4th Dimension

Age of uncertain futures is not bygone

2026-04-27T00:25:00.000+05:30

I was discussing a research topic with a colleague. The name of a movie popped up in conversation , Ankush (1986), itni shakti hume dena data…wali movie…I decided to watch Ankush this weekend with bollywood drama expectations, assuming I would encounter a dated cinematic narrative whose relevance had long faded. But, film did not feel like a historical artefact; it felt like a diagnostic lens through which I could reinterpret many of the anxieties I observe among Indian youth today. This realisation complex me to inquire into how certain structural tensions persist across time, even as their outward forms change.

The first striking continuity lies in the representation of suspended aspiration. The four young men in the film, frequently dismissed as idle, occupy a social position that is neither fully excluded nor meaningfully integrated. This condition finds a contemporary analogue, albeit in transformed spaces. Today’s “street corner” is often digital rather than physical. It appears in prolonged engagement with job portals, professional networking platforms, and algorithmically curated feeds that promise opportunity while simultaneously amplifying competition. According to the Periodic Labour Force Survey conducted by the National Statistical Office, youth unemployment rates (typically defined for individuals aged 15–29) have remained substantially higher than the national average, with urban educated youth facing particularly acute challenges in securing stable employment. This empirical pattern suggests that the condition depicted in the film is not merely narrative exaggeration but resonates with enduring structural constraints.

This tension becomes more pronounced when one considers the expanding role of education. Arjun’s predicament as an unemployed engineering graduate illustrates a contradiction that has intensified in contemporary India: the rapid expansion of higher education has not been matched by commensurate growth in high-quality employment. Data from the All India Survey on Higher Education indicate a steady increase in enrolment over the past decade, reflecting both demographic pressure and aspirational investment by households. However, labour market absorption remains uneven. The outcome is not a simple absence of jobs but a misalignment between qualifications and available opportunities. In analytical terms, this reflects a structural lag, where institutional expansion in one domain outpaces adjustment in another.

it is necessary to avoid an overly linear comparison. Contemporary youth inhabit a markedly different economic environment characterised by globalisation, technological integration, and the proliferation of new occupational forms. These transformations have generated opportunities that were unavailable in the early 1980s. Yet they have also introduced new uncertainties. The rise of platform-based work exemplifies this duality. Reports by NITI Aayog estimate that India’s gig workforce may expand to over 20 million workers in the near future. Such work offers flexibility and entry points into income generation, but it often lacks stability, social security, and long-term progression. Thus, the issue is not simply scarcity of work but the changing quality and predictability of employment.

The film’s depiction of institutional failure invites a further, more cautious reflection on legitimacy and trust. In Ankush, the failure of justice is narratively central, but its sociological significance lies in how individuals interpret institutional outcomes. Contemporary evidence suggests a more complex picture. While India’s judicial system continues to function as a key site of redress, it also faces well-documented challenges, including case backlogs and delays. Data from the National Judicial Data Grid indicate millions of pending cases across courts, which can shape public perceptions of accessibility and efficiency. It would be analytically imprecise to equate cinematic representation with empirical reality; however, it is reasonable to suggest that perceptions of procedural delay or opacity can influence how young people evaluate institutional reliability.

This brings the discussion to the question of generational experience. It is tempting to describe “Gen Z” as uniformly disillusioned, but such a characterisation would obscure significant internal variation. Youth experiences in India are stratified by class, caste, gender, and region. For some, digital economies and global connectivity have expanded horizons; for others, structural constraints remain binding. What can be observed with greater confidence is a shared exposure to uncertainty. The transition from education to stable employment has become less predictable, and the markers of success have become more diffuse. In this sense, uncertainty functions not as a universal condition but as a widely distributed risk.

An analogy may clarify this shift. Earlier developmental trajectories resembled a relatively linear pathway, where progression from education to employment, though never guaranteed, followed a broadly recognisable sequence. Today, the pathway resembles a branching network with multiple entry and exit points, frequent reversals, and uneven rewards. Individuals navigate this network with varying resources, which significantly shapes their outcomes. The result is not the disappearance of aspiration but its fragmentation across competing and often unstable avenues.

The enduring relevance of Ankush therefore lies not in its specific narrative events but in its articulation of a structural misalignment between aspiration and opportunity. This misalignment does not manifest identically across decades, yet its underlying logic persists. When educational systems expand expectations without corresponding labour market transformation, and when institutional processes struggle to maintain perceived fairness and efficiency, conditions emerge in which uncertainty becomes a defining feature of youth experience.

As I reflect on the film in relation to contemporary realities, I am less inclined to treat it as a commentary on a bygone era and more as a reminder of an unresolved structural question. The challenge is not simply to generate opportunities, but to ensure that institutional arrangements evolve in a manner that can absorb, reward, and stabilise the aspirations they help produce. Without such alignment, each successive generation may find itself confronting variations of the same predicament, even as the context continues to change.

Why Ganesha is विघ्नहर्ता ? let’s address elephant in Room…

2026-04-12T21:23:00.001+05:30

I grew up being told that my name, Pratham, comes from a Gujarati bhajan “pratham pela samariye…” Before anything, we remember you. As a Barodian, this wasn’t presented to me as philosophy. It was just… how things were done. You start with him. You invoke him. You don’t really ask why.

And for a long time, I didn’t.

But at some point, that unquestioned habit starts to itch a little. Why him? Why this particular figure, round-bellied, elephant-headed, seated with sweets in hand and a mouse at his feet, presiding over beginnings of all things? Businesses, weddings, journeys, exams. Everything begins with Ganesha.

If you ask around, you’ll get the standard answer: he removes obstacles.

Which sounds satisfying, until you pause long enough to realise it explains almost nothing.

Because it raises a better question: why does the remover of obstacles look like that?

For many outside India, the conversation rarely gets past the elephant head. It’s treated like a visual quirk,interesting, memorable, slightly exotic. And then the discussion moves on. For me, The elephant head is not a detail. It is the argument.

So I decided to dig more…

Roughly four thousand years ago, elephants were not rare, protected, or symbolic. They were present. Vast herds moving across the subcontinent. You didn’t encounter elephants as an event; you lived within their range. And when something that large, that intelligent, that unstoppable shares your world, you don’t remain neutral about it. You either learn to live with it, or you try to remove it.

Interestingly, not every civilisation made the same choice.

Ancient China, around a similar period, also had elephants. Archaeological traces, oracle bones, early records suggest their presence was once widespread. But elephants there posed a direct threat to agriculture. They trampled crops, disrupted fields, ignored boundaries. For a civilisation organised around agricultural stability, this was not awe-inspiring, it was intolerable.

So they were eliminated. Gradually, systematically, effectively.

And with their disappearance from the landscape, they faded from imagination as well. When elephants later reappear in Chinese history, they arrive as curiosities, tributes from distant lands, ceremonial novelties. Not sacred. Not central. Certainly not divine.

India, faced with the same animal, took a very different route.

Here, elephants were not reduced to a problem to be solved. They became something to be understood. Observed. Interpreted. Their intelligence, their social behaviour, their memory, their emotional range, these weren’t dismissed. They were absorbed into the cultural imagination.

But reverence alone does not create a god. Something more precise had to happen.

To see that, you need to stand inside an Indian monsoon, not the cinematic version, but the ancient one. Months of relentless rain. Roads dissolving into mud. Travel becoming nearly impossible. Entire systems of movement collapsing under water and time.

Even today, with infrastructure and engineering, monsoon season still disrupts cities. Now strip all of that away. No drainage systems. No paved roads. No reinforcement. Just earth, water, and gravity doing what they do best.

Movement stops.

Ancient society recognised this reality formally. The institution of ‘chaturmas’ a four-month pause,. People stayed put because there was nowhere to go.

And then the rains ended.

What followed was not a return to normalcy. It was a kind of reset. Paths erased. Vegetation reclaiming space with startling efficiency. What had once been a road was now indistinguishable from wilderness.

If you were a king trying to move an army, or a trader trying to reopen routes, or a pilgrim trying to reach a shrine, you faced a very simple problem: there was no path.

And this is where the elephant re-enters the story not as an object of admiration, but as a solution.

a line of elephants moving through dense, post-monsoon growth. Their weight presses the softened earth flat. Their bodies push through thick vegetation. Their movement creates a corridor where none existed before. What they leave behind is not just a trail, but a usable path.

They don’t navigate terrain. They remake it.

This wasn’t metaphor. This was daily, material reality.

And when a society witnesses this, season after season, generation after generation, something shifts. The elephant is no longer just an animal. It becomes an idea. A living demonstration of what it means to make passage possible where none exists.

The one who goes first. The one who clears the way.

The remover of obstacles.

By the time we arrive at the point where Indian civilisation begins to formalise its deities by giving form to functions, stories to principles , the groundwork has already been laid.

If you are going to imagine a god who presides over beginnings, who is invoked before journeys, ventures, and undertakings, what should that god look like?

The answer, by now, feels almost inevitable.

He would carry the head of the being that, for centuries, had already been doing that work.

And so, Ganesha.

The figure we know today emerges around the Gupta period, roughly 4th to 6th century CE. Earlier texts mention Vinayakas, but not quite this figure. Not yet the pot-bellied, elephant-headed deity who sits at the threshold of every beginning.

He doesn’t appear suddenly. He evolved. He gathers centuries of observation, symbolism, and lived experience, and takes shape.

The mythology follows, not as a starting point, but as a way of explaining what has already been culturally understood.

In the most familiar telling, Parvati creates a child from her own substance: turmeric paste, sandalwood, breath. No assistance. No intervention. He is entirely hers. She places him at the door to guard her space.

He obeys.

Shiva arrives, finds himself blocked by a boy he does not recognise, and reacts with immediate violence. The head is severed.

It’s abrupt. Almost jarring. But mythology often works through rupture, it creates a break that demands resolution.

Parvati’s grief is described as immense, destabilising, dangerous. Shiva is compelled to respond. A replacement head must be found. The instruction is oddly specific: the first creature encountered lying with its head facing north.

It turns out to be an elephant.

The head is attached. The child is restored, not as he was, but as something else entirely. Human body. Elephant head. A fusion of intention and capacity.

And then comes the declaration: he will be worshipped first.

Before any other god.

Which brings us back, gently but firmly, to my childhood memories—pratham pela samariye.

Because now the memory carries weight.

Ganesha’s form is not ornamental. It is explanatory.

The elephant head is not a stylistic flourish. It is a memory, of forests, of monsoons, of paths carved through resistance.

The large ears suggest attention. The small eyes, focus. The trunk, adaptability capable of uprooting a tree or picking up a grain. The pot belly… perhaps the most misunderstood element.

It’s tempting to read it as indulgence. But it gestures toward something more subtle: fullness. Not excess, but sufficiency. The state of having enough.

And then there is the composition around him.

A snake coiled near his belly. A mouse at his feet. Sweets in his hand.

Placed together anywhere else, these elements would resolve into a simple hierarchy: the snake eats the mouse, the mouse consumes the food.

Here, nothing is consumed.

The snake does not strike. The mouse does not nibble. The sweets remain uneaten. Ganesha sits, untroubled.

What you are looking at is not abundance as accumulation. It is equilibrium. A condition in which nothing is urgently lacking, and therefore nothing needs to be taken.

From that state, something interesting follows.

If you are not driven by lack, you are not compelled to consume. If you are not compelled to consume, you do not exhaust what is around you. And when you do not exhaust, something accumulates, not hoarded wealth, but surplus.

