The Changing Skyline of Mumbai The neighborhood I grew up in is one of the middle class hubs of Mumbai. A very large number of the political activists, social reformers, artists, trade unionists, authors, poets have emerged from the humble living conditions of Mumbai. Yesterday I had the opportunity to…

During the pandemic I have had several online conversations with hundreds of students from around the world. One message ran through all of my interactions with them. “You are entering the job market with a unique opportunity. The pandemic has forced everyone to reconsider our priorities, heal and regenerate the…

As a poet I feel concerned about growing spread of hatred in the society. I have a hypothesis based on my observations of human nature and my own musings as a poet: Hatred benumbs and impairs our natural capacity for healing and regeneration. It is easier to heal from grief…

Background “Everyone has a book in them and that is where it should remain.” Christopher Eric Hitchens a British-American author and journalist. My reaction (below) to this popular quote sets the premise for this blog: The life we live is our evolving story; Becoming aware of our evolving story can…

Since my first day as a student of design my design curiosities and sensitivities have evolved into discovering, cultivating and harnessing relationships between people and the things we design. I have discovered that through the process of design people are able to define and refine their relationship with their environment…

Earlier this year, on the first day of my class at the Integrated Innovation Institute of the Carnegie Mellon University, a graduate student (who has several years of experience as a software product manager) asked me “What do you think about Design Thinking?” I do not remember the answer I…

22 years ago I was working on an emerging markets study for Microsoft to understand the life of people in China, Thailand and India. The overall objective was to help our client team understand how Microsoft could develop software (and possibly hardware) tools to serve the unique needs of people…

I have been a nomad all my life. For the past almost thirty years I have been an ethnographer of imagination. My curiosity for human perception of the material world brought me to the United States to study Product Semantics. As I shifted my attention from the material things I…

five thousand friends on facebook felt more like my audience than friends when i cut them down to two hundred i stopped responding to hateful comments and felt calm and balanced i don’t even need facebook anymore to feel connected because my real friends care for each other