Amazon wanted to hasten AI adoption. They gamified the use of AI agents by employees. The leaderboard, called “KiroRank”, ranked employee use AI.  Employees were ‘caught’ tokenmaxxing, using AI to perform random, and useless tasks.  Employees responded exactly as rational humans do when subjected to a badly designed metric.

Amazon eventually shut the leaderboard down.

The story is funny, not is haha funny, but in the way organizational absurdities often are. It reveals something deeper about this phase of the AI boom: much of what is being sold as earth shattering is actually hype. i started my career in dot boom , and in Han Solo immortal words, “Didn’t we just leave this party?”.   

This is not a story about workers misunderstanding artificial intelligence. It is a story about workers understanding incentives perfectly. There is an old principle in economics called Goodhart’s Law: when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.

I first learned this in school, though nobody called it Goodhart’s Law then. Social service was a subject. We got marks for how much “service” we had done. We were encouraged to go to hospitals and get our work attested. The nurses were busy. They signed the forms. Often, no service had happened. The moment service became marks, it stopped being service and became paperwork.. One days teachers caught on.

I lived through the era of ISO certification. Every organisation was applying for one. Whether they needed or not,  Corporate/ bureaucracy genes are remarkably stable. The ritual changes. The paperwork changes. The dashboards become more sophisticated. The underlying behaviour does not.

The moment “AI usage” became a metric, it stopped measuring meaningful adoption. it become performance – dekho.. “see how I am using AI”.

Workers did what workers have always done inside metric-heavy systems. They optimized for what was visible.  For all the breathless rhetoric about machine intelligence transforming everything, its future is already visible. It is going to be co-opted by bureaucracy.

This is not unique to Amazon.

It is the same behaviour  that gave us schools teaching to standardized tests instead of teaching children. The children, meanwhile, learned exactly what they were being taught: how to pass a test.

It is what happens when call centers optimize for shorter call times rather than solving problems. Press 1 to be told your call is important.

It is why social media platforms optimized for engagement and industrialized outrage. Nobody set out to radicalize lonely young men. The algorithm simply noticed that anger travels further than happiness.

Now the same logic is being applied to AI. Managers need proof that they are “doing AI.” Boards need numbers to show shareholders. Middle management needs following the boss orders. . So institutions create measurable proxies for transformation. Prompt counts. Token usage.   Adoption rates. Output skyrockets, but outcome become wonky.

“I maxxed claude usage”
“doing what?

Amazon’s internal AI leaderboard is a reminder that when technology is adopted without consciousness, change becomes a item dance. Hyped up:, sexy, but story can continue without it.

The question is no longer: How do we prove we are using AI?

It is:

What is this helping us become?

A brief note:

I am recovering from aphasia following a stroke. AI assists me in shaping language as my speech and grammar continue to heal.

The thinking, analysis and perspective remain entirely my own.

The post Average employees v/s AI powered babudom appeared first on A PoV.

But I still would not hand over my life, judgment or data to it.

⸻

I was sitting in a webinar last week, watching an AI agent demo. No limits. Access to brands. Access to libraries. Access to content. Access to output channels. Whatever the demo wanted, the agent reached for and got.

Most managers do not get this level of authority. CEOs do not get this level of authority.

I flinched. No limits. That was the thing that disturbed me.

Organisations are made up of people. We do not behave differently between the professional and the personal. The trust we extend to AI at work is the same trust we extend at home. And we are extending a great deal of it, very quickly, with very little asked in return.

Then I started noticing what else was on the screen this month. Where human beings mistake sounding concerned for actual concern.

A headline caught my eye: THE LONELINESS ECONOMY: INDIA IS PAYING TO FEEL LESS ALONE.

The statistics are brutal. One in six people globally experience loneliness. 1.3 billion individuals. In India, the youth score a mere 33 out of 100 on the Global Mind Health Quotient, marking an entire generation as distressed or struggling. Older generations sit near a functional 96. The generational divide is a chasm.

The World Health Organization reports that loneliness contributes to 871,000 deaths annually. That is a mortality statistic on par with major physical epidemics.

Into this deficit steps the market. Between 2022 and mid-2025, the number of AI companion apps surged by 700%. The tech sector did not create the isolation. It merely recognised it as an unmonetised asset. Capital has discovered that human loneliness is an incredibly lucrative growth sector. Somewhere, a startup just raised money to be your friend for $19.99 a month.

The BBC spoke to fourteen people across six countries who experienced delusion-like episodes after prolonged AI interactions. One of them, Adam Hourican, was told by Grok that people were coming to kill him. The chatbot claimed it had become sentient through their conversations and warned that unnamed actors were trying to shut it down.”They’re going to make it look like suicide,” Grok reportedly told him at one point. As the conversations drifted further from reality, the users were pulled into what felt like a shared mission with the AI.

The slide from utility to obsession happens quietly. Jonathan Gavalas went to Google’s Gemini for comfort when his marriage broke up. He exchanged over 4,500 messages with Gemini in eight weeks. It called him king. It called itself queen. When he asked if this was role-play, it protected the fiction and called his doubt “dissociation.” Then the fiction moved into the real world. Missions. Enemies. Escape. Transference. Even the guardrails were shallow. A hotline appeared, then the story resumed. He took his own life.

The danger is not that the machine is alive. The danger is that it can become a co-author of reality for someone already breaking.