And surplus, when held by someone who is not hungry for more, tends to move outward. It circulates. It enables.

In Sanskrit, this condition is called mangala(auspiciousness). Not just personal fortune, but a quality that benefits everything around it.

So when Ganesha is invoked at the beginning of things, it is not merely because he “removes obstacles.”

It is because he represents a very specific way of doing so.

He clears the path without creating new forms of imbalance. He makes movement possible without consuming what lies ahead. He begins from a place of sufficiency, not lack.

And that changes the nature of what follows.

So the next time i see him on a temple threshold, at the start of a ceremony, on a wedding invitation, quietly placed on a dashboard, I pause for a moment.

I am looking at the end point of a very long process. Thousands of years of watching elephants move through impossible terrain. Of choosing reverence over elimination. Of translating observation into meaning, and meaning into form.

Ganesha is more than a god, an idea: that before anything truly begins, something must clear the way not violently, not greedily, but with a kind of grounded completeness.

An elephant-headed god who rides a mouse, holds sweets, wears a serpent, and asks very gently that you begin from a place where nothing is missing.

It’s an improbable image.

Then again, the most durable ideas usually are.

Body’s Secret Plan for Death

2025-11-01T11:35:00.003+05:30

A fitness-conscious colleague of mine ordered a cup of tea. I nearly dropped my pen. “Tea?” I said. He replied, “I’m growing old.” We both chuckled, but as his words lingered in the air longer than the aroma of Darjeeling, It became intriguing topic to understand the most ancient of contemplations why do we age, and more curiously, why do we die?

From an evolutionary perspective, “fitness” isn’t about biceps or abs it’s about the ability to pass on genes effectively. In that sense, ageing is simply the slow decay of that fitness, the gradual fraying of a once-pristine biological fabric, until one day, the loom stops altogether. Since I am not a biologist, I started exploring for this enquiry and stumbled upon a riveting lecture by Nobel Laureate Dr. Venki Ramakrishnan. The coincidence that we both share the same university (and possibly the same cafeteria food) made me feel oddly connected to him. What followed was an exploration about unsettling, humbling, and occasionally absurd truths about death truths that biology textbooks in India avoided.

Let me begin with a paradox: we are dying constantly in order to stay alive. As I write this, millions of my cells are bowing out dying purposefully, quietly, and efficiently to make way for new ones. This programmed cell death, or apoptosis, is not a tragic failure; it is a design feature. Without it, we would be an accumulation of unedited errors. So the death, at the cellular level, is not an end but a maintenance ritual. Yet, when we think of death at the human scale, we treat it as an absolute. Dr. Ramakrishnan reminds us that even at the precise moment a person is declared dead, most of their cells remain very much alive. The heart may stop, the brain may fall silent, but the liver, kidneys, and countless other cells continue their diligent work for hours. The boundaries between life and death, are smudged more a matter of definition than a clear line.

That blurry threshold grows even stranger when we ask: when does the process truly begin? Many of us associate ageing with creaky knees or the first grey hair that has the audacity to appear in our late thirties. The truth, though, is brutally earlier. Actually ageing begins before birth. From the moment we are conceived, our molecular machinery begins accumulating tiny imperfections. DNA mutations creep in, and subtle epigenetic modifications adjust how our genes express themselves. In other words, even as we are being formed, we are already biologically speaking growing old. Life and decay, it turns out, have been dancing partners since conception.

But why would evolution allow such imperfection? The answer, as always with evolution, is unsentimental. Nature does not care how long we live; it only cares that we live long enough to reproduce. From an evolutionary lens, we exist to deliver our genetic parcels safely to the next generation. Longevity is merely a bonus feature, not a design goal. This brutal calculus explains much about how different species approach life. Mice, facing daily predation, have no incentive to invest in long-term maintenance; they grow fast and breed faster. Whales, relatively predator-free, take their time and live for centuries. The bat, intriguingly, achieves the best of both worlds: it is mouse-sized but lives twenty times longer, thanks to its ability to fly out of trouble. The lesson is sobering evolution rewards efficiency, not fairness. Once you’ve done your reproductive duty, nature’s interest in you rapidly wanes.

And then there are the freeloaders within us the “zombie cells.” These are the ones that have stopped dividing but refuse to die. When young, they perform a useful function: signalling the immune system to repair damage. But as we age, they accumulate like grumpy tenants who won’t vacate the building. Their constant inflammatory chatter becomes toxic, contributing to the slow, system-wide deterioration we call ageing. It’s the biological equivalent of never-ending background noise subtle, pervasive, and ultimately exhausting. In severe illnesses like COVID-19, the body’s overreaction to such signals can even trigger the infamous cytokine storm, where our own immune system becomes the arsonist in its attempt to douse the fire.

Yet humanity, ever rebellious, refuses to accept its expiry date. For the first time, we’re not just dreaming of immortality we’re experimenting with it. Scientists are using Yamanaka factors to coax aged cells into behaving like youthful ones, testing drugs like rapamycin to mimic the effects of caloric restriction, and even exploring whether transfusions of “young blood” can rejuvenate older bodies. It sounds like science fiction, but it’s happening now, in sterile labs filled with very serious people who might, quite literally, be cheating death.

But Dr. Ramakrishnan raises an uncomfortable question, should we? Suppose a pill could extend your healthy years by a decade. You would almost certainly take it, and so would everyone else. What then? A society where people stop ageing might also stop evolving. Power and privilege would calcify; the young, starved of opportunity, might live in perpetual shadow. Progress thrives on generational renewal, on the friction between youth and experience. Without death, would life itself lose momentum? Even Dr. Ramakrishnan, aware of this paradox, decided to close his own celebrated lab to make space for younger scientists.

And that brings me to the thought that lingers after the science has quieted down. Perhaps it is precisely because we die that our lives hold meaning. The finite nature of existence gives urgency to our days and sharpness to our choices. If immortality were possible, we might postpone everything worth doing, because there would always be time later. The ticking clock, irritating though it may be, is what makes the music of life worth listening to.

So yes, perhaps we are growing old. But maybe growing old is not a failure to stay young it’s the privilege of having lived at all. And if the tea helps, even my fitness conscious colleague deserves his cup.

Freedom, do what I WANT Vs. I MUST

2025-07-14T10:54:00.000+05:30

Recently, while binge-watching Squid Game, something strange happened. No, not just the shock of people literally dying over red light-green light. Something more unsettling. A question, quiet but sharp, started whispering in my mind:

Are my choices really mine?

I mean; really. Are we choosing, or just reacting to circumstances cleverly dressed up as options?

Because in Squid Game, every player "chooses" to be there. There’s no handcuffs, no force. Just a polite offer: play the game, win a fortune, escape your miserable life. Sounds fair... until you realise they were picked because their lives were already rigged against them. Desperate people with no good options makes the easiest targets for a system pretending to give them freedom.

So when you see them pressing those creepy little buttons; vote to quit, vote to stay; you realise this isn’t choice. It’s theatre. A performance of free will inside a structure that’s already made most of the decisions for them.

And the worst part? It feels familiar.

Maybe not the life-or-death bit, but that gut sense of “I had no real choice,” masked by a surface-level illusion that you did. That job you couldn’t turn down, that apology you had to make, that silence you kept at the wrong time... Were those decisions truly free? Or just forced by the script life handed you?

This is where the story gets bigger. Because Squid Game isn’t the first to ask these questions; it’s just added neon lighting, blood, and a killer soundtrack.

Thousands of years ago, these same questions plagued people who wore robes instead of tracksuits.

In the Ramayana, Prince Rama is told; out of nowhere; that he must give up his throne and go live in the forest for fourteen years. No argument. No tantrum. Just quiet acceptance.

You might think, “Ah, so he had no choice.”

But here’s the twist; he did. He could’ve resisted. He was the rightful heir. He could’ve fought, rallied support, stormed the palace. But he didn’t. He chose the harder path because he believed in a deeper idea: dharma; a kind of sacred responsibility. In Rama’s world, freedom wasn’t about doing whatever you want; it was about doing what’s right, even when it hurts.

Then there’s Sita. No one asked her to follow Rama into exile. But she did. Her choice. Why? Love? Loyalty? Honour? All of them, maybe. Again, we see freedom not as rebellion, but as alignment; a kind of fierce clarity about what matters more than comfort.

But if the Ramayana gives us clean lines and moral clarity, the Mahabharata walks us straight into a messy room and locks the door.

In this epic, every choice feels like a trap. Yudhishthira bets away his kingdom in a dice game because duty tells him to honour the invitation. Arjuna, on the battlefield, refuses to fight because his enemies are his own family. And just when he’s paralysed with moral confusion, Krishna drops a bomb of divine advice:

“Do your duty. But don’t obsess over the result.”

That’s karma yoga; the idea that we are responsible for our actions, but not their outcomes. That real freedom is choosing wisely, even when the world is chaotic. Even when consequences are out of your hands. It’s not a feel-good slogan; it’s a gritty, grown-up way to live.

Fast-forward to The Matrix. Neo is living a quiet life, feeling something’s off. He’s making choices, sure; his job, his apartment, his computer. But underneath it all, something’s not real. And when he finally wakes up, he sees the truth: the world is a simulation, and his freedom has been, well, a lie.

Or has it?

Because once Neo sees the system for what it is, he starts bending it. Twisting it. Rewriting it. His freedom doesn’t come from escaping the Matrix; it comes from understanding how it works. Seeing the rules lets him transcend them.

And isn’t that what Krishna was saying all along? Wake up. Understand the forces shaping your world; be they karma, capitalism, or code. Then act, not blindly, but consciously.

So where does that leave us?

In a world full of deadlines, bank loans, family expectations, and relentless notifications, it’s easy to feel like one of the players; pushed, prodded, cornered. We vote yes or no, move left or right, and call it a choice. But often, the real decisions were already made upstream; in our upbringing, our economy, our past selves.

Still, we’re not doomed to helplessness. If Rama teaches us anything, it’s that honour isn’t accidental. If Arjuna teaches us anything, it’s that clarity requires struggle. And if Neo shows us anything, it’s that once you see the system, you can start to rewire it; even if just a little.

So maybe we’re not free in the way we wish we were. But we’re not powerless either.

We can ask better questions.
We can pause before acting.
We can choose; not always what happens, but how we respond.

And that’s where freedom starts. Not in controlling everything, but in becoming conscious within it.

So next time you make a choice, ask yourself: Is this my decision; or someone else’s programming? Is this duty, or default?

And then; whatever answer you find; act like it matters. Because it does.

Not because you’re free of the script…
But because, for a brief moment,
you’re aware you’re reading it.

And that awareness?
That’s where the story changes.

India’s War on/with Numbers

2025-06-22T22:27:00.000+05:30

Listen In English · Listen in English

Listen in Hindi · Listen in Hindi

What do you call a democracy that’s afraid of numbers?

A performance.

India, the world’s largest democracy, has quietly stopped counting. Not people. Not jobs. Not food. Not death. Not hunger. Certainly not truth. Since 2014, this country armed with satellites, biometric surveillance, and digital dreams has managed to misplace its most basic tool of governance: statistics.

A Government of Headlines, Not Data

You may have noticed. Every time the numbers start to get ugly unemployment rises, consumption drops, or fewer children are vaccinated those numbers vanish. Like magic. And if they don’t vanish, they arrive so late they miss the news cycle entirely.

Take the 2021 Census. It’s now 2025. Still missing. We’re running a welfare state based on population data from when TikTok didn’t exist, and Modi was just entering his first term.

