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Musing about Success
This week I spoke to two individuals on the topic of success. The first, a mother of two in her late forties, for her the concept of success had much to do with her husband and her children, “ultimately, if our children are settled and are good human beings then my life has been successful.”…
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Planting the Seed of a Growth Mindset
The core of our beliefs rest in two types of mindsets: the fixed mindset and the growth mindset. In this post I will be putting forth some of my learnings on how to nurture the growth mindset. When I say “growth mindset” I mean the conviction that my passions, skills, talents, can be developed further.…
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Building Inclusive Safe Spaces: my brown dream
Two institutions have come under the radar recently for allowing their platform to spout bigotry; both apologized, and in their inner circles professed that the core consensus was to give everyone a forum to vent out their inner feelings. However offensive they might have been they had the “right” to express. Here is my (to…
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Top 5 books I read in 2018
It is almost the end of the year and a good time to reflect on the best books I read in 2018. I try to read as many books as my age, this year had the ambitious 39 figure. I managed to read 33. Falling short of my goal by 6 books, but then it…
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English Pronunciation in a Global World: with Dr. Rupp, Futurelearn, and VU
I am absolutely delighted that I will be a mentor and facilitator in this ingenious course that Dr. Laura Rupp has created. What a great way to learn and grow; please do take a look. Details: Join the Futurelearn course ‘English Pronunciation in a Global World‘ developed by the Faculty of Humanities of Vrije Universiteit…
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Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam
The Tropenmuseum is an ethnographic museum started in 1864 and located in Amsterdam. I have visited it on numerous occasions and each time I discover something new. Recently, I was intrigued by their marvellous exhibition called Fashion Cities Africa. In this show they have on display visually dramatic and gorgeously textured fabrics. They have a room…
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Teaching the Ghazal in Class
Last week I was subbing at the Vrije Universteit for the Genre, Literature and Analysis class for the Bachelor First Year course. I was teaching the villanelle and ghazal, which involved aspects of the forms as well as close reading. I found myself in a room full of bright, intelligent, engaged, and wise students. They…
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Learning how to THINK: review of Bitasta Roy Mehta’s book Have a THINK
I applaud Bitasta Roy Mehta for hitting the nail directly on the head when it comes to people management, be it in organizational practices or as individual parts of the fabric of society. What am I talking about? A book called Have a THINK. I needed this book at this juncture of my career and…
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Those Literature Courses I Cook Up
In 2013, Apoorva put this up as his Facebook status update: Some electives for the upcoming Autumn term. What would you like to study? Sociology of the upper-middle class Misogyny and education Poetry of poverty Mental health in patriarchal societies Conflict and negotiation in family settings Mathematical methods for personal relationships Psychology of empathy History…
