Hello!

I wrote parts of this a while ago. Schedule, perfectionism, and life just got in the way of publishing. Quite a few of you checked in on me during this hiatus, and I'm truly grateful for all of you :)

Someone I met once said, "You're the guy who apologises for posting something late", and I don't know where to start apologising from - not just for you the audience, but also myself for letting me slip so much!

Today will be a little heavy, and a little raw - I'm slightly unprepared, and running this on a stream of consciousness - sort of.

A while ago, I came across a couple of people who're vocal on Twitter (currently X), who tried to live a day or two in the life of a delivery agent of some 10-minute delivery apps. I have more to whine about this later in the newsletter, but this got me triggered about what and how we (as a culture) are sharing with our world and neighbours.

My mother grew up in an apartment complex equivalent of the 50s - called a vatara. It was essentially a few houses surrounding a central courtyard, with an alleyway to the main road. There's no fixed size of a house, and every home ends up being unique. Amma organised a meetup of all the people who co-lived with her in this vatara - and some 60 people attended the reunion. Much better than 25 families visiting each other.

This made me think about how families are designed now, versus our grandparents' era. How common modes of entertainment brought us close. And what learning would mean for the world going forward?

I hope you all enjoy reading/listening to this as much as I've enjoyed putting it together.

-Teej

⚛️ Atomic Families

As mentioned above, my mother grew up in a vatara community of homes - her cousins are as close to her as her siblings. Appa fondly narrates stories of how he helped his large family with bulk buying groceries, how he and the siblings wore similarly made dresses because they would buy material by the yard, how hand-me-downs worked between them and even how he was dressed as a girl for a long time because he had 4 elder sisters!

Contrasted this with my childhood where I couldn't keep in touch with my cousins, or we were taught to express individuality quite early. Both my parents worked multiple jobs to make ends meet and even hustled to give us the life we lived. But this also meant I was shuffled from school to daycare, from school to staying by myself while I waited for my mother, from doing homework to fixing my dinner on those rare nights both of them were away from home.

I see people around me growing their families and making similar decisions our parents did to build everything from scratch. Nuclear families. This style of living has been on the rise with projections of over 65% of all households being in this mode by the end of the decade from over 50% this year.

It's a fine balance between the mental health benefits of nuclear families and the social/cultural pillars of having larger families. Children of nuclear families have been shown to have better health especially because they're exposed to consistent parenting, have better innate conflict management skills, and better channels of communication. Elders however have shown signs of social isolation because they're unable to connect with others in their age group after living by themselves for decades, generational knowledge and stories are lost because people are disinterested, and parents are usually overwhelmed because of the lack of support.

While I've stayed away from home for a fair bit, I do understand the value of keeping my family close. But there is a lot of give and take, and compromises between individuality and the group dynamics - something that can work only in a world of reciprocation and mutual understanding!

📺 Shared Contexts

There used to be a time when I watched Dragonball Z, and ran to school the next day to talk about how long Frieza's fight was taking (30 episodes actually) or laugh about how useless Krillin was.

Having a fixed schedule of entertainment from the idiot box made everyone watch the same-ish things. This created a social thread of shared contexts that people could relate to. These threads brought people together and grew communities. There were the anime/cartoons friends, saas-bahu families, and quizzing folks. Labels are attached to people because of something they all did individually but could relate to as a group.

Fast forward to today, and these communities though larger because of the borderless world of the internet, are fragmented across geographies and timezones. I don't know more than a couple of people around me watching Solo Levelling, there's hardly any social contact with people entertained by the same kind of Lo-Fi music I use to focus/study, even having conversations about movies is difficult because people have access to watch them at leisure.

On-demand media, though it's created a plethora of options, has broken that automatic conversation. The shared contexts we were able to fall back on between topics are now replaced by negotiations of (re)establishing that connection. Which feels like work.

What was the last movie you watched?

📚 Education of the Future

It's a warm sunny morning. We're sitting on the lush green grass of Lalbagh, under the tall trees, talking about kids. Some of my friends are coming to an age where they'll start looking for a school for their young ones. We're not on that path, yet.

In the distance, we see a group of children. Engrossed. Not with each other or play. But with the phones in their hands.

There's no denying the power of the dopamine factories we've invented for ourselves. There's no escape from the convenience this brings us. But what was made to connect people is now unravelling to show the lines of discontent and disconnect.

Education of the next generation, I imagine, will look wildly different. Instead of the rote learning we were subjected to where we memorised formulae and derivations - machines will help us remember and abstract away the details until necessary. The way tertiary education in India is split between applied science and pure science, AI and other technologies will create a drift at the primary schooling levels too.I mean, you don't need to know how to find a determinant of a matrix when you're building a shader for your indie game on Blender.

The style of education though, that's something I've been fascinated about. AI is already embedded in the schools to keep the place safe, and for admin work (that's a bridge I'll have to cross when I come to it), but not so much in the teaching aspect. When LLMs can explain concepts better and more personalised, we should evolve the role of the teacher to more of a guide who shows how to do things instead of someone who just gives us notes.

The alternate systems like Montessori and unschooling etc seem very lucrative. Where a child is trained to be a lifelong learner, and avenues of passion are created for them to follow. Technology can help create more personalised choose-your-adventure style games for learning, and truly break barriers of language.But all this depends on how well the facilitators are equipped and retooled.

What are your thoughts on this?

🪔 United by a Festival

It's 1893. Bal Gangadhar Tilak, against all laws set by the Britishers that prevented political congression, brought together people to celebrate a long-forgotten festival. A festival we now celebrate with a flair that has become rather worrisome.

Ganesh Utsav was designed by Tilak and the reformers of that era as a covert operation to plot against our colonial past. Tilak encouraged the pandals, with mass installations of the Ganesha idols, and created opportunities for fanfare - with plays, Satsang, debates etc - anything that can unite people across castes, creeds, and even religions. The festival emphasised unity and brought everyone together against a common threat.

Similarly, the Shivaji Jayanthi festivals, the Salt March, and the Lucknow Pact showcased cultural platforms to bring people of all religions together. The Ganesh Utsav was one of many examples that threw light on how cultural and shared traditions can be repurposed for reformation, fostering unity and collective action.

While the Ganesh Utsav has been co-opted by right-wing nationalism currently, events like the Hornbill Festival, Sindhu Darshan, and Rann Utsav are gaining momentum in creating cultural platforms that try to unite people.

Have you been to these festivals?

🌚 India's new oppressors

How gig workers are toiling away their lives

"lack of job security, irregular wages, and uncertain employment status for workers", is what the NITI Aayog describes the current gig economy that powers the consumerist 10-min delivery and similar labour marketplaces.

There was a time when I was the e-commerce delivery agent for my mother - she would tell me what the kitchen pantry had run out of, and I would zip away with a tote to the Kirana store and buy things. In under 10min. And I would accept payments in bubblegum or chikki.

Now, there's a folder of apps on my phone, and everything is a touch (and more than 10 minutes) away.

There have been numerous people talking about how the pricing, especially for fresh produce that's not regulated as much, is much higher on the apps than in the market. Now and then there's a post empathising with the delivery agents who bring the things we've ordered in paper bags or compostable covers.

The movie