Field Notes
Field Notes
Field observations from four years of research: visits to nearly 100 colleges across India, comparative study in China and South Korea, and earlier visits to Japan, Israel, and Poland. The people, institutions, and places that have shaped the thinking behind this project.
Field Note 01
ARCI, Hyderabad
“Thirty-five technologies, out of the lab and into the market.”
Field Note 02
Ramniranjan Jhunjhunwala College, Mumbai
“Calm, serene, stacked with old books — the way an educational institution is supposed to feel.”
Field Note 03
A college town, somewhere in India
“She had done everything asked of her. It still wasn't enough.”
Field Note 04
Seoul, South Korea
“You can quote anything I say. I am not worried.”
Field Note 05
Hyderabad, Telangana
“The choice no working family should have to make.”
Field Note 06
Seoul, South Korea
“You cannot reform a system using only minds formed within it.”
Field Note 07
Aboard the Hisar–Tirupati Special, near Warangal
“He wasn't angry. He'd simply stopped expecting anyone to explain the delay.”
Field Note 08
Azim Premji University
“If there are more jobs, the supply will adjust — including the skills.”
Field Note 09
A Government Office, Delhi
“Her assistant called about an hour ahead, asking if I could come fifteen minutes early.”
Field Note 10
Warangal, Telangana
“A city of over a million people, and the water still doesn't come.”
Field Note 11
Shanghai, China
“Almost every faculty member is educated abroad.”
Field Note 12
A Kibbutz, Israel
“He spoke fondly of the community on the drive there. A group of women were running his machine when we arrived.”
Field Note 13
Hyderabad, Telangana
“He built the vehicle. The government couldn't decide how to buy it.”
Field Note 14
Unitree Robotics Store, Beijing
“No practical use case yet. That wasn't the point.”
Field Note 15
IIT Hyderabad campus
“A machine capable of building the future, sitting mostly idle.”
Field Note 16
A Senior Government Office
“The boss has to go.”
Field Note 17
Government Polytechnic College, Warangal
“A storied institution, founded in 1955. Forty years after I graduated, the classroom looked exactly the same.”
Field Note 18
Bangalore, Karnataka
“Welcome to Bangalore traffic. Expecting a rain.”
Field Note 19
Beijing–Shanghai High-Speed Rail
“Every few minutes, another skyline. That was the disorienting part — how little of it repeated.”
Field Note 20
A Pattern, Not a Person
“Reformers Only After Retirement.”
Field Note 21
Tel Aviv, Israel
“The drive in the people was obvious almost immediately. So was how unremarkable the security around them had become.”
Field Note 22
Hyundai Motorstudio, Goyang
“She noticed I didn't follow the Korean, and just started translating — nothing formal about it, simply moved over and kept going.”