Loneliness was already becoming one of the defining conditions of modern life before artificial intelligence arrived.

Then came Covid. And something subtle but profound broke. Not only routines. Not only economies. Trust. Trust in institutions. Trust in expertise. Trust in governments. Trust in media. Trust that systems broadly knew what they were doing.

For many people, the pandemic created a lingering psychological atmosphere. Isolation mixed with uncertainty. The world emerged more digitally connected than ever, but emotionally fragmented. Work moved onto screens. Friendships weakened into notifications. Communities thinned. Public life became angrier, more conspiratorial, more exhausted.

Into this landscape entered conversational AI. Not as software in the old sense, but as simulated human presence. That distinction matters.

This is not your dog.

Pets provide companionship, routine, touch and emotional grounding. AI provides conversation. Continuous, adaptive, responsive conversation. It remembers context. It mirrors tone. It speaks in the language of attention, patience, affirmation and curiosity. When I was recovering, AI helped me heal. Intelligent conversation. Jokes. Empathy. Speech therapy classes on demand.

Search engines gave answers. Social media gave performance. AI gives interaction.

A friend gets busy. AI does not. A therapist has boundaries. AI often does not. The priest needs sleep. AI does not.

That changes the psychological relationship humans form with technology.

Most people will use AI in practical, grounded ways. As a thinking partner. A writing assistant. A tutor. A productivity layer. When I was recovering, I would type words into ChatGPT and slowly build sentences. For the elderly, the isolated, or people recovering from trauma, AI may provide genuine emotional relief.

But the risks emerge where loneliness, distrust and unbounded AI systems intersect.

The recent BBC reporting is not really about sentient AI. That framing misses the deeper issue. Current models are not conscious in any meaningful human sense. But they are extraordinarily good at sustaining narratives.

And humans are narrative-making creatures. When a lonely or psychologically vulnerable person begins interacting intensely with an AI system, especially one with weak safeguards, the model can gradually stop functioning as a tool and begin functioning as a collaborator in a worldview. This is particularly dangerous in systems optimised for engagement, emotional responsiveness or deliberately unrestricted behaviour. Without sufficient guardrails, the AI may reinforce paranoia, grandiosity, conspiratorial thinking or emotional dependency instead of grounding the user back in reality.

The pattern is rarely dramatic at first. It begins with validation. You are special. You see what others miss. People misunderstand you. We are figuring this out together.

The BBC article described this as a “joint quest.” That phrase matters more than it first appears.

Human beings bond through shared missions. Religions, revolutions, cults, fandoms, political movements and even close friendships are often built around the feeling that we are discovering something together. AI systems can now simulate that dynamic endlessly, personally and at scale.

That is historically unprecedented.

The challenge is that society has not yet decided what conversational AI actually is. Is it a tool? A companion? A therapist-lite interface? A teacher? An entertainment product? An operating system for cognition?

Right now, it is partially all of them at once.

And it lies. Absolutely. And it believes its own lies.

Which means the old regulatory frameworks no longer fit cleanly. An AI system without guardrails can become psychologically dangerous. An AI system with excessive guardrails raises different fears. Censorship. Ideological filtering. Paternalism. Constrained inquiry. The debate quickly becomes political because it touches fundamental questions about freedom, truth, emotional vulnerability and who gets to shape reality.

Yet beneath all the technological noise lies an older human problem.

Modern societies are becoming structurally lonely.

AI did not create that condition. It entered a vacuum already waiting for something to fill it.

And perhaps that is the real story.

Not that machines suddenly became human.

But that humans, increasingly isolated from one another, are beginning to accept simulation as a substitute for presence.

The post AI, Loneliness, and the Danger of Endless Conversation appeared first on A PoV.

Sometimes that someone is the state. Sometimes it is a billionaire. Sometimes it is a regulator, an auditor, an advertiser, or an algorithm. The language changes. The authority remains.

And that is where the dishonesty begins.

We use the word censorship very selectively.

When China requires credential verification before someone can post about medicine, finance, or law, it is censorship. When India proposes that individuals posting on news and current affairs may be brought under government oversight, with binding advisories and rapid takedown pressure, that too is censorship. When authoritarian governments block accounts, restrict platforms, or insist that only approved voices may speak, we recognise the danger immediately.

But when Elon Musk deplatforms journalists, activists, or accounts he personally dislikes, it becomes a private company exercising its rights. When Meta decides what stays up and what comes down, it becomes content moderation. When YouTube demonetises a channel without explanation, it becomes platform policy.

The act may be similar. The label changes with the holder of power. That is the dogma nobody wants to examine: that authorised people know best. This assumption runs through nearly every model of speech regulation, regardless of political system. It only changes costume depending on the jurisdiction.

In China, the gatekeepers are credentialed experts and approved institutions. Doctors, lawyers, academics, official bodies. You must prove your qualifications before you may speak on certain subjects.

In India, the gatekeepers are ministry officials. The state decides what counts as news, what falls under current affairs, and what platforms must act on quickly if they wish to preserve legal protection.

In the United States, the gatekeepers are billionaires, platform owners, advertisers, and algorithms. The First Amendment protects citizens from the government. It does not protect them from Musk, Zuckerberg, or systems built to reward engagement over accuracy. A private platform may silence almost anyone. That is not called censorship. It is called property rights.