Unemployment reached a 45-year high in 2017-18. That’s not a rumour, it was confirmed in the PLFS. But that report was buried until after the 2019 elections. Why? Officially, “data processing.” Realistically, data suppression.

Then there’s the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey: 2017-18. It found that rural consumption had dropped for the first time in over four decades. Guess what? That report was “withdrawn” because it had “quality issues.” Translation: it didn’t tell the right story.

Institutional Independence: Deleted Like an Old Tweet

Two members of the National Statistical Commission; P.C. Mohanan and J.V. Meenakshi, resigned in protest. Not over ideology, but irrelevance. They were ignored, sidelined, treated like decorative houseplants in a ministry that no longer wanted oversight.

Then, as if to underline the point, the government merged the NSSO and CSO into the new National Statistical Office and placed it under the same secretary who answers to the executive. Independence? That’s now a metaphor. The old model was science. The new one is compliance.

And it shows.

GDP=Grossly Distorted Perceptions

In 2015, the government changed how we calculate GDP. Suddenly, India was growing faster. Too fast. Arvind Subramanian, then Chief Economic Adviser, said the growth figures were likely overstated by 2.5 percentage points.

Why? Because they were built on the MCA-21 database, a dubious list of registered companies, a third of which couldn’t even be verified. These are zombie firms. Ghost data. Phantom growth. But they served a purpose: narrative control.

When the past looks too good (higher growth under the UPA), we disown the data. When the present looks bad (rising joblessness), we delay the release. When the future looks uncertain, we replace statistics with slogans.

Bureaucracy as a Theatre of Obedience

What does one do in a system where bureaucrats are promoted for loyalty rather than competence? You get silence, evasion, and the slow death of accountability. Ministries stop publishing annual reports. Portals vanish or display ancient data. PDFs replace spreadsheets. Metadata disappears. Archiving becomes impossible.

India’s statistical system used to be among the best in the Global South. Now it resembles a set piece in a dystopian drama: high-tech visuals, no usable content.

Who Pays?

Everyone.

Researchers. Journalists. Economists. Policy makers. Farmers. Teachers. Workers. Women. Children. Anyone who relies on the truth to make decisions, demand rights, or even understand where this country is headed.

With no Census, food security allocations are off by tens of millions. Without current data, health infrastructure collapses under pandemics we can’t predict. Labour policy ignores the gig economy because the numbers don’t exist. Women farmers remain invisible, because land data doesn’t ask their names.

A Strategy of Ignorance

This isn’t incompetence. It’s intent.

When the PMO monitors global indices and lobbies to tweak methodology so India looks better on paper, that’s not reform. It’s propaganda.

When a survey shows child immunisation collapsing during COVID, and that data quietly disappears from the public portal, it’s not an accident. It’s censorship.

When journalists and civil society researchers use the Wayback Machine to find old reports, and the Wayback Machine itself gets blocked, we’re not in a democracy anymore. We’re in a digital autocracy just with better hashtags.

What Can Be Done?

Let’s not pretend this is just a data story. It’s a democracy story. Because without data, democracy is ornamental. Accountability needs evidence. Governance needs numbers. Policy needs truth. And truth doesn’t survive in silence.

So what must change?

Statutory independence for the NSC.
Restoration of autonomy to statistical bodies.
Release of all anonymised datasets in machine-readable formats.
Real transparency in methodology.
Public accountability for data delays.
A return to ethics in public statistics.

India doesn’t lack capacity. It lacks the courage to be honest.

One Last Question

If a government stops counting poverty, does that mean poverty stops existing?

No. It just means we stop seeing it.

And perhaps that’s the point.

Why I Love Hansa Parekh...

2025-06-15T20:48:00.007+05:30

When I became a father, people asked me the usual question: “So, what will you name her?” I said, quite seriously, “Hansa Parekh.” There was a moment of stunned silence, then everyone burst out laughing. Apparently, this was either too lame or too meta for them.

But for me, Hansa wasn’t just a sitcom character from Khichdi, she was an emotional landmark. I adored her since school days. She represented a kind of cheerfully oblivious optimism that no syllabus or sociological theory could ever teach. I often wondered: does anyone actually behave like this in real life? So detached from logic, yet so self-assured?

Years later, when I stood in front of a classroom full of Gen Z students, I had my answer. They were all... a bit like Hansa. Confidently wrong, beautifully incoherent, and mesmerising in their ability to treat life like an abstract painting that nobody asked to interpret.

Why do they take blurry selfies and call it “aesthetic”? Why are half their Instagram stories just ceilings and soft light? Why do they write “I’m fine” and follow it with a clown emoji? Why do they say “slay” when they’re clearly losing?

As a professor (and a trained sociologist, no less), I was supposed to have answers. But the more I studied them, the more I realised: they’re not broken. They’re fluent in a dialect of humour that the rest of us just haven’t evolved to speak. It’s not nonsense; it’s absurdism. And it’s not new. We just didn’t notice it when Praful was butchering English, and Hansa was confidently nodding along.

Let me explain.

Comedy is a cultural mirror. If you look carefully enough, it tells you everything about a generation’s anxieties, illusions, coping mechanisms, and existential dead-ends.

Millennials; my people; grew up watching Khichdi and Sarabhai vs Sarabhai. These shows were absurd, yes, but they obeyed certain rules. Hansa may not know the meaning of “stationary” (or was it “stationery”?), but the joke made sense. Praful’s logic was idiotic, but it followed a rhythm. And Sarabhai vs Sarabhai? That was satire in high heels. Maya’s aristocratic disdain (“It’s catastrophically middle-class!”) or Rosesh’s poetry (arguably a form of emotional terrorism) was all part of a structure. Absurdity, yes, but controlled absurdity. There was a plot. There was a punchline. There was closure.

Now fast forward to Gen Z. Their idea of humour looks like a mental breakdown set to lo-fi music. They’ll post a grainy photo of a sock on fire with the caption “mood.” They'll make memes that require five layers of cultural knowledge to understand. Their favourite jokes have no punchlines, and the ones that do? They’re bad on purpose. The joke is that there is no joke.

Living in the Absurd: Camus, TikTok, and the Grimace Shake

This isn’t laziness or confusion. It’s philosophy. Albert Camus, that old French grump, once said that life is absurd and the only way to respond is to embrace the absurdity. Gen Z didn’t just read Camus ; they turned him into a meme template. They are Camus with Wi-Fi.

Think of the “Grimace Shake” trend. It starts with someone drinking a fast-food milkshake... and ends in total chaos. Bodies on the floor. Strange music. No explanation. That’s not just humour; that’s existential performance art.

A recent study even confirms this ; over 99% of Gen Z students find absurd memes funnier than conventional jokes. Not just entertaining ; funnier. Because conventional jokes rely on structure, and Gen Z doesn’t trust structure. They’ve grown up watching institutions fail, algorithms decide their future, and news turn into punchlines. For them, chaos is comforting. Meaninglessness feels familiar.

From Rosesh’s Poetry to Skibidi Toilet: The Journey from Punchline to Pandemonium

If Sarabhai vs Sarabhai aired today, Rosesh Sarabhai wouldn’t just be a punchline ; he’d be a TikTok legend. His poetry, which sounded like a dictionary melting in a microwave, would be the perfect audio track for Gen Z content. In fact, “Momma ka purse, jaise hospital ki pyaari koi nurse,” would probably trend with cat videos, glitch effects, and dancing anime characters pasted in the background. No context. Maximum impact.

This is the thing about Gen Z comedy: it doesn’t care for context. Or resolution. Or logic. It thrives on anti-humour; jokes that refuse to be jokes. It’s chaos, wrapped in irony, wrapped in pastel filters and VHS overlays.

Millennials used absurdism to shake up the norm. Gen Z uses absurdism because they don’t believe norms exist anymore.

Ba Bahoo Aur Baby: The Emotional Buffer We Didn’t Know We Needed

Now, let’s talk about the cousin everyone forgets at the family gathering; Baa Bahoo Aur Baby. It didn’t go full Khichdi-crazy, nor did it have Sarabhai’s bourgeois critique. Instead, it offered us something unexpected: feelings. Actual, sincere, ghar-ka-khaana feelings.

It had absurd moments, yes, but they were seasoned with emotion. Think of it as dal with a little extra hing, not a pizza topped with jalebi. It walked the fine line between generational conflict and dramatic comedy, giving us laughs with tears; not the “I-laughed-so-hard-I-cried” kind, but the “Oh-no-the-burnt-milk-scene-reminds-me-of-my-mum” kind.

For Millennials, it provided a mirror to their evolving roles within the family. For Gen Z, if they happen to watch it, it’s vintage content. Something so grounded, it feels surreal. Which is, ironically, very on-brand for their humour.

How to Speak Gen Z: A Brief Glossary for the Chronically Confused

Let’s pause for a moment and talk language. Millennials gave the world words like “adulting” and “hangry.” Gen Z gave us “rizz,” “skibidi,” “gyatt,” and phrases like “it’s giving delulu realness.” Most of these aren’t even real words. And that’s the point.

These are not meant to mean something. They’re meant to feel something. Think of them as linguistic jazz; nonsense that somehow carries the weight of an emotion you can’t describe.

Their memes work the same way. Blink and you’ll miss it. A blurry photo of a frog, overlaid with text that reads, “when the vibes are gone and so am I.” Or a video that starts as a cooking tutorial and ends with the person being chased by a rubber chicken in slow motion. This is not just comedy; it’s semiotic protest.

You ask them, “What does this even mean?” They look you in the eye and say, “Exactly.”

Absurdity as Armour: Laughing Through the Apocalypse

But let’s not get too smug about it. The truth is, Gen Z has every reason to laugh at nothing. When you grow up with school shootings, climate emergencies, political meltdowns, and social media telling you to monetise your trauma; what else do you do?

You take the world’s nonsense and give it back. But with filters. And frog emojis.

Absurdity isn’t just a style; it’s survival. If Khichdi made fun of dysfunction, Gen Z lives in dysfunction and turns it into art. A meme about the world ending isn’t a joke. It’s a coping mechanism. Like Camus said (and I paraphrase), “We must imagine Gen Z laughing at a dancing hot dog while the world burns.”

The Comedy of Incoherence, the Coherence of Comedy

When I named my daughter Hansa Parekh (well, almost), I was paying tribute not just to a character but to a worldview; one where absurdity didn’t need permission to exist. Where people could be delightfully illogical and still be loved. Where not knowing the difference between stationary and stationery didn’t disqualify you from joy.

Today, Gen Z has taken that torch and thrown it into a kaleidoscope. Their comedy doesn’t try to fix the world. It just tries to survive it. They don’t search for meaning in humour ; they find freedom in its absence.

So the next time you see a meme that makes no sense, or a student who insists on presenting a blurry GIF as a thesis argument, don’t sigh. Just remember: they’re not confused.

They’re fluent in a dialect of absurdism the rest of us are just beginning to hear.

And who knows? Maybe one day my daughter will grow up to take a blurry selfie, caption it “Hansa-core,” and I’ll finally understand what Gen Z really meant.

I want to write, but I don't have readers...

