categories
HOT TOPICS
- The Accelerator Conundrum
- The Startup Velocity Question
- Platform as a Service
- Man and Superman
- Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS)
- The Future: End of Capitalism
- Capitalism 2.0
aesthetics
Design to Move
I wrote a very popular piece 2 years back called Hey CEO: Do you know how to dress? In the interim 2 years, Design has become a critical and celebrated element of business success. Business leaders have started paying attention. Nerds have started getting intrigued by right-brained creativity, even though they don’t quite understand the
As India Builds (Part 8)
In the front portico, several cousins assembled around Wall Street banker Ronti’s Blackberry and marveled. As I joined them, eyes darted to me. “You probably have one of these?” “Sure, I have a Treo,” I replied, my eyes glazing over the Blackberry, to focus on the marble staircase on which, at four, I fell and
As India Builds (Part 6)
The face of Calcutta is degenerating fast. Droves of glittering shopping malls welcome young Calcuttans – since among other things India is also importing Retail Therapy. A new credit card industry booms. The expanding middle class rejoices in the sudden Western availability of product after product after product. Satya Paul saris and Giorgio Armani jackets
As India Builds (Part 5)
Until a few decades ago, most Bengali homes housed joint families. Our homestead on Elgin Road comfortably housed some 15 family members and another 15 servants. Sunday dinners crammed twenty around a table littered with round-puffy-golden luchis, rich-red goat curry, and an opulent choice of Sandesh and Rasogolla desserts. The children eating as fast as
As India Builds (Part 4)
Such is the destiny of developing nations. The same routine runs from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. It runs in Mexico, in China. It runs in Brazil, and in Romania. Darjeeling, the erstwhile Queen of the Himalayas, once enchanted with pine-lined walks strung from house to house. Today, it flashes neon signs to welcome tourists. In the
As India Builds (Part 3)
The past always recedes. Sensible people do not let that be bothersome. The old steps aside for the new and so it should. Yet, looking out the car window driving through India these days, I am stricken by the pace and brutality of this transition. Chowringhee, Calcutta’s once impressive Paris-esque boulevard, is now layered in
As India Builds (Part 2)
My family is old Calcutta. We had rice paddy fields that greened as monsoon washed over them. Heavy-limbed mango orchards bearing the juiciest and most fragrant varietals. Homesteads. A home nestled in my grandfather’s legendary rose garden in the now traumatized Bengal-Bihar border. Our relatives’ houses dotted Calcutta. These old houses in the alleys of
As India Builds (Part 1)
In 1989, I left India with two dream-stuffed suitcases for college in Western Massachusetts. This was long before the wave of Information Technology swept the country, dotting business parks across once ox-plowed fields. My Swiss Air flight roared above Bombay, above the rickshaw traffic and stray cows. Despite the 6000 miles, the 23 hour plane