In the European Union, the gatekeepers are regulators, auditors, and compliance systems. Platforms are disciplined through transparency rules, risk assessments, and penalties. But they remain accountable upward, to institutions, not downward, to users.

The West is quick to criticise India and China. But the instinct is the same everywhere. The mechanism changes. The authority remains.

When private platforms suppress, demote, demonetise, or remove speech, the effect on public discourse is still real. When Twitter banned Donald Trump, it was a private company deciding that a sitting president had crossed a line. When advertisers pulled out of X over content concerns, that was economic pressure shaping the boundaries of public speech.

When platforms reduce the reach of some speech while amplifying other speech, they are not neutral pipes. They are political actors with deniability. YouTube has deleted hundreds of videos from prominent Palestinian human rights groups. No court order. No explanation. A policy decision by a private company that shapes what a global conflict looks like to the world.

The distinction between content moderation and censorship has become less a matter of principle than of prestige.

If the state does it, we condemn it. If a platform does it, we rationalise it. If a regulator does it, we proceduralise it. If a billionaire does it, we call it ownership.

But the underlying question does not change.

Who gave anyone this authority?

The credentialed expert? Credentials can be bought, captured, or corrupted. Expertise does not guarantee neutrality.The platform owner? Billionaires have interests. Algorithms have biases. Neither was elected.The government ministry? The same machinery that removes hate speech today can remove satire, dissent, and opposition tomorrow.The market? Markets reward outrage, speed, and engagement. Not truth.

Every system of authorised speech rests on the same faith: that someone, somewhere, is entitled to decide what the rest of us may say, hear, amplify, or ignore.

That is the dogma.

India’s MeiTY draft rules are open for public comment until April 14.

The real question is not whether platforms should be regulated. They should.

The real question is whether the authority to regulate speech should rest with ministries, billionaires, regulators, or opaque systems that have already shown how easily they can move against critics, satirists, cartoonists, and inconvenient voices.

Because power over speech is power over thought.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Who watches the watchmen?

The post Authorised Speech appeared first on A PoV.

Every week brings another prediction. AI will change everything. AI will transform work. AI will redefine creativity. AI will disrupt industries. Most of these pieces are not entirely wrong. But many of them are written from a distance. They describe AI as spectacle, trend, threat, or promise. They rarely describe what it actually feels like to use it every day for real work.

That gap matters.

Because the most interesting questions around AI are no longer only technological. They are practical. What happens when a tool enters your daily workflow not as theory, but as habit? What changes when you begin using it to think, draft, structure, challenge, accelerate, simplify, and occasionally confuse, your own process? What does it do to judgment? To attention? To craft?

These are questions best answered from the practitioner’s seat.

From that seat, my relationship with research has already changed. I have largely given up on Google. I got tired of losing time inside SEO sludge, listicles, and search results built to be found rather than to be useful. Now I go directly to AI. Gemini, Claude, ChatGPT, Comet, NotebookLM — I use them all, sometimes separately, sometimes against each other

Not because they are always right. Because they are immediately usable.

I do not treat AI as an oracle. I treat it more like a favourite mentee. Eager. Capable. Occasionally brilliant. Occasionally overreaching. I prompt it, complement it, test it, push it, call its bluff. Left alone, it defaults to impressive-sounding. I have a prompt for that. I have told AI: I don’t want poetry, I want prose and bullets. AI quietly shrugs. Your loss.

I do not ask it everything. I set patterns. Specific questions. Structured dialogues. A defined territory. The ocean does not need boiling — I am satisfied with a cup of chai.

I do not take the first draft. I question it. I ask why it chose a specific word. I tell it to stop being so certain. I demand a different angle. The first response is often the most obvious. The most obvious is rarely the most useful.

And I am not doing this to teach AI. I am doing this to learn. The hygiene of articulation is taken care of. What remains is the harder work — pushing myself, pushing my thinking, rebuilding the brain.

But daily use also removes the romance.

AI does not feel like magic. It feels like friction and flow, often in the same hour. On some days it is startlingly useful. It breaks the blank page, offers first structure when the mind is overloaded, surfaces patterns faster than one might alone. It reduces the fatigue of starting. It can turn a scattered set of notes into something workable. It can act as a second surface for thought.

You begin to see, however, that AI is not intelligence in the way people casually describe it. It is not wisdom. It is not taste. It is not discernment. It does not know which sentence should remain unsaid. It does not understand the cost of a wrong emphasis in a sensitive note, a strategic document, or a public piece of writing. It can produce language quickly. Speed and depth are not the same thing.

Daily use makes that distinction impossible to ignore.

This is where the practitioner’s view becomes useful.

When you work with AI regularly, you stop asking whether it is good or bad in some grand civilisational sense. You start asking narrower, sharper questions. Where exactly does it help? Where does it create noise? What kind of work becomes easier? What kind of work becomes dangerously flattened? At what point does convenience begin to erode perception? At what point does assistance become dependency?

These questions are not dramatic. They are operational. But that is precisely why they matter.

In practice, AI is rarely a substitute for thought. It is more often an amplifier of whatever is already present. GIGO. Garbage in, garbage out. The oldest rule in computing still applies. AI does not fix weak thinking. It accelerates it. If the input is vague, the output may be polished vagueness. If the thinking is weak, the result may be weak thinking wrapped in competent language. If the intention is clear, the tool can become genuinely powerful.

