an itinerant observer

At the end of the year, change becomes imminent in Karachi. The crisp and fresh winter air (relative only to Karachi’s summer air, mind you) induces one to take up change in all its glory. Therefore, as the denizens of the megapolis pushed ahead with renewed hope for 2019, I too became intoxicated by their excitement. “What change shall I bring about?” I asked myself. When self provided no ready answers, I looked around for change projects that I could take on. I even asked my fellow travelers for suggestions. A few enthusiasts rattled off their new year’s resolutions, thinking that I would pick something of their interest. The list ranged from working towards the elimination of poverty, disease, violence, and workplace harassment, to acceptance of keto/paleo diets, dance therapy, weight and stress management lifestyles, and so on. To me all that seemed like a lot of effort vis-a-vis work, time and money. I went back to self for further introspection. I mulled about a sin...

Have you ever been in a situation where you have a final exam coming up and the syllabus is too extensive, the subject too confusing, and the time not enough? You and your friends make jokes about how you guys haven’t studied anything and have a good laugh. After the exam, you make jokes about how you were all going to fail. The result comes out and you’re relieved to know that you guys passed. Great! You find out that one of you has the highest marks in class. You’re happy for your friend but you make fun of him for participating in the “I’m going to fail” banter because he clearly knew a lot more than the rest of you. But you also find out that one of your friends actually did fail. Would you make fun of him? Objectively speaking, failure is great fodder for comedy but something doesn’t feel right in kicking someone who is already down. It feels unethical. It is also possible that there are bullies in your class who do make fun of your friend for failing the exam. I...

Recently it became newsworthy that PepsiCo's famous CEO Indra Nooyi hated being called‘Honey’ or ‘Sweetie’ . I believe she found such ‘titles’ demeaning in an environment that needed to strive more towards gender parity. Of course, she meant that in the larger context of the contemporary work environment, with higher numbers of women in leadership positions, than ever before. Nothing against that, however, had she not been quoted in that article, a back and forth email thread would not have been generated among a few work colleagues; a heated argument on gender disparity at the workplace would not have resulted; and ultimately, as tends to be the norm, sexism, feminism and other isms would not have been invoked.    Bottom line…a lot would not have occurred. But it did. And here’s a snippet:   “One shouldn’t take these titles too seriously”, said one person. “Whether I am called Honey, Sweetie or Babe is not important to me – what I get to do (at the wo...