...ये सारे गुण केवल हिंदी नहीं बल्की सभी भारतीय भाषाओं में हैं|  

I just finished watching all 4 seasons of Mr. Robot - the cyberpunk TV/Web Series about a fictional sequence of events where a vigilante hacker group fsociety (styled on the Anonymous group) attacks E-Corp, the world's largest conglomerate (think GE + JP Morgan) and brings them down through a Ransomware attack. 

The objective of the attack is to free millions of people from massive debt which they are running - the fountainhead of debt across the US being E-Corp. With the hack, millions of loans become unserviceable because data for them is no longer available, but it also leads to E-corp being unable to dispense cash to its depositors and freezing of further lending, ultimately the entire hacking episode leads to an economic collapse!

While my initial interest in the series arose due to its cyberpunk lineage, my interest post Season 1 was retained more because of its depiction of the interplay between epochal events and the nature of human society. Eliot / Mr Robot's original intention in the ransomware attack is to bring down E-Corp and the entire 'elite society' which runs around it. But when the economic meltdown transpires, the exact opposite happens - credit freeze and restrictions on deposit withdrawals hit the poor the most, millions lose livelihoods, homes and relations go sour. The rich, on the other hand, do get impacted but only in losing the sheen of their lifestyles or social stature.

This made me think back of the various other such epochal events we have noticed in past several years - the 2008 economic collapse, some electoral changes in various countries, and most recent Covid-19. Just like the fictional Five/Nine hack in Mr Robot, most of these events haven't impacted 'natural order of human society'. The rich are still rich, the poor even poorer, the middle classes remain locked in a constant graze to crack the glass ceiling to become the rich.

This does not mean that the natural order never changes. For example, Independent India's most revolutionary land policy was the abolition of the Zamindari system (feudal landholding practices).  Another such change was the 'The Protection Of Civil Rights Act, 1955' which abolished the practice of untouchability in India. The American Civil War which abolished Slavery was another such epoch event globally, as was the Civil Rights movement led by Martin Luther King Jr and the Civil Rights Act of 1968 which followed his assassination. The 1994 South African general election which led to the abolishment of Apartheid in South Africa is another such epoch event which changed the social order.

However, while all these legislative events might have aimed at bringing instant changes to social order, their success has been excruciatingly slow at best. Casteism is still rampant in rural India, even though it may not take the extreme form of Untouchability. The recent Black Lives Matter campaign in the United States illustrates that African Americans still face discrimination in American society. Housing and economic differences are still quite pronounced between Whites and Blacks in South Africa. For this reason, such legislative changes are often not acceptable to 'revolutionaries' like Che Guevara or hackers of the Anonymous group or the fictional Eliot Anderson. They prefer a more radical approach, which often involves eliminating the privileged. 

At the same time, it is interesting to note that instead of revolutionary epochal events, the real march of civilisation towards being more egalitarian and impacting social order has been littered with technological progress of the human society. Industrialisation, for example, led to the formation of cities and as people moved to cities, it led to their intermingling and weakening of casteist structures among them. Another wave of awakening against casteism was a result of Indians travelling overseas for education and trade. Gandhi himself travelled to South Africa to set up a new legal practice and Ambedkar, while he was an anti-casteism torch bearer early on, strengthened his ideology while studying in London and the US. 

The American Civil war also has an interesting relationship with Industrialisation; while the key reason for Civil War was disagreement over the abolition of slavery, the reason why this became an issue was because of the economic makeup of the US circa 1860s. The Northern States were largely Industrialised while the Southern States more agrarian. Slavery was critical to the South mainly because it allowed them to remain economically competitive in spite of being agrarian, against the onslaught of industrialisation the world over. Slave labour was virtually free and hence the South could produce raw agricultural produce much cheaper than the rest of America or Europe. Europeans imported heavily from the Southern States and in turn, exported finished goods to America which were cheaper than finished goods produced by the Northern States themselves. This led the Northern States to propose the Tariffs of 1828 against cheap European imports, and the opposition of such Tariff by Southern states came in form of the Nullification Crisis. These two initial sparks ultimately spiralled slowly into the Civil War.

