Unless you’re living under a rock or completely off social media – which is the same thing – you’ll have seen a lot of tweets, updates and posts expressing frustration over the declining service levels of app-based cabs, particularly Uber. The internet universe is rife with angst. People are upset being stood up, being refused… Continue reading

Come budget season and we see a flurry of activity in the media. The television pundits are at it 24×7, championing announcements ad nauseum. Business leaders have their own PR machinery in place, with vacuous-sounding and upbeat bytes, sometimes tweet-sized. The circus is for us, the affluent TV-watching class. However, whatsapp groups and news media… Continue reading

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you may have read about a campaign against a leading ready-to-cook brand that specializes in south Indian breakfasts. The campaign alleges that the company uses animal products to achieve the consistency and quality of their product, and that the promoters adhere to Islamic financial principles. This has generated another… Continue reading

There are events, and then there are events that get etched in your memory forever. Do you remember what you were doing when 9/11 happened? Or when the 26/11 attacks happened? One such momentous event took place on the eighth of November, 2016, or 8/11. We first got the news via a Whatsapp message from… Continue reading

Over the past few days I’ve had the opportunity to listen to people who are coping with the big 8/11 cash reset. The only point I’d like to make is that life, uh, finds a way.” You can draw any conclusion you like from the stories below. It’s a rather long post. The Parsi Chai-brun Place There… Continue reading

To better understand the impact of 8/11, I interviewed a few people who I had the opportunity to meet over the past few days. I’ll leave it to you to arrive at your own conclusions. The Punjabi lady nearby: Her husband and son run a chicken-tandoori-tikka shop, half-legal, and probably a Grade III outlet as… Continue reading

Counter-intuitive, right? Irrespective of your political standpoint – you may believe that the 8/11 demonetization is the best thing to happen in India after independence, or you may believe that the government considers the unbanked as collateral damage and expendable – the fact is we are in a soup not of our making. Sucking out 86% of… Continue reading