The 3L Mantra to live by!

Who doesn't love sabbaticals! It's one of those ancient and privileged rituals in academia which is prized dearly and rightly so. It allows us to disconnect, recharge and rediscover our passions for writing, reading and engaging with new ideas and people. Time is structured not by grading or teaching but by exploratory thought. With my book deadline with Harvard University Press in the summer of 2016, I have my path carved by this dominant goal. The book Poor@Play: Digital Life beyond the West is not a typical academic book but rather will be written in the style which is more New Yorker ...and that's exciting as its about unlearning journal style writing and going back to a time where we write to engage a larger intelligent public and yet, back it with the vigor of serious scholarship. So what better place to start my sabbatical journey than S teinhardt's NYU. I am working closely with Arjun Appadurai and will be attending the weekly Privacy Research Group unde...

Commuting can be a drag, even more so in a densely populated city like Manhattan . I’ve done the uptown-downtown journey for years where you learn to block ungainly sights, smells and sounds on the subway. It’s a talent onto itself really. Jammed with the loudly enthusiastic tourists, the drunk and the homeless, and the emaciated college kids heading to east village, you develop a protective force field that usually is a potent combination of your iPod, the Economist and shades. That said, it is astonishing that the Metropol itan Transit Authority (MTA) takes this reality and turns it to its advantage. Understanding that New Yorkers are constantly on the move, it capitalizes on this and makes this commute a cultural experience. And we do stop and notice. While there is comfort in standardization through the quintessential subway blue and white tiles, there is also difference. Difference that reflects specific neighborhood stops. So if you get off the Natural history museum , that’s ea...