The 21st century has been different however. Industrialisation in the 19th century paved way for changes to social order in the 20th century. Laws and reforms mentioned above all belong to the early/mid 20th century. However, even though the Internet brought about massive changes in the way we live towards the end of the 20th century and early decade of the 21st, we haven't had any laws, regulations or revolutions challenging the social order for almost 50 years now. The Internet has changed a lot for humanity, and while millions are now getting educated on their own through the web, they haven't been able to uproot themselves from the social order they are born into. 

The continuance of caste mindset in Rural India or the police atrocities on African Americans which came to light following the killing of George Floyd only indicates the need for Social reforms across the globe, because of exactly what the fictional events in Mr Robot show, any form of a frontal attack on the social order has the exact opposite effect. 

The Internet was supposed to not just lift millions out of poverty but also transfer wealth from the rich to the poor. However, the Fed expanding its balance sheet following the collapse of 2008, and other such schemes have ensured that the rich are insulated from the downsides of wealth erosion at the cost of the tax-payer; these bail-outs also have robbed the poor of the welfare funds meant for social upliftment. At the same time, the gains from the massive wealth generation - whether it is the Silicon Valley growth or that from cheap Chinese labour - are well protected in coffers of the rich. 

The entire world today is moving towards a 'Zamindari system' where massive wealth is locked in hands of the top 1%, who also control governments, central bankers, mainstream media and through them, even the electorate. They use this power to secure the continuance of wealth in their hands. We've tried hacking the social order by revealing how the rich do what they do [WikiLeaks, Inside Job] - the manipulation of elections, media and people is virtually public information. With Social Media, social atrocities too are no longer hidden in plain sight. We've had epochal events - from 9/11 to 2008 crash to Covid-19. None of these have managed to dent the natural order of things!

What is lacking I believe is laws and regulations same as the abolition of the Zamindari system to uproot these inequalities and to give a fillip to the furtherance of equality for all of mankind. In India, the Modi govt has enacted a few laws in its first term such as the IBC which prevents large corporate borrowers turning into 'wilful defaulters', and forcing govt and regulators to rely on bailouts from Depositor's / Taxpayers money to keep Banks afloat. 

But there's much more to be done here - recently Modi's own party has been a part of political shenanigans where lawmakers were traded from one party to the other to topple and form new state governments. It may be unconfirmed, but public perception is that massive money exchanged hands - allegations and accusations may not have been proven, but then how does one explain a series of such events happening across states? And where does the money used for horsetrading lawmakers come from? It comes from businesses, who then surely would expect qui-pro-quo from the Chief Minister who's government was saved or formed. Such events only make the inequalities persist longer because it necessitates the nexus between politicians and the rich and prevents creation of laws or policies to counter inequality.  

And India is just about a sixth of the world's population - what about Canada, the US, Europe, China, Russia, Far East, Africa and South America? The problem of inequality is global and the rich are one-force globally. Globalisation means that rich investors own corporations (or parts of corporations) which span across nations and continents. Bailouts in the US have a massive impact on Indian markets and vice-versa. Until there are reforms globally, we will not be able to reduce or even prevent inequality from rising as it has, in the past several decades.

Yes, the problem of inequality is as old as human civilisation itself - and inequalities will exist until there is a human society. It isn't inequality but the unfairness of inequality which we need to fight. The phenomenon where the privileged remaining privileged for generations, while the poor suffer - the sterilisation of social structure from technological progress, is what we need to fight. As mankind progresses, we must make our social structures more malleable where it should become increasingly easier for the underprivileged to rise up and difficult for the privileged to protect their turf.

Global laws need to change for this to happen and this possibly is the biggest challenge that the post-knowledge-economy / post-globalisation generation faces.  

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If I were to take a bet, I believe #4, followed by #3 are sure to happen; while either of #1 and #2 may transpire for agencies depending on how well they embrace #4 and #3. In the last few months, many people have tasted comforts of remote work / life, especially the otherwise digitally shy [boomers or equivalent generation] and become comfortable with using digital means. So travel agencies which relied on footfall from their presence in prominent commercial districts, may realise that a digital presence is as or more important to solicit customers. At the same time, agencies which already have digital presence, but low-profile physical presence may see a faster revival of business.

Expectations of digital experience may transcend the need to just have a website, customers may expect a deeper digital experience in terms of self-service/customer-service. Further, their expectations from their regular travel agency may be referenced based on their experience with other digital players like OTAs or Payment apps.