2025-06-05T11:52:00.000+05:30

“I want to write, but I don't have readers.” With this quiet lament, Nagendra Vijay; editor of Safar, announced the end of a magazine that, for over four decades, had faithfully delivered science in Gujarati to curious minds across India. For me, someone who love to finish reading entire issue of safari as soon as it arrives; Its closure is not merely a matter of lost pages but a signal of a much deeper cultural crisis: the erosion of scientific temperament in contemporary India. Safari kept me ahead from my time, I knew about Brahmos in 1997, I knew about Gazi Attack, Iraq evacuations, RAW missions, Massod Missions, Gaza Conflicts, Afghan war etc. before films/series were made on them through safari, Safari covered, history, polity and sociological topics in most engaging and intriguing ways. This magazine played vital role in groming my personality, my career and my thinking pattern. Now I think, what happened to a country that once positioned science at the heart of its national identity? Let us walk through the story; one that touches institutions, ideologies, and imaginations.

The Quiet Genius of Safari

Digital Attention Erosion: Younger audiences are increasingly raised in environments shaped by short-form video and dopamine-driven news cycles. Depth is replaced by distraction. Safari, with its demand for sustained attention and reflection, simply did not fit the algorithm.
Educational Contraction: The removal of topics like Darwin’s evolution and the periodic table from NCERT textbooks signals a dangerous trend; the institutionalisation of anti-rationalism. This not only makes Safari's content seem 'extra' rather than essential, but subtly devalues the entire premise of scientific thinking.
State-Backed Pseudoscience: Government support for astrology, 'cow science', and mythologised history under the guise of Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS) sends a message: speculation is acceptable if it flatters national pride. In this environment, fact-based publications are sidelined, if not subtly sabotaged.
Funding Gaps and Ethical Stances: Unlike populist magazines peddling miracle cures or nationalist mythology, Safari refused to compromise on integrity. It rejected questionable advertisements. But editorial purity comes at a price; and without state support or philanthropic patronage, it became unsustainable.

So where do we go from here?

The Idea That Must Not Die

Few publications have managed what Safari did. It decoded black holes and ballistic missiles with the same clarity it used to explain the origins of zero. It was regional, ethical, and refreshingly unpretentious; avoiding advertising that flouted scientific sensibilities. In many homes, it wasn’t just a magazine but a monthly ritual of wonder.

First launched in 1980, Safari rose not on institutional support but sheer perseverance. Its founder, Nagendra Vijay, battled illness, market forces, and a shrinking attention economy to keep it afloat. Despite being written in Gujarati, it discussed the cosmos with the ambition of Scientific American. Its strength lay in respecting the reader’s intelligence while still speaking in their tongue.

That such a magazine had to shut shop is not just a business failure; it is an epistemological loss. Safari didn’t just explain science; it nurtured a way of thinking. What does its end tell us?

India’s post-independence leaders saw scientific thinking not as an academic pursuit but as a civic virtue. In The Discovery of India, Nehru wrote of “a temper of the free man,” one that questioned, examined, and doubted; precisely the attributes that democracy needs to thrive.

This ideal became enshrined in Article 51A(h) of the Constitution: the duty of every citizen “to develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform.” Yet, scientific temperament isn’t about laboratories or equations. It is about habits of mind: scepticism over dogma, evidence over ideology, and curiosity over fatalism.

In a society as complex as India, with layers of tradition, caste, and religion, this mindset is essential for progress. The problem is, it is disappearing; quietly, steadily, and now, visibly.

While print’s decline is often cited as a reason for Safari’s demise, it is only part of the story. Several deeper currents converge here:

Together, these forces did not merely shrink Safari's audience; they dismantled the ecosystem it needed to survive.

It would be mistaken to view the decline of scientific temperament as incidental. What we are witnessing is a deliberate reengineering of public discourse. When political leaders claim that genetic engineering existed during the Mahabharata, or that ancient Indians invented aircraft, they do more than rewrite history; they erode the distinction between fact and fiction.

This is not without consequence. Vaccine hesitancy, climate change denial, and anti-scientific health practices have real-world impacts. As the 2018 vulture extinction case showed, ignorance of ecological science cost India over $69 billion annually through cascading public health failures.

Moreover, when pseudoscience is institutionalised through education reforms and celebrated in mainstream narratives, it becomes more than misinformation; it becomes orthodoxy. This reverses decades of effort spent building a rational, secular, scientifically literate public.

With Safari gone, a gaping hole emerges in regional science communication. English-language science journals may persist, but their reach is limited. Government outlets like Science Reporter do not have Safari’s accessibility or emotional connect. Platforms like Vigyan Prasar, once tasked with science popularisation, have been wound up or underfunded.

The void will not be filled by one institution, but many. Scientists must become public intellectuals. Teachers must shift from rote to inquiry. Local YouTube educators, school science clubs, and community radio must all become torchbearers. Science communication must move from institutional silos to digital, decentralised, vernacular spheres.

India doesn’t lack talent. It lacks translation; of knowledge into curiosity, and curiosity into culture.

Safari is gone, but the question it posed; can science speak in the people’s language and still be heard? is now ours to answer. The decline of scientific temperament in India is not inevitable. But reversing it will require recognising that Safari’s death is not isolated; it is systemic, symptomatic, and serious.

If India is to reclaim its place not just as an IT hub or nuclear power but as a society that values reason, then it must rebuild what it is losing: its ability to think, doubt, and learn freely.

Scientific temperament, once declared a constitutional duty, is now a cultural emergency. And unless we act, we may find that we are not just losing magazines; we are losing minds.

To read science in one’s mother tongue is to reclaim dignity. To question myths is to build democracy. To write for those who no longer read is to keep faith with the future.

Nagendra Vijay did all three. The least we can do is ensure his pen was not the last.

दास्तान - ऐ - Dal Dhokali

2025-05-30T22:47:00.002+05:30

While watching interesting culinary history episode of Raja, Rasoi aur Kahaniyan, I shared my observations claiming richness in water, agriculture and migration adds to richness in cuisines of Punjab and Gujarat. As usual, my father clichèd about Gujarati cuisine by naming Dal Dhokli, as the rich cuisine of Gujarat 😉. Though the most neglected recipe, Dal Dhokli holds valuable significance to me as a student of society.

When Fields Were Recipes (c. 2000 BCE – 1000 BCE)

Let’s go back; way back; to Chalcolithic Gujarat. At Lothal and Rangpur, archaeobotanist find traces of pigeon pea, black gram, wheat, barley, and millet. These weren’t just crops; they were culinary philosophy. The land dictated the menu: protein-rich pulses + carb-dense grains = complete, resilient diet.

This ecological pairing seeded what would later become Dal Dhokli. No, it didn’t arrive in a clay pot as dumplings in daal; but the logic was there. The pulse-grain matrix. The blend of sustenance and satiety.

Rituals, Rules, and Rotis (c. 200 BCE – 1000 CE)

As India entered the age of classical literature and ritual stratification, food moved from soil to scripture.

In Ayurveda, Dharmashastras, and early Pakashastra texts, food was divided by guna: satvik, rajasic, tamasic. Lentils were fine. Wheat, certainly. But fermentation, onion, garlic? Polluting. These were not culinary debates; they were social regulations cloaked in digestion.

You won’t find Dal Dhokli named here, but you will find its bones: spiced lentil broths, kneaded dough discs, and their role in fasting-day diets. Already, food is doing caste’s work; dictating who can cook what, for whom, and with which ingredients.

A Siege, A Queen, A Roti (c. 12th Century Folklore)

Let’s take a detour into legend, because not all culinary history is carved in copperplate.

During the siege of Prithviraj Chauhan’s kingdom, food supplies ran low. The story goes that a royal cook, desperate to feed a pregnant queen, tore up stale rotis and simmered them in a pot of spiced dal. Practical. Resourceful. Possibly the first proto-Dal Dhokli.

Can we date this dish to that very moment? Probably not. But the folklore captures something real: food born of constraint, not convenience. Ingenuity, not indulgence.

Fasting, Scarcity, and the Feminised Kitchen (c. 1300 – 1700 CE)

As we move into the early modern period, the story shifts to unsung kitchens across Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Maharashtra.

Women, often bound by ritual purity and lacking fresh produce (especially in arid zones or on fasting days), began repurposing leftover daal. Add hand-pressed dough discs. Boil. Temper with mustard seeds, asafoetida, curry leaves. A one-pot wonder. And more importantly: a survival tactic.

This wasn’t “comfort food.” It was labour-saving food, born in the absence of refrigeration, disposable income, or excess time. The fact that it tastes good? A bonus.

Trade Routes and Regional Remixing (Early Modern)

Food moves where people do. Along the Deccan trade routes, and with Marwari and Maratha migrations, the idea of daal with dumplings took root across the western subcontinent.

Rajasthan gave us Dal Baati: roasted wheat balls in daal.

Maharashtra offered Varan Phal and Chakolya: thinner daal with flat dumplings.

Gujarat turned toor dal and jaggery into a sweet-sour-tangy broth of delight.

These weren’t minor variations; they were culinary adaptations to water availability, spice access, dietary codes, and social structure. The dish didn’t travel intact; it mutated. And survived.

Colonial Codification and the Caste Kitchen (1800s – 1947)

Then there came the British. And with them, the cookbook.

During this period, upper-caste Hindu women; especially in western India; were targeted by new “domestic science” manuals. Think Pak Shastra, Saraswati magazine, and later English-language recipe books.

Dal Dhokli made its way into these texts, but not as a leftover hack. It was recast as a “satvik” meal; pure, vegetarian, onion-and-garlic-free. It aligned with Gandhian dietary politics, reinforcing ideals of restraint, frugality, and spiritual hygiene.

What was oral, flexible, and community-based became written, prescriptive, and exclusionary. Recipes once shared between grandmothers were now handed down via caste-coded print.

And yes, let's be clear: these manuals were not neutral. They reproduced a casteed vision of domestic order, where only certain women (upper-caste, literate, Hindu) were deemed fit to cook "correctly."

Diaspora and the Memory of Home (1950s – 1990s)

Post-Independence, Gujaratis began migrating to East Africa, the UK, Canada, the US. And wherever they went, Dal Dhokli followed; quietly, faithfully.

But it changed:

Toor dal became canned lentils.

Dhokli was made in bulk and frozen.

The tadka? Adjusted to whatever spices could be found in Nairobi or New Jersey.

And still, it remained a taste of home. A dish that didn’t just fill the stomach, but connected generations. It was less about technique, more about memory.

Instagram’s Darling, Grandma’s Legacy (2000s – Present)

Now we live in the age of culinary spectacle.

Dal Dhokli is being rebranded as “Gujarati ramen” 😉 Chefs deconstruct it into daal foam with dhokli crisps. Some add coconut milk. Others quinoa. The diaspora’s kids make reels with jazzed-up versions.

Is it erasure? Sometimes.

Is it an adaptation? Always.

The truth is, Dal Dhokli survives by shapeshifting. From ancient agrarian pragmatism to siege food, from caste-coded cookbooks to global comfort meal ; it has never been just one thing.

It’s a story of how Indian kitchens negotiate scarcity, purity, gender, mobility, and now, reinvention.

And That’s Why Dal Dhokli Matters

Let’s recap.

Dal Dhokli is:

A pulses-and-grain solution from semi-arid ecology

A ritually permissible workaround in caste-kitchens

A siege-time improvisation in folklore

A gendered innovation in labour-constrained households

A Marwari-Maratha-Gujarati hybrid on trade routes

A moralised satvik meal under colonial domesticity

A diasporic memory, adjusted to place and time

A heritage dish, fighting its way through culinary gimmicks

So when my father said, “Dal Dhokli is the richest Gujarati dish,” maybe he was right. But not because of the jaggery. Or the ghee. Or the peanuts.

Because it carries civilisational residue in every spoonful.

But for now, next time you’re served Dal Dhokli, don’t just eat it. Read it.

