Reflections

David Graeber writing in the anarchist magazine “ Strike" http://www.strikemag.org/ has postulated something that he calls “ Bullshit” jobs. According to him “Huge swathes of people, in Europe and North America in particular, spend their entire working lives performing tasks they secretly believe do not really need to be performed.” What are these jobs? To quote him once again” we have seen the ballooning not even so much of the “service” sector as of the administrative sector, up to and including the creation of whole new industries like financial services or telemarketing, or the unprecedented expansion of sectors like corporate law, academic and health administration, human resources, and public relations. And these numbers do not even reflect on all those people whose job is to provide administrative, technical, or security support for these industries, or for that matter the whole host of ancillary industries (dog-washers, all-night pizza deliverymen) that only ex...

The Stok Kangri ( Picture from google Images) I have had some close shaves in my life. Most of them happened during my regular trekking days. I remember two of them fairly vividly. The first was when we were climbing Stok Kangri in the Ladakh Himalayas. When we crossed the Rohtang Pass and then the Baralacha pass and the Lachung La, the weather was superb. I remember thinking that we were now in the rain shadow area, so we could expect sunshine all summer. However when we established the base camp, the weather had turned distinctly unfriendly. There were clouds in the sky, gusty winds and our guide was clearly uneasy. However fitful sunshine prevailed and we started the climb. The day of the climb was sunny initially but soon turned windy and finally stormy. Rain, then sleet and finally snow began to fall. We pushed on nevertheless, but soon the visibility became less than a few feet. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valour we turned back. We battled the snow and win...

My blog has been silent for the longest period of time since I started blogging almost 7 years ago. There have been various reasons: pressure at work, a family tragedy, laziness. However I resume today with another guest blog. This is from Mr Debashish Ray who has already posted two superb writings in my blog. See here and here . In addition he taught me an important lesson about giving credit where it is due.See here . Bhuto was almost Human By Debashish Ray Bhuto had settled down and was well established when I got married. Rakhi, my wife had only seen him for a few days, before she came to stay with me. Bhuto was my pedigree bullterrier, white and muscular, with a brindle patch on his egg shaped head. He was a terror for all unwanted visitors, but having grown up with my cow and chickens usually left them alone. And he wasn’t sure whether Rakhi was not just another visitor! He wasn’t keen to share me with her. As long as we sat on separate chairs like friends, he ha...