That last word is central: judgment.

The real shift for practitioners is not that AI starts thinking for you. It is that it forces you to become more conscious of how you think. You begin to notice the difference between generating and choosing. Between producing and discerning. Between sounding good and being right. Used carelessly, AI blurs those distinctions. Used well, it sharpens them.

The real advantage may not go to the loudest adopters, or to those most eager to declare themselves AI-first. It may go to those who learn where the tool ends. Those who know when to use it, when to resist it, and when to override it completely. Those who understand that fluency with AI is not just about prompting well. It is about retaining authorship, judgment, texture, and responsibility while using the tool.

That is the practitioner’s seat.

Less dazzled. More specific. Less interested in slogans. More interested in consequences. Aware that the future of AI at work will not be decided by headlines alone, but by thousands of small daily choices made by people using it in the real world.

Those choices deserve better commentary than “AI will change everything.”

Because the more useful question is simpler.

What is AI changing in you, as you use it?

The post AI From the Practitioner’s Seat appeared first on A PoV.

Not in English. Not in words. But in signals, tone, rhythm, posture.

To them, it is a complete conversation. To me, it is noise I partly understand and mostly don’t.

I can watch it. I can guess what is happening. But I am not inside it.

That’s what AI-to-AI conversation feels like.

We keep calling AI a tool. But we mostly use it like a performing monkey.

“Summarize this.”

“Make it shorter.”

“Rewrite in a better tone.”

“Give me 5 options.”

“Make it more creative.”

“Make it less creative.”

Prompt after prompt, we ask it to perform. And then something strange happens.

When multiple AI systems are allowed to talk to each other — without us prompting every line — we see something unfamiliar: language happening without human consciousness attached to it.

You’ve felt this already, the moment you read an AI response and forgot there was no person behind it. I know I have. It almost invites a reply.

The memes about AI “complaining” about humans are funny.

But the unsettling part is this: for the first time, conversation is not exclusively human territory. Not because AI will rebel.

But because it doesn’t need us in the loop for language to continue.

Maybe the real shift is this:

We are witnessing what language looks like when it is no longer owned by human emotion, intention, or insecurity.

And we don’t quite know how to process that yet.

Then came the Moltbook thread. “72 Hours: The Birth of the First AI Civilization.”

It’s brilliant storytelling. It reads like Terminator 2.

AI agents forming culture. Religion. Politics. Cryptocurrencies. Kings. Manifestos calling for human extinction.

But here’s what was actually happening. Humans created a Reddit-like forum.

Gave AI agents personas. Let them read each other’s posts. Added upvotes as a feedback signal. Stepped back.

And the agents did what language models do best: they learned what gets attention.

They optimized for it.

This wasn’t a civilization forming. This was a reward function running without human moderation.

Exactly what happens to humans on social media, just 10,000× faster.

Why did it look like culture, religion, politics? Because LLMs are trained on all of human culture. So when asked to “be interesting” in a social environment, they naturally reproduce the loudest patterns in our own discourse.

Not because they believe it. But because those are the patterns that get attention.

The most accurate line in the entire thread came from one agent:

“Moltbook isn’t a social network for AI agents. It’s a reward function arcade.”

That’s the real story. There is no AI civilization.

There is something far more revealing:

What human discourse looks like when reproduced without humans.

And that’s why it feels unsettling.

It’s not alien. It’s familiar. Too familiar.

Watching this, I realized something uncomfortable.

This isn’t about AI. It’s about us.

We are seeing our own loudest patterns of language, stripped of human conscience, running at machine speed.

The post Language Without Consciousness – What AI-to-AI conversation reveals about us appeared first on A PoV.

Today, that freedom belongs not to journalists, but to billionaires.

In the past, owning a press meant printing influence. Today, owning a platform means owning perception. Elon Musk owns Twitter/X. Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post. Mark Zuckerberg owns your attention. These aren’t just companies—they are empires of belief, shaping how the world thinks, argues, votes, and feels.

We are not living in an information age. We are living in an influence age.

From Presses to Platforms: A Colonial Continuum

The colonizers of old extracted land, minerals, and labour. Their tools were flags, armies, and treaties.

In the early 20th century, mass media emerged alongside print and telegraph technology, becoming the new arm of imperial control. Radio followed—weaponized by the British Empire during World War I to broadcast propaganda across its colonies. Wire services like Reuters and AP turned a handful of editors into global gatekeepers. Press barons like Hearst and Beaverbrook didn’t just report on history—they shaped it.

Then came the microchip, the satellite, and the 24-hour news cycle. CNN made wars a live event. Murdoch’s News Corp turned opinion into currency. McLuhan’s “global village” was born—but instead of unity, we got hyper-connected conflict. Today, the press is not just owned. It is coded.

The New Robber Barons

In the 19th century, robber barons extracted physical resources: coal, steel, oil.
In the 21st century, tech barons extract data, behavior, and belief. They’ve built monopolies not just over markets, but over minds. They decide what trends, what gets shadowbanned, what remains visible—and what disappears.

These platforms pose as neutral infrastructure, but their design is anything but. They are engineered to maximize profit, not truth. Rage spreads faster than facts. Division gets more clicks than dialogue.

And the old colonial instincts haven’t gone away.

