Background This blog is devoted to Pushpendra Singh Tiwari of Jeevika Bihar (Bihar Rural Livelihood Promotions Society), as I witnessed him anchor an institution building meet at a grassroot level in Vaishali district with a cohort of 50 women in the first week of April. Jeevika is India’s largest organization with a membership north of […]
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Working with Groups: History at Northfield & Celebrating the work of Dr. Sigmund Foulkes
Introduction This is the fourth blog devoted to “working with groups” as a part of a six-blog series. Given my experience across nearly two and a half decades of group dynamics, group relations, and process consulting in the form of behavioral labs, t-groups, and change management teams, I have been exploring and tracing the genealogy […]
Gender Dynamics & Bias — Fissures between the Microcosm and the Macrocosm and a EUM Perspective
Preamble I am not a very big fan of the macrocosm and microcosm analogy — a philosophical cum spiritual lens that posits a structural similarity and resonance between the microcosm, i.e., the small order or the small universe and the cosmos as a whole or the macrocosm, i.e., the great order or the great universe. […]
Working with Groups – Tracing the contours and genealogy of process work
Preamble This is the third blog of a series that I am writing on process work, encounter groups, T-groups, and L-groups, and in this blog, I seek to trace the genealogy or lineage of process work as it is experienced in Sumedhas offerings, methods, and ideologies today. This blog may excite only the oddball who […]
Why so serious?
An Inquiry into the Fragility of the Bhartiya Ego A few days ago, Mamta and I excitedly drive down to Mumbai to be a part of the Trevor Noah show. Trevor Noah is a part of the triumvirate or the troika that has brought many a smile to me over the past 8 years or […]
Pilgrimage to Punga
A micro narrative celebrating love and barakat Introduction With my father turning 84, my brother and I joined him in his annual pilgrimage to a ‘dargah’ or a shrine near the Punga village this year. While the glibly articulated reasons by us to make this trip along with Dad was ranged from ‘an anthropological enquiry’ […]
AI, Simulacra, and Joan is Awful
A friend of mine had recommended that i must watch Joan is so Awful – an episode in the Black Mirror series. My better half arm-twisted me into watching it recently. Such serendipity … I think this particular narrative of two women was disturbing at many levels. At the most surface level, it helped explain […]
Working with Groups – The Second Dilemma
Preamble Deng Xiaoping once said that managing the economy was like “Crossing the river by feeling the stones” — working with individuals and groups in process work settings, resonates with this metaphor — except that there can be multiple rivers and many of the stones get increasingly unfathomable as the journey extends across days in a behavioral […]
Working with Groups
Wrestling with and within on the First Dilemma Preamble As my son travels to Udaipur for the Sumedhas Summer program – a great place to learn and grow using process work in groups, I am overwhelmed with nostalgia and some anxiety as a parent. I am also in the process of apprehending dilemmas that have […]
Islamophobia and Fragmentation in India: Mirroring the denial of Critical Race Theory in USA
Preamble Some recent events… Ironically, the second part of the abovementioned BBC documentary refers to a period of three days (February 3-5, 2020) where on one hand, we have riots in our capital Delhi, where in one of the many violent encounters, Delhi Police is filmed violently beating up five Muslim boys, demanding that they […]