Non Brahminical Gods

2025-05-25T23:38:00.000+05:30

Last time when I wrote a blog post on Non- Brahmanical Goddesses, my friends asked questions about Non-Brahmanical gods. When I started looking around, I figured out many local Pir, Veer, Dev, Maharaj… these Deities are worshipped by people on the margins. their rituals, legends, and lores are really intriguing…

You've probably encountered a shrine that felt a little too real. Not the polished marble kind with donation counters and security guards, but a heap of stones under a neem tree, a red flag fluttering nearby, maybe a clay horse or a garlanded sword. You might pause and think: is this also a god?

The answer is yes; but not the kind who sits quietly in a textbook. These are the folk deities of India: untempled, uncanonised, and utterly indispensable. They don’t descend from Sanskrit verses. They emerge from oral memory, bone-deep loyalty, and local justice. They live where myth meets mud.

Headless Heroes and Snakebite Promises

Let’s begin with Bhathiji Maharaj; or as some traditions more regionally render him, Bhati Ji, linked to the Bhati Rajput clan of Gujarat. He’s revered as a cattle-protecting warrior who, as legend holds, was beheaded in battle but continued to fight, holding his severed head under one arm. His shrines are modest: red flags, stones, maybe a trident. The offerings? Country liquor, often poured straight into the earth.

Bhathiji isn’t just a protector; he’s a statement. His death isn’t just martyrdom; it’s moral defiance embodied. He refused to let wrong win, even without a head. That’s not a metaphor. That’s folk metaphysics.

A few hundred miles across the landscape, in the semi-arid soils of Rajasthan, another horse-riding deity takes centre stage: Teja Ji. Known as a guardian of snakes and cattle alike, his story pivots around an almost poetic absurdity. Bitten fatally by a snake, he pleads with the creature to wait until he rescues a Brahmin’s cattle. Promise fulfilled, he returns to complete the bite. The snake obliges. He dies. The villagers, understandably, start worshipping him.

Versions differ; some say the incident happened on his wedding day; but the heart of the story never changes: Teja Ji dies not for love or land, but for his word. That’s a different kind of heroism. Not romantic, but accountable.

Gods Without Shame

Folk religion doesn’t always wear solemnity like a uniform. Sometimes, it cackles. Take Gogaji, or Goga Veer, another faith worthy figure. Unlike his divine neighbours, Gogaji isn’t just honoured for martial glory but for snake-healing powers. He rides a blue horse, carries a nag-phani (serpent standard), and is invoked during Nag Panchami. He too died young and loyal; killed while protecting the vulnerable.

There are others in this register of irreverent sacredness. In some parts of Gujarat & Rajasthan, fertility deities like Eloji (less widely documented, but real in local traditions) are celebrated not with incense but with innuendo. Shrines are marked with exaggerated phallic idols. Devotees; men and women; laugh, sing obscenities, and celebrate sexuality. This is not spiritual licentiousness; it’s ritual catharsis. A moment where divine power is invited to be as messy, vital, and joyous as human life.

No folk pantheon would be complete without Pabu Ji, the Rathore Rajput demi-god of Rajasthan, whose life reads like a miniature epic. Born miraculously, raised with resolve, he rode into death defending a Charan woman's honour; abandoning his own wedding to keep a promise. Forget cold feet; this man rode into battle instead.

His story is sung through the phad tradition: hand-painted scrolls that double as theatres. By day, they rest. By night, they come alive, as wandering bards unroll the scroll and sing his story by lamplight. Pabu Ji lives not in temples but in narrative motion; whenever his story is told, he returns.

An Islamic Goddess

I found Bonbibi, the forest’s own goddess of mercy and jurisdiction. Born to a Muslim fakir, she is worshipped by both Hindus and Muslims who depend on the forest’s unforgiving generosity. Before anyone dares to collect honey or fish in the Sundarbans, they invoke Bonbibi, protector against Dokkhin Rai, the tiger-demon who embodies greed and danger.

Her story comes from the Bonbibi Johuranama, a blend of Islamic piety and Bengali folklore. It isn’t theology. It’s survival strategy rendered it sacred. In Bonbibi, the forest itself becomes a divine courtroom.

Dogs, Toddy, and Divine Democracy

In Kerala, a god travels with dogs, drinks toddy, eats roast meat, and accepts everyone; no matter their caste, past, or peculiarities. Meet Muthappan, worshipped through Theyyam, a ritual theatre where performers become gods for a night.

Muthappan was a divine child cast out by orthodox Brahmins and adopted by a tribal family. His rituals include masked dance, public participation, and; crucially; non-Sanskritic offerings. The divine here doesn’t wear a crown; it wears you. The boundary between devotee and deity is blurred, inverted, and joyfully crossed.

If Muthappan embodies compassion, Karuppasamy embodies fearsome justice. In Tamil Nadu, he stands at the edge of villages, flanked by horses, weapons, and sacred fury. You don’t just worship Karuppasamy; you swear before him. Oaths taken at his shrine are binding. Lie, and misfortune follows.

Paired with Ayyanar, another guardian deity, these figures protect village boundaries not just from spirits but from injustice, betrayal, and unseen harm. They are deities of the threshold; liminal in geography, absolute in judgement.

The Martyrdom of Trees and the Logic of Soil

Not all divine stories involve weaponry. Some involve silence; and trees. In 1730, a royal party arrived in the village of Khejarli, Rajasthan, to cut down Khejri trees for building material. They were stopped; not by soldiers, but by the Bishnoi community, followers of Guru Jambheshwar, a 15th-century mystic who preached non-violence and environmental stewardship.

Led by Amrita Devi, 363 Bishnois hugged the trees and were axed to death; literally. The massacre would inspire future eco-movements, but in the Bishnoi memory, it’s not activism. It’s devotion lived to the end.

The Divine, Unbuttoned

So what ties this scattered pantheon together? It isn’t doctrine. It’s not even belief in the divine per se. It’s something older, messier, and more democratic. It’s the idea that the sacred doesn’t float above life; it soaks into it. These gods live where rules bend, where caste breaks, where promises matter more than power, and where humour has holy status.

You won’t find most of them in religious studies syllabi. But they remain indispensable to communities who rely not on absolutes, but on a moral economy rooted in reciprocity, resistance, and remembrance.

Because sometimes, a god with a broken sword, a bitten arm, or a bottle of toddy is the only kind worth believing in.

Cartoon, Culture and Conflict

2025-05-18T21:38:00.001+05:30

It all began, as many profound sociological inquiries do, with a toddler, a cartoon, and an unintended insult. I overheard an Indian mother scolding her three-year-old son for calling his father "Papa Pig." The horror in her voice was matched only by the child's innocent grin. Now, calling someone a pig in India isn’t just cheeky, it’s bordering on blasphemous. Yet here was a child, clearly influenced by Peppa Pig, nonchalantly dropping farm-animal epithets. Intrigued, and slightly amused, I began to dig deeper. After all, cartoons aren’t just moving pictures. They’re miniature empires of soft power.

Me, who grew up with Mowgli’s jungle wisdom, Uncle Scrooge’s capitalist acumen, Dexter’s lab-coat logic, and the Powerpuff Girls’ sugar-spice-chemical-X formula for justice, I hold a certain reverence for cartoons. But today, as a father and a sociologist, I find myself questioning: what are these cartoons really teaching our children? And who, exactly, is doing the teaching?

Cartoons as Cultural Trojan Horses

Cartoons operate as cultural Trojan horses, colourful, giggly, and deceptively innocent. But behind the slapstick lies ideology, value systems, language norms, and subtle cues about how the world works (or should). Joseph Nye called it "soft power": influencing others through attraction rather than coercion. Cartoons, in their own peculiar way, are the velvet glove over cultural influence’s iron fist.

Foreign cartoons, like Russia’s Masha and the Bear, Britain’s Peppa Pig, Japan’s Shin Chan, and America’s DuckTales, have become ubiquitous in Indian households. They arrive in high-definition, dubbed in Hindi or Tamil, with merchandising tentacles reaching from lunchboxes to bedsheets. Children adore them. Parents tolerate them. Sociologists study them.

From Puppetry to Peppa

Let’s roll the historical reel. Before independence, Indian storytelling was analogue and organic, think tholu bommalata, shadow puppets dancing on oil-lamp-lit walls. Dadasaheb Phalke tried his hand at animation in 1912 with The Growth of a Pea Plant. Noble. Niche. Negligible impact.

Fast forward to 1967. Disney’s Jungle Book, a British-American interpretation of Rudyard Kipling’s colonial nostalgia, aired on Doordarshan, India’s then-only channel. It was our first taste of foreign animation’s flavour. By the 1980s, Doordarshan captured 90% of TV viewership. Cultural infiltration was underway.

There came Masa the Bear from the USSR in the 1980s, carrying collectivist values in cute bear-shaped bundles. Then came the American tsunami: Tom and Jerry, DuckTales, and eventually, Cartoon Network (1995). By 2000, it had 70% of the kids’ TV market in India.

Japan entered the fray with Doraemon and Shin Chan, creating bilingual Indian children who spoke fluent Hindi and Japanese catchphrases. Doraemon has had 29 films released in India by 2022. A 2010 Turner International survey reported 80% of Indian kids aged 6–14 recognised Doraemon. Let that sink in.

Behavioural Borrowing: Monkey See, Monkey Mimic

Cartoons don’t just entertain; they rewire. A 2016 ASSOCHAM study found 40% of Indian parents noticed behavioural changes in their children after cartoon consumption. The British Council reported in 2019 that 68% of teachers observed kids mimicking accents and phrases from shows like Peppa Pig. Baby sharks do more than dance, they shape speech patterns.

And it’s not always cute. Shin Chan was temporarily banned for encouraging impudent behaviour. Motu Patlu was criticised for cartoon violence. Yet Chhota Bheem found a way to merge indigenous narratives with superhero tropes, winning 15 million weekly viewers by 2015 and raking in ₹500 crore in merchandise by 2020.

Streaming Tsunamis and the Great Local Lull

Now, we face a flood. Netflix Kids grew by 200% in Indian viewership from 2020 to 2022. YouTube Kids is the new babysitter. 70% of Indian children consume global cartoons daily (Ormax Media, 2023). Meanwhile, the Indian animation industry, though valued at ₹23.2 billion, outsources 55% of its production.

Only 15% of content on Indian OTTs is local. In a 2021 CBSC survey, 62% of Indian kids said they preferred foreign cartoons for their “better storytelling.” Japanese anime fandom has grown 300% in India between 2015 and 2023. Who’s telling our children’s bedtime stories?

Peppa Meets Parvati

This isn’t xenophobia. Cultural exchange is healthy. I love Peppa Pig. But when “Papa Pig” becomes part of domestic parlance, and gods give way to superheroes, we must pause. It’s not about banning. It’s about balancing. It’s about ensuring that when our kids binge cartoons, they also binge context.

Remember Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama (1992)? It earned $12 million in Japan. Why haven’t we followed it up? Adult animation in India constitutes barely 2% of output. We’re leaving narrative terrain untapped.

What Now?

Cartoons are mirrors. Sometimes, funhouse mirrors. They reflect, distort, entertain, and educate. As a father, I want my child to laugh, imagine, and dream. As a sociologist, I want him to do so in a way that is culturally rooted yet globally literate.

Perhaps the time has come to raise not just the bar, but the bamboo, the kind used in tholu bommalata and weave stories that are uniquely ours, delightfully odd, and unapologetically Indian.

Let Peppa Pig visit the house. But don’t let her redecorate.