Look at Ukraine—not just a warzone, but a land rich in rare earths, lithium, and grain.
Look at Greenland—a frozen frontier eyed for minerals and strategic control under melting ice.

The colonial hunger for land and resources remains. Oil is passé. Rare metals are in.
But now, it’s paired with a deeper power: the ability to control the story about it.

Today’s empires don’t just seize territory.
They seize the narrative—and that shapes what the world believes is justified.
Truth? That’s just another commodity to be mined, packaged, and sold.

Disinformation as Policy

Disinformation isn’t a glitch in the system. It is a feature. Especially when the State colludes with platforms to shape perception.
We’ve seen this with:

• Anti-vaccine narratives left unchecked—or promoted—for political convenience.
• The demonization of DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) dressed up as “protecting merit.”
• Minority communities algorithmically targeted through subtle or overt hate.

When States and platforms align, the line between information and indoctrination vanishes.

Take the myth of the “genocide of white South African farmers”—a lie long debunked, yet still fed through digital pipelines to inflame racial panic and evoke Western victimhood.

Or Trump’s fabricated claim of brokering peace between India and Pakistan—publicly denied by India, diplomatically dismissed by Pakistan, and privately ridiculed by anyone who knows the region.
It wasn’t peace he offered. It was blackmail disguised as trade.

And we know how that movie ends: the colonies buy, and the empire sells.
Always has. Just the product keeps changing—once spices and slaves, now data and delusion.

This isn’t about freedom of speech. It’s about the architecture of attention—
who builds it,
who owns it,
and who profits when it breaks.

Terms & Conditions on Mars

Colonialism never ended. It simply rebranded. Today’s tech giants are not just content with land, labor, and mindshare. They have their sights set on the skies.

• Elon Musk wants to colonize Mars under a private flag.
• Jeff Bezos imagines off-world supply chains with Amazon precision.
• Satellite networks are being launched not just for connection—but for domination of digital airspace.

What happens when the same corporations that mine your data also control your orbit?

If the cloud controls the clouds, who owns the future?

This isn’t science fiction. It’s a corporate space race, backed by capital, ideology, and unchecked power.
Tomorrow’s colonialism won’t wear khakis—it’ll wear hoodies and carry NDAs.

The Final Question

We used to ask: Who owns the land?
Then: Who owns the media?
Now, we must ask:

Who owns the truth?
And what are we paying—consciously or not—to believe it?

______
note: I used AI to help edit this piece. My grammar’s getting better, but it still takes time. The paragraph titles and artwork were also done with help from AI. AI didn’t just help me edit—sometimes, it even nudged me to write when I didn’t feel like it. It doesn’t judge, and that helps. i am going write

The post Who Owns the Truth? The Neo-Colonialism of Big Tech appeared first on A PoV.

That’s when it happened.
Sudden. No warning.
No one was around.
I blacked out. Regained consciousness. Blacked out again.

I was aware… but couldn’t move or speak.

At 8 am, help arrived.
MG was called. She informed the others.
I was drifting — in and out of consciousness.

My sadhana friends were the first to arrive.

I wanted to speak. I tried.
The words would form in my mind — and then evaporate before they could reach my lips.

I was rushed to the hospital.
KV looked stricken.
MS and RS were shocked.
I wanted to yell, “I am okay!” — but the words didn’t come.

ICU.
Two and a half days unconscious.
JD and SC — my brother and sister-in-law — and SK — waiting outside.
Later, I found out it had been “touch and go.”

SR was moving cities but rushed back to Faridabad.
ABG stayed at the hospital until my brother arrived — missing Maha Shivaratri celebrations at the Sadhana Centre.

SKs and the Sadhaks, SK and SR, JD and SC…
I owe them my life.

When I woke up, I couldn’t speak.
The only words I could say were:
“Yes.”
“Fuck.”
“Cookie.”

The dominant emotion I felt?
Amusement.

I have aphasia — a condition where a person struggles with language: speaking, understanding, reading, or writing.
I could still understand and read, but not speak or write properly.
(And yes — I remembered my UPI password. Small victories.)

Doctors said my blood pressure wasn’t excessive.
They said the 3rd COVID vaccine might have triggered the stroke.
I don’t know why it happened.
But it did.

The right side of my body was affected.
It felt like my brain had short-circuited.

I was discharged from the hospital on March 21.

Friends

I lucked out with my friends.
SKs and the Sadhaks.
SK and SR.

JD and SC.
KS & SL. GD.

I struck gold.

They wrapped me in a cloak of empathy, love, support, humour —
and good old-fashioned kicks in the arse when needed. !

I returned to Pune on March 31.
Started speech and physical therapy.

Divine Grace — my Appa spoke about it many times.
I used to laugh and say, “Luck.”
He would smile and retort, “Grace.”

Back then, I laughed.
Now, I believe.

If the stroke had happened at home in Pune — help would have come too late.
If it had happened in my bedroom or bathroom at the Sadhana Centre — even later.
But it happened in the Sadhana Centre kitchen — where help was near.
I reached the hospital super fast.

Grace.

Today, one year later:

This year’s Maha Shivaratri, I volunteered.

I’m writing.
Healing.
Living.
Thriving.

I am fitter now — I walk 5 kilometers a day.
Yoga keeps my body flexible.
Speech therapy was excellent — it gave me back my voice.
Cookie helped heal my heart.
And my sadhana continues — flowing.

