really read the 45 copy-pasted – technically it wasn’t even copy-paste per se, it was our sweat and Cello Pinpoint ink – assignments.  Makes you wonder why you took the effort to click Next so many times after all. Life is cruel to us nice-people. I was 15, was I supposed to know that by then?

Anyway if you don’t read the newspaper like me from 10 months ago,  it’s been happening – what sounds like a spooky SuperNatural plot – the rise of the dead. Anthrax triggered by reindeer carcasses exposed from frost thaw being among the latest incidents. I don’t know if it was really happening back in 2010 but I’m pretty stunned.

Full story (from August 2016) here:

Anthrax outbreak triggered by climate change kills boy – The Guardian

 

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