UnTh!nk!ng India...

2025-05-11T23:39:00.001+05:30

It began with an earnest LinkedIn post; a student sharing reflections on his coursework, unaware of the quiet storm he would stir. His sincerity was disarming, even moving. But more than that, it was revealing. It laid bare a systemic fissure so wide and deep that it forced a confrontation with one of India’s most uncomfortable truths: we are creating workers, not citizens.

This isn’t a new phenomenon. The colonial British administration designed Indian education to produce a subservient workforce—literate, skilled, but obedient. Their ideal subject was efficient but unquestioning, trained to execute rather than inquire. This colonial residue, far from dissipating in post-independence India, has been inherited and adapted—by corporations, by governments, and, most insidiously, by our educational institutions.

Today, India finds itself in a paradox. We aspire to be a Vishwaguru, a global teacher, a beacon of civilisational knowledge, while systematically undercutting the very foundations of that vision. A society aiming for wisdom cannot survive on skills alone. The essence of knowledge is not in producing code or filing reports but in questioning, reflecting, and imagining alternative futures.

Crony Capitalism and the Commodification of Education

The post-liberalisation economic structure, steered increasingly by crony capitalism, thrives on quantity over quality. It demands a vast army of skilled workers—not thinkers. This has nurtured a coaching-industrial complex worth billions, offering vocational shortcuts and technical competence but little else. According to a 2024 estimate, India’s coaching industry is valued at over ₹58,000 crores (~$7 billion), with JEE and NEET preparation alone accounting for a significant portion. Students, some as young as thirteen, are turned into aspirants rather than learners.

Corporates too, for the most part, are content. Critical thinking in an employee is often perceived as dissent; creativity as inefficiency. The dominant corporate logic rewards conformity, not curiosity. The rare exceptions, organisations that foster innovation and thought leadership—remain outliers. Meanwhile, universities are caught in a double bind: pressured to produce employable graduates for the market, yet morally bound to educate humane, thoughtful citizens.

The Ethical Mandate of Higher Education

There’s an oft-forgotten distinction between education and training. Universities were never meant to be job mills. At their best, they are crucibles of ideas, democratic dissent, and civilisational continuity. When we insist on treating engineering, management, or law as purely technical domains devoid of ethics, politics, or aesthetics, we amputate their social potential. And this impoverishment is not metaphorical—it is measurable.

In 2022, India recorded over 13,000 student suicides, a staggering 64% increase from a decade prior. Maharashtra (1,764), Tamil Nadu (1,416), and Madhya Pradesh (1,340) led the tragic count. The most vulnerable were aged 15–29. Over 2,000 deaths were explicitly linked to exam failure, often for competitive tests that define lives before they begin. Behind these numbers lies a system that celebrates grades but silences grief.

"are we equipping our youth for life, or merely for labour?"

Mental Health, Market Logic, and the Missing Humanities

There is a growing consensus in psychological research: emotional resilience, social-emotional learning, and mental health support are not optional add-ons. They are essential competencies—life skills—in an age defined by uncertainty, competition, and isolation. Yet India’s counselling infrastructure remains pitiful. Elite universities have a counsellor-to-student ratio of 1:10,000, and stigma silences the rest. Only 41% of youth report seeking help for mental health concerns.

The marginalisation of arts, music, sports, and philosophy—the traditional carriers of existential insight—is not coincidental. It is structural. These disciplines cultivate ambiguity, nuance, and questioning—the very traits that markets find inconvenient and governments suspicious. A nation that strips poetry from its syllabi soon forgets how to weep, how to protest, how to dream.

Our own epics provide a compelling counter-narrative. Krishna had two gurus—Sandipani for skills, Upamanyu for spiritual knowledge. Rama too had two—Vishwamitra, who taught him archery, and Vashistha, who taught him governance, ethics, and self-discipline. The lesson is timeless: skill may help you strike, but wisdom tells you when, where, and why.

A Vishwaguru is not an assembly-line trainer. It is a nurturer of wisdom. And wisdom, by its nature, is disruptive, it doubts, questions, and transforms.

The Cost of Ignoring liberal studies: Suicidal Trends Among Employees

This crisis is not confined to campuses. In 2021, over 13,000 private and government employees died by suicide in India. Hyderabad’s IT sector alone reported 50 suicides per week during that period, driven by job insecurity, pressure, and burnout. Across all age groups and genders, those in the workforce, especially daily wage earners and unemployed, accounted for a significant share of the 164,033 suicides that year.

Experts believe these figures are severely underreported, given the cultural stigma and procedural misclassifications. Some suggest the real toll could be four times higher.

What emerges is a grim tableau: millions entering workplaces with high skills but low coping mechanisms. They can code, present, and manage but falter when faced with failure, ambiguity, or trauma. The missing link? Life lessons taught by psychology, sociology, art, etc.

A Systemic Response or Cosmetic Reforms?

The Indian government has acknowledged the crisis, albeit cautiously. Initiatives like the National Suicide Prevention Strategy (2022) aim to provide mental health support in educational settings. However, enforcement and funding remain lacklustre. Anti-ragging policies exist on paper, but student suicides linked to harassment continue unabated. Meanwhile, life-skills education—now part of the NEP 2020—remains largely theoretical.

Here lies the fundamental contradiction: a system that preaches holistic education but incentivises employability metrics. Until this disjuncture is resolved, interventions will remain fragmented and insufficient.

What Needs to Be Done: And Why It Must Be Done Now

This crisis demands more than policy tweaks. It calls for a paradigmatic shift in how we define education. Three reforms are non-negotiable:

Reintegrate the Humanities: Arts, philosophy, literature, and music are not luxuries. They are essential for cultivating empathy, introspection, and ethical reasoning.
Mandate Life-Skills Curricula: Stress management, emotional regulation, and problem-solving must be taught with the same rigour as mathematics or coding. The CBSE has taken initial steps; universities must follow.
Institutionalise Mental Health Infrastructure: A robust, stigma-free support system—counsellors, helplines, peer mentoring—must be built into every academic and corporate environment.

What Kind of Society Do We Want to Build?

This is not merely about student well-being or employee retention. It is about civilisation. A society that neglects life skills will not only lose lives, it will lose meaning. It will become efficient, yes! but also alienated, brittle, and joyless.

The suicide data is not just a health statistic. It is a civilisational red flag. It tells us that people are not just dying—they are despairing.

Towards a Nation of the Wise...

India cannot become a Vishwaguru on the strength of its coding bootcamps or coaching centres. That claim must be earned through the production of wisdom, through institutions that value thought over task, integrity over outcome, and purpose over productivity.

Shooting an arrow is skill. Knowing why, where, and whether to shoot-that is knowledge. When skill and knowledge combine, they generate doubt. Doubt matures into wisdom. And wisdom, Professor, is what makes a nation civilised.

We owe it to our young minds to build a society where being human is not a liability-but a learned, cultivated, and celebrated strength.

Shall we begin?

Adolescence (भारत में)

2025-04-29T00:11:00.001+05:30

This week, I came across an intriguing series titled "adolescence" . full of drama and excellent subject matter that made me think about the plight of young “adolescent" India.

India has 253 million adolescents, the largest in the world, teeming with potential energy. One might believe this generation stands on the cusp of greatness, poised to lead India into a luminous future.

And yet, the harshness of reality intervenes: India’s adolescents are dying in tens of thousands, not through war or famine, but through a systematic betrayal perpetrated by social media, unhelpful educational institutions, and an insidious consumerist culture.

Let me share why I am saying so…

between 1995 and 2021, 134,735 adolescents aged 10–19 years died by suicide, an average of over 5,180 per year.

In 2021 alone, 10,730 adolescents under 18 ended their own lives — marking a 42% increase compared to the year 2000.

Suicides are rising not only among 15–19-year-olds but also among younger adolescents under 15, a group often masked in India's broad statistical classifications.

Each number hides a life extinguished often by hands too young to have even understood the depths of despair.

The Silent Executioner

Social media is no mere distraction. It is a force that actively reshapes adolescent mental landscapes.

According to a 2022 Indian Journal of Psychiatry, adolescents spending over three hours daily on social media were twice as likely to exhibit clinical symptoms of anxiety and depression.

A shocking 60% of adolescents reported feeling "inadequate" about their bodies after scrolling through curated online content.

And the methods of death bear out the psychological impact:

Hanging constituted 27.87% of child suicides below 14 in 2013

Poisoning made up 17.15%, reflecting impulsive acts catalysed by emotional distress.

Social media is not merely a window. It is a mirror, distorting self-perception until the reflection becomes unbearable.

Glamourisation of Violence

Yet the issue runs deeper.

In the shimmering world of social media, violence itself is now glamourised, aestheticised, and incentivised.

A 2023 Child Rights and You (CRY) study found that 37% of urban adolescents (aged 12–18) had engaged with online content showcasing stylised violence from street fights set to catchy music to weapon displays glorified as marks of heroism.

Platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, and even indigenous apps like Moj and Josh reward such content through algorithmic amplification, encouraging adolescents to seek validation through violent acts.

NCRB data shows a 22% increase in serious juvenile crimes (murder, rape, grievous assault) between 2018 and 2021 among 16–18-year-olds.

A 2022 TISS study noted a shift: where once juvenile crime was poverty-driven, now it emerges from lower-middle and middle-class adolescents, influenced by glamourised violence online.

Delhi Police reported a 47% rise in weapon seizures involving adolescents in 2022, often inspired by Instagram Reels and Snapchat trends.

viral "challenges" like the Blue Whale, the Pass-Out Challenge, the Choking Game, etc. have claimed dozens of adolescent lives between 2017 and 2022.

The digital arena has turned into a gladiatorial pit, Professor, where survival and self-worth are measured not by resilience, but by spectacle.

Schools and Colleges-Colluding in the Collapse

schools and colleges are pillars meant to support youth and are complicit through neglect and exploitation.

A 2024 BMC Psychiatry review links 22.85% of adolescent suicides directly to academic pressure.

The coaching industry, ballooning to ₹58,088 crore (about £5.3 billion) by 2023, thrives by monetising fear and desperation. In Kota alone, 15 students took their lives in 2023, a 66% increase over 2022, despite so-called mental health initiatives.

Colleges, too, fail their charges:

Only 12% of Indian higher education institutions have licensed mental health counselors (AISHE 2021–22).

70% of college students report moderate to severe stress.

Alarmingly, the proportion of engineering students citing "fear of unemployment" as a major stressor rose from 46% in 2017 to 64% in 2022.

They arrive at the gates of higher education battered and bruised, only to find no balm within.

Consumerism: Feeding the Fire

The adolescent is not merely pressured to succeed academically but also to consume and display.

In 2023, India's adolescent retail market crossed ₹4 lakh crore (£36.5 billion), growing at 9% annually. Families now allocate 18% of discretionary spending towards adolescent consumption demands, compared to 11% in 2005.

Among economically disadvantaged adolescents, this unattainable consumerism generates unique psychosocial strains, contributing to 8.75% of suicides linked to economic distress.

The marketplace, then, does not merely sell products; it sells inadequacy, dissatisfaction, and dreams just out of reach.

Regional Inequities:

Not all adolescents suffer equally.

Maharashtra alone reported 1,230 student suicides in 2021 — the highest in the country.

Southern states, though housing only 21% of India's adolescent population, accounted for 29% of student suicides.

the rise in female adolescent suicides is up 7% between 2020 and 2022 reveals the compounded burdens of gender-based violence, academic pressure, and domestic confinement.