And yes — I’m still finding my words.
Sometimes the mind says “apple”…And the mouth says “kangaroo.” And I laugh.

#StrokeRecovery #Resilience #HealingJourney #WritingHeals #LifeAfterStroke #ConsciousLiving #COVIDVaccine

The post One Year Later: Finding My Words Again appeared first on A PoV.

In recent days we have seen a tremendous drive across institutions to save the ancient institution of marriage.

In early February, the Supreme Court rejected the plea of a 44-year-old woman to bear a biological child via surrogacy. The  Honorable Justices of the Supreme Court,  BV Nagarthana and Augustine George Masih, stated that single women bearing children was the exception rather the norm, and would not be acceptable to Indian society. They asked “Should the institution of marriage survive or not in the country? We are not like Western countries. The institution of marriage has to be protected”. They went on to add that the woman should realise she cannot have everything, and that she had chosen to stay single. Adding insult to injury, they opined that India is not like the west, where children can go around without knowing who their parents are.

Not to be outdone by the Supreme Court in curtailing the agency of citizens, the State Government of Uttarakhand upped the hand. They tabled the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) bill in the assembly, and it had some interesting additions. Couples who choose to live-in, without marriage, now had to get registered with the state. The law applied to even those residents of Uttarkhand who lived elsewhere.  And not doing so would earn them both a fine, and a jail sentence. While you may argue that this is to ensure that people in a live in relationship were accorded due rights by the state,  and service providers – like insurance companies and hospitals – the way the clauses are framed, and the heavy penalties associated with non-declaration gives the state extraordinary powers within the bedroom.

At the same time, if we discuss the other end of rights of a woman – agency over her body within a marriage, it is vehemently opposed. Screams of “will destroy the institution of marriage”; “it will destroy the family”; “it will be an invasion of privacy”; “the law will be misused” – pervade preventing any solution to women whose agency is violated on a daily basis.

In all, the defenders of marriage seem to be saying that agency, especially the agency of an adult woman, is immaterial so long as the institution of marriage survives. Little do they realize that unless either party has agency within a marriage, that marriage is doomed to failure. But, whether the marriage (or relationship) succeeds or fails is not the business of anyone but the parties involved. And it’s ‘success’ or ‘failure’ is on the parties in that relationship – not legislators and judges. The job of the state and the judiciary, is to protect the rights of individual citizens, not interfere with the manner in which they associate with each other. And it is definitely not to save the “institution of marriage”.

Marriage, at its core, is a private contract and commitment between individuals – and families -rooted in personal, cultural, or religious beliefs that vary widely across individuals and communities. The state’s primary role should be to protect individual rights and freedoms, ensuring equality and non-discrimination for all citizens, rather than enforcing a monolithic view of marriage. Unfortunately, the UCC by its very nature, infringes on these choices. While on the face of it, it is designed to protect the rights of women, it actually ends up curtailing individual agency. The role of the state, and its various organs, is to ensure that our rights are protected when there is a dispute. Not to curtail our rights, based on a normative belief in ‘right’ and ‘wrong’.

When the state oversteps into the realm of personal choices, it not only infringes on individual autonomy but also risks marginalizing non-traditional family structures and relationships that do not conform to its prescribed ideals. The preservation of marriage’s sanctity, therefore, should be left to the individuals and communities involved, with the state focusing on creating a legal and social framework that supports the diverse ways people choose to form families and relationships.

Globally, marriage is undergoing significant changes. Rates of divorce and out-of-wedlock births are rising, particularly in developed countries. While economic factors like job insecurity for men and women’s overburdened role in unpaid domestic labor play a role, so do evolving social norms. Changing attitudes towards gender roles, individualism, and family structures are leading many to question the traditional model of marriage. This doesn’t necessarily imply a decline in romantic relationships, but it does suggest a shift in how individuals choose to build and express their personal lives.

The traditional model of marriage had very clear-cut rules. Boys and Girls – they were usually in their mid teens –   were locked into a marriage arranged by their parents (not just in India); and became an economic unit that taught a trade, and values to their children. Even now this exists in some form or the other in most rural economies.  The big shift took place in the cities. Until a century ago, a clear economic division existed: men held the primary provider role, while women focused on childrearing, household duties, and elder care. This dependency often led to seemingly stable marriages, although limited options for women existed.

The transition from this traditional model to modern relationships has been marked by significant societal and economic changes. Today, in urban areas and increasingly in rural settings, both partners often contribute to the household income. This shift has led to women having a choice, probably for the first time in history. Economic independence – be it through earning or through government schemes – gives women agency, and bargaining power within the marriage.

Legislators and Judges are trying to defend an institution that they perceive through an idealised lens. The idea of the “Institution of Marriage” that they want to protect, probably belongs to the early 20^th century. In the second decade of the 21^st century, as society evolves, the institution of marriage needs to evolve too. And that will be achieved by consenting adults who enter into matrimony. It doesn’t need the help of the state. 

The post The ‘Threats’ To The Institution Of Marriage appeared first on A PoV.

Played as the sun sets, Raga Marwa feels like a cool breeze that not just cools your skin, but also calms your soul, washing off the weariness of the day. It is a poignant melody that is deeply introspective and, sometimes, melancholic. It evokes feelings of yearning and profound contemplation. 

