Author: Akshat Rathi

Akshat Rathi is a senior reporter for Bloomberg News. He has previously worked at Quartz, The Economist and The Conversation. His writing has appeared in Nature, The Guardian and The Hindu. He has a PhD in chemistry from Oxford University and a BTech in chemical engineering from the Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai.

Indian Family: a weird social contract

Akshat Rathi11 Comments

We are born into a family. We don’t have a choice. We’ll remain associated with it till our dying day whether we like it or not. We can either accept the quirks of its members and enjoy them or fight against them and live an unhappy existence.

I don’t know very much about non-Indian families and I won’t pretend to either. This post is about Indian families. And even if I talk only about Indian families, I have to respect the fact that what I am about to say is not going to be applicable to many of them. For within India itself, families with different religious, cultural, social, and geographical backgrounds can be as different as a pear is from a pineapple.

Despite their differences there are some features that are common to most of these diverse families. Firstly there are those common characters which I am going to boldly attempt to list:

  1. A loving grandma
  2. A kick-ass grandpa
  3. A successful cousin (not so good looking, mostly male)
  4. A good looking cousin (not so successful, mostly female)
  5. A tell-everyone aunty (gossip queen)
  6. A fashion conscious aunty
  7. A smart uncle
  8. A know-it-all uncle….

Of course, then there are some special characters (like the comedy uncle, the stupid cousin, the hot aunty, etc.) which make the whole experience with the other common characters completely unique (or completely weird).

Secondly, there is an untold rule that Indian families tend to follow – respect the elders. The hierarchy is set by age. Experience is the best teacher. Period. You do what you are told and the opportunities to question big decisions are rare. If someone starts selling a T-shirt which says on the front, ‘Listen to me, because…’ and on the back ‘I’m older than you’, I bet it’ll become a best seller among the adult population in India.

Thirdly, priority is given to the family. Whether it is for choosing which event to attend (a friend’s wedding < a cousin’s wedding) or it is for choosing an employee for the business (an MBA grad < a cousin without a degree). I am not sure this formula works that well but I don’t have an alternative model to look at and wonder about how things could be if family wasn’t a priority.

The funny thing is that you are bound by a social contract that you did not have a choice to decline, modify or destroy. It’s just there and it’s as weird as the name pomegranate.

Things in my family are as weird as any. Most of my Mum’s family is in Maharashtra, heavily concentrated in Nashik. They tend to be on the conservative side of things. The one question I tend to get asked the most when I visit them is ‘How much do you earn?’. Somehow the possibility that I could still be a student at the age of 24 does not cross their minds. Most of my cousins from Mum’s side by this age are either employed in their own family business and/or maybe about to have a kid.

My Dad’s family is originally from Jodhpur in Rajasthan. There are some of the members of the family still there but so many of them have moved to every imaginable (mostly English-speaking) corners of the world. They tend to be on the progressive side of things and the one question I tend to get asked the most when I visit them is ‘What are you doing next?’. I think if I said that I am moving to Australia that would be considered the most appropriate answer.

Right. Forgive the exaggerations in the previous paragraphs. This social contract that you sign by the fact of being born in a family is weird but also special. The experience of being at home is defined by a family and it is one of the most satisfying experiences anyone can ever have. You don’t have to worry about too many formalities, you can be yourself. The years that have gone by only tend to give you more fun memories to talk about. Things can be so good sometimes that family members can sometimes be better than your best friends.

OK, you got me. I miss my family and so I had to write something to keep me happy. Hope you enjoyed it anyway…

The blogging dilemma

Akshat RathiLeave a comment

I have two opposing arguments in my head. One that wants me to support blogging and one that makes me ignore it. I can’t seem to convince myself to choose a side. But does it really matter if I choose a side?

The internet has given everyone a platform to publish. An ability to share their views and thoughts on absolutely anything with those of their choosing or with the world at large. Surely that is a good thing but as a consumer of media, I feel overwhelmed with the sheer volume of things being created. There is just too much to keep up with.

We have so many quality newspapers, great TV channels, lots of interesting people to follow on twitter, good friends to keep up with on facebook and of course, there is the non-virtual life stuff. With a limited 24 hours daily, I would be surprised to find anyone who is able to keep abreast with everything and not feel overpowered by it all.

My solution to the problem was the information diet. Oh yes, it works if followed like the bible. But unlike a normal diet, this diet is much harder because all it takes to break the diet is the click of a mouse. I do my best to keep up with the diet and what allows me to keep going this way is the presence of a cheat day. It is that one day a week when I allow myself the luxury of reading/watching/stalking whatever I like.

It’s on the cheat day that I open my google reader to find 100+ unread blog posts. I quickly skim through and read what I like (a few). It’s rare that I ever reach the end of the list before the end of the day. Those unread blog posts usually remain unread and the number of unread posts keeps growing. It’s those unread blog posts which have incited me to write this blog post (what an irony!)

I look at that growing number on my google reader and I feel like saying ‘what a waste!’. All those hours that really good people have spent writing those blog posts have gone to waste. And even if I forget the ones that I did not read, what is it that I gain from the ones that I do end up reading? May be a few moments of pleasure and wonder. If that’s all that blog posts are worth and if most will remain as unread posts in someone’s reader then isn’t blogging a big waste of time? These are thoughts that pursue me to ignore blogging.

But then I remember. Every week I derive immense pleasure in being able to share my thoughts here on this blog. I know people read the posts (at least a few). If their two minutes were spent reading this then I better write something that is worth their time. But it’s not just about them (although readers are very important), it’s also about me.  I learn every day. I can see a part of myself evolve with every blog post. There is a peculiar sense of joy in being able to convert a thought into a well-written piece of prose.

Beyond the reader’s pleasure and mine, there is something that we tend to ignore about the power of blogs. They can be places to gain some really good ideas. Steven Johnson explains this is in a superb talk (only 4 mins). He says that good ideas usually come from a process he calls the slow hunch. That usually, a good idea is a combination of two or more part ideas. This combination occurs when you allow them to brew in your head for sometime. This time allows them to come together in your head, if you have all the part ideas, or allows you to gather the remaining part ideas from people you meet, places you visit and things you learn.

Reading blogs can more often than not serve that purpose. A blog is usually a place where raw ideas are shared and they are given for free to the readers for use. You can find parts of that great idea which has been waiting for its remaining parts and waiting to mature. I subscribe to a selected few blogs through email. These are the blogs that I religiously read and I’ve found many really good ideas through them. It’s probably because I’ve taken the time to grab everything that is on offer which meant that I did not miss out on that part idea which I was looking for.

There is one another advantage of reading blogs which is commonly ignored. If you read someone’s blog and read enough of it, you connect with the person in a way which is very different from any other connection that you can have with the person. Whenever I have to look someone up on the web, I try to look if they have a personal website or blog. If it’s someone you want to impress then just the words, “I read on your blog..” are enough to make the person take notice of you and give you a great first impression.

So should I support blogging or ignore it? As with most answers in life, there isn’t a yes or no answer to this. There are certainly a lot of poor blogs out there. They simply don’t deserve your attention but then there are some which absolutely do deserve your attention. It’s for you to find them. As for whether you should blog or not? I think it’s a very personal choice and one that only you can make. May be this extended conversation on blogging will be of some help.

Written while listening to Chillout radio on Last.fm.