Another trend which Covid will intensify is a shift from fulfilment to customer service – already customers access the same travel information that agencies do. The travel agent’s value therefore is in ‘curating’ the travel plan as per the customer’s preferences and in providing value added customer service. Demonstratable value addition, coupled with digital delivery, will be key to survival and flourishing of travel agencies.

Destination Management Companies (DMCs)

Essentially the ‘suppliers’ of all services you consume when you travel, DMCs are the equivalent of ‘ancillary industries’ in manufacturing. Same as Small Scale ancillaries they thrive on lean cash flows and workforce – a lot of gig economy work, whether its taxi drivers or amateur tour guides depend on DMCs for their livelihood. DMCs have been hardest hit by the Covid-19 bans as regular cash flow has been disrupted and with their already lean model, they haven’t had much buffer to support their employees / contractors / gig workers.

While their regular cash flow will resume as Covid-19 bans lift across the globe, there are some fundamental shifts which will occur in the DMC world also. Just like travel agencies will need to digitise, DMCs will also need to feed into this digital supply chain if they want to stay relevant. This is no different than other gig-economy workers. Just like an Uber driver has a better chance of getting an on-demand booking, compared to a taxi which operates in the taxistand, DMCs who are already a part of a digital platform will recover faster than others.

Plugging in to the digital supply chain may be much harder than one imagines. Unlike an Uber driver who just needs to enlist his/her profile with the app and get started, a DMC will need to do a lot more work. It starts with digitising the ‘rate-card’ of services – many DMCs still work via email providing quotes based on ‘manual calculations’ done by staff. Having standardised services, rates cards, rate calculations [including tax considerations], they need to either customise them to fit the digital platform’s template or develop their own software to provide online feeds. [Full disclosure: Darwin’s solution provides potential solutions to DMCs in the in-between space also. Contact here to explore more]

Once the price determination / quotation is taken care of, DMCs will also need to explore opportunities of digitising the fulfilment cycle. DMCs shall need to use digital means such as Messenger apps, mobile apps and QR codes to make it easy for the traveller to avail the services they have booked or to reach out to the DMC for help.

Online Portals

This is a tricky one, because the Online Portals come in several shapes and sizes. More importantly they are simply the window to the existing fabric of travel service companies. While it is true that the offline travel agency has been hit hard over last several years with the rise of the Online Travel Portals, the offline world has also transformed itself to cohabit the ecosystem. Covid-19 has hit offline and online players equally in terms of revenue but unlike small offline agencies, who may have the luxury of laying off staff, online players may not be able to do so. Further, there are technology costs which are fixed and difficult to cut out completely.

I do not have any general prediction to make for the online portals except that the industry may see consolidation in the coming years, but also that innovation will remain key to not just survival but thriving in future. Players who embrace new realities, ideate, iterate, fail fast at lower costs are sure to reap the long-term fruits that the post-Covid-19 world begets.

Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus - Mumbai Unprecedented Lockdown

Its been a month and 10 days of the lockdown here in India, an attempt to contain the outbreak of Covid-19; the deadly virus which has engulfed the whole world and caused the death of thousands - possibly the most deaths mankind has seen in a span of few months since the Second World War. [I mean this only in the global context though, locally we have had wars, calamities and similar viral outbreaks which have outnumbered Covid-19.]

As the founder of a travel startup, I was initially terribly shaken at how life has been thrown completely out of gear by this deadly virus. Travel is the worst affected sector; suddenly 2020 which we had planned to be the 'explosive growth' year for us has thrown us into an existential crisis. The situation has taken such a wild turn that I've grown comfortably numb only shifting the timeline of our 'explosive' growth to the next calendar year [or potentially even further] while we try to figure out how we will survive till we hit that point.

However, among all the bad news - there's a lot of positive stuff that's happening and some of that I wanted to record here today.

Consumerism has taken a backseat 

The second aspect is of Family time going up. Social media which had destroyed dinner table conversations is now going reverse - I am so fed up of the screen by the time I start my dinner that I'd rather listen to my daughter's chattering than stare away into the mobile. And if I still dare to look at my mobile, now that I am spending my entire day at home, my daughter knows that I was working all day and so she won't let me stare away into the last email on my phone as I munch my food. My work-life balance may be screwed (it always was!) but irrespective, I am indeed spending more time with family than what I used to.