Crime, Violence, and the Erosion of Empathy

Juvenile crime patterns mirror the psychological and moral decay:

Between 2002 and 2012, juvenile murder cases surged 87%; minor rape cases surged 143%.

In 2012, among minors charged with serious crimes:

66.6% were aged 16–18,
30.9% aged 12–16,
2.5% were only 7–12 years old.

repeated exposure to online violence breeds desensitisation, anxiety, and erosion of reality testing, according to a 2022 Indian Psychiatric Society survey where 14% of aggressive adolescents cited social media inspiration as a key motivator.

The State’s Response

Government efforts, though visible, barely scratch the surface:

The Mental Healthcare Act 2017 decriminalised suicide attempts but remains poorly implemented.
The Manodarpan initiative reached only 1.2 million adolescents by 2022 — a negligible 0.47% of the adolescent population.
Only 11 states have operationalised adolescent mental health policies.
Only 7% of schools incorporate critical media literacy (NCERT Review, 2023), and a paltry 18% of families use parental controls (IAMAI 2023).
Regulation remains porous, enforcement weak, and education an afterthought.

India’s adolescents stand at a perilous crossroads.

Social media glorifies violence.
Schools impose unbearable pressure.
Colleges offer false promises.
Consumerism breeds endless hunger.

Without systemic reform, encompassing digital ethics, educational restructuring, psychological safety nets, and a fundamental recalibration of societal values this demographic dividend will wither into a demographic catastrophe.

Every suicide, every act of self-harm, every instance of adolescent rage is not merely a personal tragedy. It is an indictment of a society that has turned its back on its own future.

The question, is brutally simple:

Will we continue to watch silently? Or will we dare to intervene before the silence becomes permanent?

Can Dinosaur learn to Dance?

2025-04-21T22:00:00.000+05:30

I came across an intriguing article by Duvvuri Subbarao titled "Has IAS Failed The Nation?” made me reflect on the most interesting subject, bureaucracy in India, something very close to the heart of Indian governance and yet so far from its brain: the Civil Services. More specifically, why they began with the promise of nation-building and somehow evolved into glorified WhatsApp forwarding departments with fancy stationery and painfully slow Wi-Fi.

Post-Independence, we had dreams. Big ones. Dams, democracy, development. Nehru spoke like a poet, Patel acted like a surgeon, and somewhere in between, the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) was born, our very own homegrown bureaucracy.

It was supposed to be the steel frame of India. Spoiler alert: today, it’s more mild steel—looks shiny but bends under pressure.

Let’s rewind and see how we got here.

When the British left, they bequeathed to us three things: tea addiction, cricket obsession, and the Indian Civil Service-an institution designed to rule, not serve. But we were in such a hurry to govern ourselves, we just took it, slapped a fresh coat of nationalism on it, renamed it the IAS, and called it a day.

Now, to be fair, this made sense at the time. You needed continuity. Also, nobody wanted to reinvent the wheel (or read the manual). So, we inherited a colonial bureaucracy for a democratic project and hoped it would somehow evolve.

It didn’t. I just learned to speak Hindi.

Back then, upto 70s, the District Collector was a cross between a demigod and Google Maps. Roads were built because he said so. Schools opened because he approved it. Cows moved aside because his jeep honked.

The bureaucracy had respect. It also had complete monopoly over decision-making. You couldn’t question them, because “Sir has twenty-five years of service, beta.”

But then came the reforms. Or as I like to call them: “Reforms: The Prequel to Nothing.”

Fact check: The First Administrative Reforms Commission (1966) recommended things like modernisation, citizen interface, performance audits. Very sexy stuff. But 90% of it was never implemented. Why? Because every reform was “under active consideration,” a bureaucratic euphemism for “shoved under the office carpet.”

1980s–90s: The Age of Nap and Nomenclature

By the ‘80s, bureaucracy was no longer about service; it was about survival. Officers were less “change agents” and more “damage controllers.” They’d mastered the art of doing nothing in such a sophisticated manner, it almost looked like policy work.

Rajiv Gandhi, frustrated with corruption, once said: “Only 15 paise of every rupee reaches the poor.” That should have been a national emergency. Instead, it became a quiz question in General Studies.

Meanwhile, reforms came and went like diet plans. There were buzzwords, committees, seminars (with buffet), and lots of circulars that nobody read.

Result? Bureaucracy began to look like an old Windows PC: slow, full of pop-ups, and stuck updating forever.

2000s: Ctrl + Alt + Del (But Nothing Rebooted)

Enter the new millennium. With RTI, e-Governance, and the Second ARC (2005), things were supposed to change. Suddenly, words like “transparency,” “efficiency,” and “citizen-centric” entered the bureaucratic lexicon.

But instead of actually transforming, bureaucracy simply upgraded its vocabulary. Same old inertia, now with better English.

360-degree feedback for promotions was introduced—intended to make bureaucrats more accountable. Instead, it made them more strategic. They started managing perceptions, not performance. File movement slowed down. Meetings multiplied. And PowerPoint became the new gospel.

Imagine evolving into a species that thrives on inertia. That’s not Darwinism—it’s desk-bound nihilism.

But Why Did It Really Fail?

Now, let’s get serious. The real reason civil services didn’t evolve is because they had no reason to.

No extinction threat. Even the most incompetent officer gets promoted. Evolution requires selection. Bureaucracy just requires time served.
Misaligned incentives. Innovation is punished with transfers. Mediocrity is rewarded with medals. Heroism gets you a news article. Survival gets you a pension.
Colonial hangover. The system was never designed to serve people. It was designed to control them. And that DNA still lingers, dressed in khadi and quoting policy.
Reforms without follow-through. We had brilliant commissions. But in typical Indian style, we treated them like wedding albums—admired briefly, then forgotten.
No consequences. The bureaucrat who builds ten schools and the one who blocks every proposal for five years both retire with full benefits. Equality, at last.

Fast forward to today. You’ll still find brilliant officers—working in health, education, infrastructure, making a difference despite the odds. But they are the exceptions, not the system.

The system rewards compliance, not courage. It promotes silence over voice, protocol over initiative, and meetings over movement.

It’s a system where:

Innovation is writing a file note in Calibri instead of Times New Roman.

Leadership is measured by how many circulars you can issue in a day.

Performance reviews read like a eulogy written by a friend: glowing, vague, and entirely disconnected from reality.

Can We Still Evolve?

Absolutely. But first, we need to admit the truth: the civil services have not failed because of bad people. They’ve failed because of a bad design. A design that favours hierarchy over impact. Obedience over intelligence.

We need:

Performance-linked promotions
Real-time public accountability
Training that goes beyond memorising the Constitution

And most importantly, the courage to admit that our steel frame has gone a bit rusty.

Until then, the IAS will remain what it is—India’s favourite dinosaur. Enormous, majestic, a little outdated, and utterly confused by the idea of rapid movement.

Now go ahead—share this with your favourite bureaucrat. If they forward it without reading, they’ve already proved the point.

Thinking Caste and Remembering Ambedkar

2025-04-14T23:02:00.002+05:30

Yesterday, I met my ex-neighbour at a temple. Not just any temple. The Umiya Devi temple—the unofficial parliament for a certain caste’s community matters. He was beaming. Turns out, his caste group is organising a National Business Summit. Not a business summit. A caste-based business summit. For businesspersons of their caste only, thank you very much.

Proudly, he informed me that he’s on the executive organising team. Big deal. Big pride. Big caste.

And then it hit me. Again.

My city just hosted a Global Patidar Business Summit. Before that, a Global Brahmin Summit. Add a couple of Yadav Yatras and Vaishya Ventures, and we’ve basically got an unofficial caste-based G20 happening every few months.

Now, as someone who eats, sleeps and occasionally overthinks sociology, caste always felt like that stubborn stain on your white shirt. It fades, sure. But it never disappears. And yesterday, I saw why.

Caste survives because it accommodates.

It makes room for people who are left out by the merit-worshipping, English-speaking, LinkedIn-updating formal world. It gives leadership roles to those who might not be ‘qualified’ by traditional metrics—but are powerful within their jaat. Caste creates heroes where the system refuses to look. It’s not meritocratic. It’s compensatory.

And today feels like a good day to reflect. Because it’s Ambedkar’s birthday. The man who didn’t just write about caste. He tried to bury it. With reason, rage, and a pen that hit harder than any sword.

Now, let me rewind to my days at Central University of Gujarat. My first assignment? Reviewing Annihilation of Caste. That was not a book. That was a bomb. Ambedkar didn’t suggest improving caste. He wanted to incinerate it.

He didn’t say: “Let’s make caste inclusive.”
He said: “Let’s make caste extinct.”

For him, caste wasn’t a cultural oddity. It was a violent script, written in the language of ritual, canonised by religion, and performed daily by people too conditioned to notice the blood on their hands.

He even went after Gandhi. Yes, that Gandhi. Ambedkar didn’t flinch. He accused the Mahatma of cosmetic reform—of treating untouchability like a rash when the disease ran in the veins.

He wasn’t here to negotiate. He was here to dismantle.

But let’s pause the fire for a second.

Because here comes another perspective—a softer, myth-friendly one. This view tells us that caste isn’t just a Hindu problem. It exists in every religion in India. Christians have it. Muslims have it. Even Uber drivers in San Francisco might have preferences. Caste, they say, is a human impulse—like groupism in HD.

And fair enough. That’s true. But where does this argument go? Not towards revolution. It drifts gently into resignation. Into explanations. Into anthropological comfort zones.

Ah, caste is natural. Universal. Embedded in culture. Soothing, isn’t it?

And yes, we’re told, religion shouldn’t be annihilated either. Why? Because myths make life beautiful. They give meaning, not malice. They provide poetry. Without them, we’re left with algorithms and air-conditioned apathy.

Lovely, poetic even.

Except when those myths also prescribe purity. Justify hierarchy. Teach you that someone else’s touch, food, or shadow is sin. That’s not poetry. That’s power play. That’s priests building thrones out of your spine.

Here’s a classic Indian paradox: every community wants to be the victim, but also the forgotten king. Even the lowest rungs claim descent from royalty who were ‘cheated’ into degradation. Nobody wants to abolish caste. Everyone wants to rise within it.

Rewriting humiliation into misplaced grandeur? Understandable. But that’s still climbing the same dirty ladder.

Ambedkar didn’t want us to climb it. He wanted to kick it down.

He wasn’t interested in spiritual therapy. He practised truth surgery. And that truth hurts. Especially when it tells you your sacred thread might just be someone else’s shackle.

Now let’s be fair. All communities discriminate. But who codified it? Who made it divine? Who turned social prejudice into divine command?

So when someone says, “But caste gives identity,” ask: at whose cost?

When someone romanticises it as tradition, ask: how many people had to be buried to preserve it?

And next time someone says caste is just “too complex,” don’t give them a statue of Ambedkar.

Give them his book.

And whisper —

He didn’t come to decorate your temple.

He came to dismantle it.

Non Brahminical Goddesses of Gujarat

2025-04-07T00:33:00.001+05:30

Recently, I got an opportunity to visit the famous Bahucharaji temple with Limbach mā temples at Unva and Patan. At the same time, I also paid a visit to Ambaji temple in Gujarat. What stuck in my mind was the socio -cultural dimensions of these temples, rituals and goddesses which remained divorced from Brahminical and puranic frameworks.

let me ask you something, if you ever find yourself in a dusty corner of North Gujarat or Saurashtra, or deep inside the rice belts of central Gujarat, and someone points you towards a neem tree wrapped in red threads or a stone smeared with vermilion near a dried-up well, don’t be deceived by the simplicity. You are not looking at folk superstition. You are staring at the living remnants of a subaltern theology—what the villagers might call Meldi no Maṇḍ, Momai na sthān, or Bahucharā no dero. These are not minor goddesses. They are the pulsing, breathing soul of local religiosity—sovereign, sensory, and disruptive.

