Preamble English language translates the word ‘Mastani’ as “intoxicated passion”. The translation does little justice to the warrior heroine – Mastani, a smoldering beautiful Muslim princess, borne into the kingly home of a Rajput and his Afghan consort, a brave and passionate woman, skilled in art, dance, horse-riding and warfare, who while trying to save […]
The Bricoleur versus BIG Data, AI, and other looming Giants …
Background & Context Almost a decade ago, a friend of mine, Atul Sapre, invited me to read Karl Weick’s brilliant work on ‘Sense Making in Organizations’, as we sat down to design elements of a course on Organization Development. One of the pivotal themes that Weick directed my attention to was of – “Bricolage” […]
An Ode to the Women and the Magical Gifts they offer …
This note is triggered by having recently encountering my Shadow There are times when I cannot run away from a part of my shadow – that of the misogynist within – albeit disguised and hidden very creatively in my multiple narratives and perhaps even fantasies of victimhood, of castration, of rejection, of mistrust, of possession, […]
Disneyland, Selfies, and Simulacra: Remembering Jean Baudrillard
It was in the last week of December 2015, I took my young kids to visit Disneyland – we spent a whole day in the park, amidst fun and frolic, taking in the rides, the theme-shows, the carnival, the Christmas celebrations, the beckoning stores, and the overall cloyingly sweet ambiance around us. The kids […]
Star Wars – The Force Awakens: Beware the relentless and mechanistic deployment of the Mono-myth template
Let me begin by confessing that I have been a Star Wars fan for a significant portion of my life. It is not my intent to berate the latest film. I do hope to be compassionate in this note for my adolescence and early adulthood were deeply impacted by the first three movies. Like any […]
The Fall and Fall of Punjab
In 1975, my earliest childhood memory of the state of Punjab is of being perilously perched on a horse driven carriage (tonga), and racing through waving green wheat fields on a wintery yet sunny afternoon, clinging to my mother, as she spoke of Punjab being the richest state of India. She pointed to sighing power […]
An Ode to Charlie Brown’s Leadership – the Agonizing Hero From a EUM Perspective
Introduction It was just yesterday that I saw the new Charlie Brown movie in an shockingly empty cinema hall – it was the first day of its release in India, and we were just three families watching this beautifully crafted film – it does speak a lot about Pune’s movie aficionados. The movie […]
The dying breed of the courageous solitary seeker and the emerging darkness within shadowy groups
As I begin writing this note, I am aware that I am addressing one small facet of a complex social phenomenon and that there is an inherent risk of over-simplification and stereotyping while I write this. All around us, there are signs and signals of a critical shift happening in Indian society and polity […]
Myths that destroy Leadership within the modern organization…
Let me begin by stating unequivocally that I come from an ideology where leadership is seen as a dialogic and transformational process – a process that gets anchored by an individual and or by a group, that struggle with double binds and ‘dharamasankatas’ of the context. By this definition the notion of leadership does not […]
Managing Professional Growth – Trends that may transform or even eliminate the L&D function within in the near future!
Two strands of conversations have contributed towards writing this article – the first was with Srinivasa Addepalli of Globalgyan on designing leadership development interventions, and the second was exploring an aggregator model of coaching with G Pratap of Maersk, over the past few weeks. For most firms, the ‘Make/Grow Talent or Buy Talent’ polarity […]
Incorrigibly romantic ... 