We are discovering ourselves and our community
And Social Media - well, its finally connecting us back. We have daily video calls with parents who live far, we have family video call gatherings. We are also Zooming with school friends whom we haven't talked to in decades.

And people reopening their hobbies - someone I know started an Origamy class online. Another of my mentors is writing long Facebook / LinkedIn posts sharing nuggets of wisdom from his two-decade long entrepreneurial journey. My wife is busy destressing herself by drawing and painting; as I type this, the wall next to me has a half-painted unicorn sketch which will possibly be coloured tomorrow. And I am finally writing on my blog! :-) 

As I sipped my cutting cup of of tea at the tea stall, I couldn't but help notice the guffaws of the sabzi waala (vegetable vendor) sitting right next - from what I could overhear in the cacophony of street traffic, he was watching some Bhojpuri standup comedy. The chai waala (tea vendor) noticed my scrutiny of his neighbour, smiled and then said:

Jio ने सबको बीज़ी कर दिया है! ग्राहक आए या ना आए - ये अपना भोजपुरी इन्टरटेंमेंट में ही लगा रहता है! 😆 

With the economic headwinds strong, and no sight of respite - it amused me to notice the scene I was in. The poor vendor was not disappointed or dejected; he wasn't looking forward to his job or future either - notably, food inflation has remained at its lowest levels in the last few years due to efforts of Modi government and the vegetable vendor has surely not had or expected higher earnings. Other forms of inflation - housing, transport (fuel) etc - are moderate and hence his savings, if he has any, would not have grown,  rather would have been depleting. The only thing that may have improved for him is what his preoccupation thence - cheaper data speeds and thus access to cheap personalised entertainment.

Mulling over all this, I proceeded to board the metro train. It was rush hour and the metro was jampacked with people - most were texting or watching videos on their phones here too. Most of them would be midlevel executives going by their attire - I wondered why they were in a metro? I knew the answer because it was the same reason I was in the metro - the roads were worse than the jampacked metro - there were not only jampacked, they were worse in terms of commute time; Mumbai ranked #4 in traffic congestion and the city's roads saw 119% congestion in 2019.

Again, for the mid-level city executive, a look at the last 5 years was the same as that for the vegetable vendor - traffic hadn't gotten any better, commute times have only risen; so have fuel costs.

Interestingly, we've had two dips in international crude oil in these 5 years - but on both occasions [rather time periods], the govt has chosen to enjoy the gains of the lower pricing to fund its own deficit than pass on the benefits to the consumers/citizens. Not that cheaper fuel would have helped - it would only have made the terrible traffic woes even more terrible.

Food inflation has stayed low but real estate is so damn expensive that people have no choice but to rent/buy housing farther and farther from the city. Recession, or stagnation in the industry is not going away - Banks are stretched and hence credit is not flowing, so there is hardly any new investment and hence fewer opportunities on the horizon. Professional growth isn't something most mid-level executives are vying for - several, in fact, maybe just trying to keep their jobs and their salaries intact.

Back to the scene in the metro, a phone rang - given that there was no space when the co-passenger pulled out his mobile, I had no choice but to peep into this phone. I could see the Trucaller screen pop up the name of the caller - a telemarketing agency. He cut the call without bothering to pick it up and went back to the Netflix show he was watching. Had it been a friend, I would have lectured him on the HUGE privacy nightmare that TrueCaller is! On this occasion though, I kept quiet not to offend an unknown bloke.

I got down from the metro and started to look for an Uber - it took the usual 4 minutes of search and 10 minutes of waiting time for me to board one. The driver was estranged, almost as if he had resigned to the traffic which he stared at. I tried to make small talk asking him where else he had driven during the day and if traffic was any better.

D - सssब  तरफ़ ऐसाही ही है साहब!! जहाँ देखो रास्ता खोदे रक्खे हैं!
Me - चलो कम से कम waiting का तो पैसा मिलता है आपको
D - कोई फ़ायदा नहीं साहब - २ साल से Uber वाले commission कम कर दिए हैं! और traffic में गाड़ी कम चलता है तो उतना कमाई भी नहीं पूरी होती
Me - पर पहले से तो अच्छा है ना ?
D - पहले मैं काली पीली चलाता था; Uber वालों ने पहले तो सपनें दिखाए, तो हम सबने नई गाड़ी खरीदी loan लेकर - अब commission कम किया तो हमारा गाड़ी का हफ्ता ही महंगा पड़ रहा है हमें | इस से अच्छा तो हम पुरानी काली पीली ही चलाते!