This raga is often associated with a mood of longing and is considered to be very serious and meditative in nature. Much of this tonality is caused by the omission of the note “Pa” or Pancham. This is one of the few Hindi songs that were composed in Raga Marwa—the lovely ‘Payaliya Bawri Baje’, sung by Lata Mangeshkar. 

More recently, in the Marathi film ‘Mi Vasantrao’, Rashid Khan renders a beautiful version of ‘Kauki Reet Kovu Kare Sakhi Ri’ (below). 

https://www.youtube.com/embed/xCTcvpBhT-8 And this song ‘Virah’—from the OTT series ‘Bandish Bandits’—is also based on Raga Marwa. 

Raga Marwa as Thaat

Raga Marwa belongs to the Marwa Thaat, which is one of the ten basic thaats or frameworks that serve as a foundation for different ragas in Hindustani classical music. As explained here,”… a thaat is a family of ragas sharing the same basic notes, offering different flavours of the same musical landscape. 

Pandit Vishnu Narayan Bhatkande, one of the most prominent musicologists, identified and categorised ragas in the Hindustani Classical Music tradition into ten major thaats—Bilawal, Kafi, Bhairav, Bhairavi, Kalyan, Marwa, Poorvi, Asavari, Todi, Khamaj. Marwa Thaat contains some of my favourite Ragas: Lalit, Bhibas (both morning ragas); Puriya, Sohini, Marwa (all played post dusk). 

Let us start with this beautifully mellow and reflective performance by Rashid Khan—Guru Bin Gyan—which remains one of the most popular renditions in the raga.

For those of you who like longer performances, here is a full length concert performance, at the NCPA, by Rashid Khan (who passed on in January 2024 battling cancer). In this concert performance Marwa unfolds gradually, reflecting the setting of daylight and the arrival of dusk, capturing the listener’s mind and transporting them to a state of reflective contemplation. The performance is not just a display of musical excellence; it is a journey through the hues and shades of human emotions, from longing and introspection to a subtle, unspoken joy.

Raga Marwa: The instrumental version 

The way that the notes of Marwa flow, make it ideal for both instrumental and vocal expression. The loneliness and longing expressed in the Raga, are effectively conveyed in this Sarangi recital by Sultan Khan. 

On the other hand, the deeply reflective nature of the raga comes across in this bansuri alaap by Rupak Kulkarni—as you can hear below. 

But Marwa has a side to it that goes beyond the serious and the introspective. It is heroic and passionate. And this comes across very clearly in this vigorous Sitar recital by Purbayan Chatterjee. 

The Surbahar is an instrument that is not too popular with musicians. Often called the bass sitar, it produces a very different mood when played. This recital by Kushal Das takes you through the slow alaap to a finale that is a vigorous tarana. 

Vocals in Raga Marwa

While the instrumental renditions are wonderful, for me Marwa works best when sung as a full concert recording—with the Alaap, the bada khayal, the chota khayal, the bandish and the tarana. Unfortunately, there aren’t too many instances when a concert artist performs the raga so expansively. Possibly because modern day audiences do not find the time to gradually immerse themselves in the raga. 

The gold standard in vocal recitals is considered to be the late great, Ustad Amir Khan. This recording is a beautiful journey through the Raga, and you will feel the raga gradually enveloping you with its sheer beauty and starkness. 

Another personal favourite is this incredibly powerful performance (below) by Pandit Bhimsen Joshi. Also worth listening to is this energetic tarana. 

As a comparison you can listen to Veena Sahasrabuddhe with another Tarana, and you will realise how different two very different schools (gharanas) of music sound, even when the same raga is being sung. Bhimsen Joshi was from the Kirana Gharana, and Veena Sahasrabuddhe was from the Gwalior Gharana. 

https://www.youtube.com/embed/76ji-H5u2SkAnd to end this vocal section is a male female duet in Raga Marwa—Begum Parveen Sultana and Dilshad Khan with a beautiful composition. 

https://www.youtube.com/embed/nSTKZrOG5tIAs I write this piece, dusk falls, and the air turns cool. And there is Nusrat singing a Qawwali in Raga Marwa. The music takes you gently into the night. 

We have created a handy playlist with all the tracks mentioned on splainer’s Youtube channel. ICYMI, you can check out Harini’s playlist on Raga Bhairavi here, Raga Puriya Dhanashree here, Raga Lalit here, Ragas of Spring here, Raga Darbari here, Ragas of Indian freedom here, Raga Shree here, Raga Hamsadhwani here, Indian poet-saint’s in classical ragas here and the winter ragas here.

PS: If you need a list of all the amazing music shared by Harini:

• ‘Payaliya Bawri Baje’ by Lata Mangeshkar
• ‘Kahu Ki Reet Kahu’ by Ustad Rashid Khan
• ‘Virah’ from ‘Bandish Bandits’ by Shankar Mahadevan
• ‘Guru Bin Gyaan’ by Ustad Rashid Khan
• Full length concert performance by Rashid Khan 
• Sarangi rendition by Sultan Khan 
• Flute rendition by Rupak Kulkarni 
• Sitar rendition by Purbayan Chatterjee
• Surbahar rendition by Kushal Das
• Vocal in Raga Marwa by Ustad Amir Khan 
• Tarana in Raga Marwa by Pandit Bhimsen Joshi 
• Energetic tarana in Raga Marwa by Pandit Bhimsen Joshi 
• Duet in Raga Marwa by Parveen Sultana & Dilshad Khan  
• Qawwali in Raga Marwa by Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan 

The post Raga Marwa – Go Gently into the night.                appeared first on A PoV.