The gist of the above conversation is that he bought a new Car on loan in hope of better earnings when Ridesharing companies were offering better commissions. But now that the commissions have reduced, he is finding it difficult to even manage to pay off his EMIs for the car loan. But now that he was caught in the vicious circle of the Loan-EMI repayment, there is no way he can go back. He has to continue being an Uber driver in the hope that someday his EMI will be paid off and he will start earning money - assuming the maintenance costs of his vehicle do no rise by then.

I got home and a friend was already there waiting for our pre-planned dinner. He had flown in from Delhi for a day and we decided to meet for dinner. We compared notes - Delhi was no better, real estate was marginally cheaper but public transport was worse off. His preferred method in spite of traffic woes was driving his car and his commute time was worse than mine - almost 2 hours one way. Delhi had one more problem, acute pollution which gets especially worse in winter months; he was worried if his daughter would develop asthma with the kind of air she was breathing at a young age.

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The entire day reminded me of the dystopian movie In Time, where people stop ageing past 25 so time has become the universal currency traded between people. When the time "bank account" on an implanted clock reaches zero, that impoverished person "times out" and is euthanized. So everyone earns so that they may live a little longer, and each luxury they enjoy reduces their time to live. In a heart-wrenching scene - the protagonist goes to meet his mother when the city bus fare rises from 1 to 2 hours, and she only has 90 minutes. She tries to run to meet her son, but times out at the last moment and dies in his arms!

It feels like we are living in a parallel era, where people pay with their Privacy, their time and their Health. The vegetable vendor gets his ₹300 a month entertainment - just like Opium to fulfil his desires, while his future remains suspended in his current state; the Uber driver is perennially under debt but yet unable to give up his profession; the mid level executive stuck in his day job and stuck in the traffic of the city; also a parent stuck with poor environment and constant worry about his offspring's health!

It is as if the Big Bad Corporation - the Mobile Operator, the ride-sharing app, the MNC corp, the Govt and the Carmakers have all managed to lock the common man into a vicious cycle of selling their time, their privacy and their lives for luxuries they cannot afford anyway. It is, as if, these citizens would have been better off without the luxury - without having to pay for it, and without having enjoyed it - but alas, they are paying for these luxuries by reducing precious hours from their lifetimes!

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Dadasaheb Phalke

Nana Shankarsheth

There are a lot of quotes on Attitude vs Aptitude but my favourite on this subject is this dialogue from the movie Chak De India


Kabir Khan, the coach, explains beautifully - टीम बनाने के लिए ताकत नहीं नीयत चाहिए - you need 'attitude' (intention / sincerity) to form a team and not power (aptitude). 

If you are writing off Greta Thunberg as a case of poster girl for environmentalists-with-vested-interest and believe that her doomsday predictions are just shenanigans - you are missing the point entirely.

Here's a teenager who's situation is compounded by Asperger's syndrome and Selective Mutism - speaking out aloud to a community of world leaders. Her scenarios are obviously blown out of proportion - weren't yours when you were adolescent?

The point isn't whether or not her predictions are true - the point is we adults care so much less than we should.

Mankind will not go extinct - and while some species might, its not going to be a mass extinction either. If it indeed does happen, while millions of poorer humans may perish, most of us using social media, (presumed to be) living in developed cities / towns will survive. Temperature going up by 2° will inflate your Air Conditioning bill and may be add to 'work from home' days when its either snowing or raining heavily. Recession will be longer but we will still get food. A century or so later, worst case, we might be living in artificially environment controlled domes - a little larger than today's malls. It'll be fun also - imagine your hostel days. And trust me - I am not being sarcastic!

But again, we are missing the point - just because we will survive and live better, doesn't mean than climate change isn't real or that its all brouhaha. All that the kid is asking you to do is pay more attention to the climate than economic recession or AI taking over the world. Just make it the top item on your bucket list. Raise it at every forum you can - discuss it with your friends before you talk about the next web-series.

She's a kid, what does she know? She doesn't, but her emotion, which is surely hormonally charged given her age, is what we need to relate to - all she's asking you is to think about this from your heart than just your head.

Image Credit: https://unsplash.com/photos/qbtyUQtqJ8k