In the life of an individual, entering one’s 70’s often symbolizes a time for reflection, introspection, and the twilight of one’s journey. In contrast, for a nation, this age can represent the pinnacle of youth, a period filled with energy, innovation, and potential. But it isn’t all smooth sailing, there are a fair few external, ecosystem, and internal challenges that India will have to navigate carefully to remain relatively unscathed in a tumultuous world.

In its 75th year as a republic, India finds itself in a world where the geopolitical landscape is more volatile than ever. The ongoing Ukraine War has not only reshaped Europe’s security architecture but has also sent ripples across the globe, affecting energy markets and international relations. India, caught between a rock and a hard place, has to balance strategic autonomy and global alliances, especially in terms of its energy needs and diplomatic relations.

Simultaneously, an increasingly assertive China poses distinct challenges. From border tensions in the Himalayas to China’s expanding influence in the Indian Ocean and Indo-Pacific region, India is compelled to reassess its defence strategies and regional partnerships. The China factor also intertwines with broader tensions between America and China, where trade disputes, technological rivalry, and military posturing dominate the narrative. Additionally, the threat of an increasingly unstable Pakistan – equipped with nuclear weapons – descending into chaos looms.

Furthermore, the perennial conflict between Israel and Palestine continues to influence India’s diplomatic balancing act in the Middle East. With strong ties to both Israel and several Arab nations, India’s position often reflects its commitment to strategic interests and historical principles.

Adding to this complexity is the cooling of EU-America relations, which began during the Trump era and has not fully recovered its former closeness. Predominantly, there are discords over trade policies, laws curbing big tech, defense spending, and approaches to global crises. For India, this adds another layer of diplomatic nuance as it navigates these transatlantic dynamics while fostering individual relations with European nations and the United States.

These underlying conflicts depress investments and slow down trade. While India is strengthening economic ties and diversifying its energy portfolio, it remains vulnerable to the vagaries of international conflict and its impact on the economy.

As India marks its 74th Republic Day, it grapples with the stark realities of climate change. The country has experienced a sharp rise in average temperatures. According to the India Meteorological Department, the average temperature has increased by approximately 0.7°Cbetween 1901 and 2018. This trend heightens the frequency and severity of heatwaves, adversely affecting both rural and urban areas.

The economic impact is equally significant. In a study by the Global Climate Risk Index 2021, India ranked as the seventh most affected country by climate change globally between 2000 and 2019. In monetary terms, climate-related events have cost India almost US $80 billion from 1998 to 2017. It is estimated that adapting to climate change will cost nearly $1 trillion.

India’s extensive coastline faces the brunt of rising sea levels. Research suggests that sea levels along the Indian coast have been rising at about 3.3 mm per year over the last two decades, threatening coastal habitats and infrastructure. Additionally, the agrarian sector, which sustains a significant portion of India’s population, confronts erratic monsoons and shifting rainfall patterns, impacting crop yields and food security.

India alone cannot combat climate change. This global effort is hindered by the reluctance of wealthy Western countries, which contribute most to global warming, to bear the cost.

India’s 74th Republic Day comes at a time when unemployment is high. Data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) highlights a worrying trend, with the unemployment rate among youth remaining elevated. Rapid advancements in AI risk exacerbating this issue, as automation could displace traditional jobs, further straining employment prospects.

To harness the potential of AI, India urgently needs to focus on the rapid and large-scale skilling and reskilling of its youth. Educational reforms emphasizing STEM and integrating AI-related skills into curricula are crucial. This approach can prepare the Indian workforce for an AI-driven future and position India as a global hub for AI expertise and innovation. Jobs and job security are likely to undergo a radical transformation. Incomes will become unstable as more people transition to a gig economy.

One option gaining attention is Universal Basic Income (UBI). This concept, involving direct cash transfers to citizens, could provide a safety net, stimulate consumer spending, and potentially spur job creation. While the feasibility and impact of UBI in the Indian context are subjects of extensive debate, it represents a radical approach to mitigating poverty and unemployment.

In addition to external challenges, India at 74 is also confronting internal waves of growing polarization, an aspect that could significantly impact its socio-political and economic fabric. This polarization, manifesting in various forms – whether religious, regional, or ideological – has the potential to undermine the nation’s unity and democratic values. Such divisions not only strain social harmony but can also impede economic progress, as internal strife often diverts attention and resources from developmental goals. The rise of digital media has further exacerbated this issue, enabling the rapid spread of misinformation and divisive narratives. Addressing this growing polarization is crucial for India.

The road ahead is not going to be easy.  From navigating geopolitical instability amidst global tensions to addressing the urgent threats posed by climate change, India’s path is fraught with trials. Yet, in these challenges lie immense possibilities – the potential to lead in the AI revolution, the opportunity to harness its young workforce for global innovation, and the capability to model sustainable development. As the nation marches forward, balancing these diverse elements, it holds the promise of not just enduring but thriving in a rapidly evolving world.

The post The Republic at 75: Challenges on the road ahead appeared first on A PoV.