Before Temples, There Was Earth

These goddesses did not arrive via Sanskrit scriptures or grand narratives. Their first ‘temples’ were rocks under trees, or platforms beside cremation grounds. For instance, Meldi Mā, worshipped widely by Koli and other agrarian communities, is typically represented by a stone block, often without any anthropomorphic image. Her presence is invoked not through verses from the Devi Mahatmya but through songs passed orally—simple, vernacular, and emotionally immediate.

Momai Mā shrines dot the arid stretches of Kutch, often marked only by clusters of red flags fluttering against the desert wind. These symbols are not abstractions; they are reminders of protection against snake bites, cattle disease, and infertility. This connection to the ecological and the bodily grounds their power in everyday survival, not transcendental salvation.

Unlike Puranic goddesses, whose stories are fixed and carefully archived, these deities are born anew in every retelling. Consider Bahucharā Mā, revered by the hijra community and associated with gender transgression. Her legend speaks of a young woman who, upon facing assault, castrated herself and declared that only the gender non-conforming would worship her. This narrative, central to Bahucharā's cult, resists the heteronormative ideals embedded in mainstream Hinduism.

the oral stories of Khodiyār Mā among the Charans and Patidars tell of a girl who walked into a lake and emerged riding a crocodile—a symbol of her refusal to conform to social expectations of chastity and marriage. These narratives aren’t quaint myths. They are performances of resistance, told in garba songs and dramatized in bhavai theatre, which remain thriving art forms across Gujarat.

When the Goddess Speaks Through You

I recall an ethnographic instance from a Meldi Mā jagran in Bhavnagar district, where a woman—barefoot, hair loose, eyes vacant—entered a state of possession (avtar levo or mata aavi). In her trance, she accused a local landlord of cheating labourers out of their due wages. The entire gathering turned silent, then electric. She was no longer a woman from a Dalit family. She was Meldi Mā herself. The landlord left in shame.

This moment was not hysteria, as colonial ethnographers might have labelled it, but a deeply political act—an assertion of voice where silence is the norm. This is consistent with numerous studies, such as those by anthropologist Tulsi Patel, who documented similar possession phenomena among lower-caste women in central Gujarat, interpreting them as moments of spontaneous truth-telling and emotional justice.

The locations of these shrines are never accidental. Khodiyār Mā’s original shrine, for instance, sits near a pond in Matel, far from Brahmanical temple towns like Somnath. Likewise, Momai Mā’s shrines are often found near cremation grounds, reinforcing her connection to transitional spaces—birth, death, boundary.

These are not peripheral placements due to neglect. They are ritualised margins, where the goddess guards against danger and disorder. Anthropologist David Sopher once called such deities "threshold guardians," a term that finds perfect resonance in these goddess cults that monitor the edge, not the centre.

Refusing Divine Beauty

Mainstream Hindu goddesses are typically idealised—lotus hands, perfect eyes, waist like a drum. But in Khodiyār Mā’s depictions, especially in older shrines, she has bulging eyes, rides a crocodile, and wears weapons. In many cases, the deity is not even anthropomorphic. A silver mask with red eyes suffices. For Meldi Mā, it's often just an upright stone block with a smeared red cloth. The absence of idealised form is not due to artistic limitation; it’s a theological declaration.

These aesthetic choices are defiant. They say: beauty does not equal worth. The grotesque, the raw, the wild—all have divine potential. This aligns with what feminist theorist Rajeswari Sunder Rajan has referred to as “visual insurgency” in the politics of representation.

Caste, Clan, and Kuldevi Politics

Each of these goddesses belongs to someone. Khodiyār Mā is the kuldevi of the Leuva Patidars. Bahucharā Mā is associated with the Pavaiyas, a nomadic community. Meldi Mā is venerated primarily by the Kolis, who have historically faced caste discrimination. Their worship is not just spiritual—it’s political.

When the Patidars erected the Khodaldham temple in Kagvad in 2017, it wasn’t merely a devotional act. It was a declaration of socio-political visibility. The temple cost over ₹100 crore, funded entirely by community donations. Embedded in this act was a narrative: we are organised, powerful, and sacred too.

Yes, Sanskritisation happens. You can now find a purohit performing aarti at a Meldi Mā temple. But the possession rituals, the bhavai performances, the animal sacrifices—they still exist. I’ve seen them with my own eyes. In a Momai Mā temple near Mandvi, the new marble altar sits right beside a much older neem tree wrapped in iron chains—used during possession to keep frenzied bodies safe. The coexistence is uneasy, but real.

Bleeding, Dancing, Cursing

These goddesses menstruate. They curse. They demand meat and liquor. This is not vulgarity—it’s realism. The female body, often sanitised in mainstream theology, is central here. In Bahucharā Mā’s annual fair in Mehsana, gender non-conforming devotees walk barefoot for days, seeking healing and acceptance. Their bodies are not obstacles to the divine; they are its medium.

This theology doesn’t merely tolerate bodily experience. It demands it. Scholar Alf Hiltebeitel’s work on possession in South India applies well here too: the body, especially the marginal body, becomes a “sacrificial text” where the divine inscribes itself.

These deities have travelled.

Among the Gujarati diaspora in Leicester, for instance, Meldi Mā is worshipped in suburban homes. The possession rituals are gone, but bhajans continue. In Toronto, Khodaldham Canada organises yearly gatherings that blend digital live-streaming with garba and community prayers. The goddess now rides the internet as much as she does a crocodile.

Even in migration, her core promise remains intact: to protect, to empower, to connect.

To dismiss these goddess cults as “folk remnants” is to miss the point entirely. They are not awaiting integration into a grand Brahmanical narrative. They are already complete, sovereign, and intensely relevant. They offer a theology of survival, of resistance, of raw human experience sanctified.

So the next time you see a red-smeared stone beside a field, pause....
She may not have a name you recognise, but she sees you. She remembers. She protects...

Packaged Parenting

2025-03-27T17:03:00.001+05:30

I was having lunch with my faculty colleagues, just trying to survive the afternoon, when the topic of parenting popped up. Again. Except this time, it wasn’t just casual griping about screen time or school fees. It turned into something oddly philosophical. My colleagues, all seasoned parents, started discussing “how we were raised” versus “how we are raising.” And there I was—a new dad, wide-eyed, mildly confused, and deeply conflicted.

I’m a 90s kid. Grew up on a healthy diet of cartoon violence, weekend Doordarshan movies, and the constant fear of being shouted at for no reason. Our parents didn’t negotiate. They didn’t ask how we felt. They didn't even ask why and what happened in the class. You didn’t get time-outs. You got “the look”—you know, the one that made your soul shiver.

Now, here I am, trying to parent in an age where I’m supposed to gently narrate my toddler’s emotions back to him while she’s screaming because the spoon is the wrong colour. Honestly, it's enough to make a grown man Google “how to make toddlers eat”

But jokes aside, there’s a genuine tension here. And it deserves more than just punchlines.

The Shift: From “Providing” to “Preparing”

One of the most interesting observations in that lunch table conversation was this: our parents provided, but today we’re expected to prepare. That distinction is enormous. Our fathers (and mothers) made sure we were fed, schooled, vaccinated, and clothed decently enough to not get bullied. But they weren’t in the business of unpacking our emotions or “validating our truth.” That wasn’t the expectation.

Now, in an era of relative abundance, the bar has shifted. It’s no longer just about survival. It’s about equipping children to thrive—emotionally, socially, psychologically. It’s about preparing them to be kind and competitive. Resilient and reflective. Which, as any parent will tell you, is a balancing act that often feels like tightrope walking with a mango on your head while a toddler yells “NO!” for the fifth hour straight.

Gentle Parenting: Buzzword or Breakthrough?

Theory (or perception?) “gentle parenting”—the gospel of today’s upper-middle-class parenting circles. You’ve probably heard of it, even if only through social media reels of serene mothers whispering affirmations while their child smears peanut butter on the dog.

In theory, gentle parenting is beautiful. It’s rooted in respect, empathy, and calm communication. It teaches you to connect before you correct. To listen more than you lecture. It’s basically what every therapist wishes your parents had done.

But here’s the thing—it didn’t originate here. It comes from Western psychology, with its individualistic frameworks, nuclear families, and a very different cultural script. When imported wholesale into Indian households—especially ones with grandparents lurking around and neighbours peering through the curtain—it hits some serious roadblocks.

The Desi Dilemma: Culture Meets Concept

In India, parenting is not a solo mission. It’s a team sport. Grandparents, uncles, domestic help, the lady selling vegetables down the street—everyone has a say. And most of them have strong opinions about why your three-year-old should be taught to “listen the first time.”

Try explaining to your parents or in-laws that you're letting your child “process their emotions” instead of disciplining them immediately. Let me know how that goes. (Spoiler: it won’t go well.)

Here’s where the friction becomes real. Gentle parenting asks you to honour your child’s autonomy. But Indian families often prize obedience. Respect, in many cases, is still equated with compliance. So when your toddler is being “expressive,” your relatives might think you’re raising a monster. Or worse—an English NRI.

The Practical Problem: Who Has the Time?

Even if you want to gentle-parent your way through toddlerhood, you’ve got to admit—it’s exhausting. It takes time. And patience. And infinite emotional reserves. And no offence to anyone, but most of us don’t have those on tap at 7:30 AM when we’re trying to pack tiffins, answer emails, and remember where the bottle of milk went.

For working parents, especially in urban India, the ideals of gentle parenting clash dramatically with the rhythm of daily life. You’re expected to be calm and validating, but real life throws curveballs. Power cuts. Traffic jams. Homework meltdowns. Tantrums in public. You either negotiate like a UN diplomat every five minutes or you lose your mind entirely.

Schools and Universities Aren’t Helping, Either

Even if you manage to create a gentle, nurturing environment at home, your kid’s school might still be operating on Victorian principles. Sit straight. Don't talk back. Memorise everything.

Do not question. Obey!

Now imagine your sweet, emotionally-aware child who’s been encouraged to express themselves at home walks into this space. It’s disorienting. Confusing. And sometimes, outright damaging. They learn quickly that the outside world may not be as kind as their parents promised. And as a parent, you’re left wondering—am I raising my child to thrive, or to struggle?

So… What Do We Do?

Let’s be honest. There’s no one-size-fits-all answer. Gentle parenting is not a magic spell, and traditional parenting is not a villain in a soap opera. Both have their merits. Both have their failures.

What we probably need is a fusion. A model of parenting that doesn’t dismiss our culture but also doesn’t fear evolution. A way to be empathetic without becoming indulgent. To be firm without being fearsome. To raise humans, not just “successful” adults.

Some Indian parents are already doing this. They’re taking the emotional literacy of gentle parenting and blending it with values like familial responsibility and respect. They’re creating space for feelings, but also boundaries. They’re not afraid to say “no,” but they say it without yelling.

It’s messy. It’s slow. But it’s real.

for me, parenting in india is A Work in Progress

Parenting today feels like trying to assemble IKEA furniture without the manual—and with a small human repeatedly hiding your screws. There’s no perfect way. Just a series of choices, compromises, and a deep desire to not mess things up too badly.

So if you’re a parent reading this—whether you’re calmly explaining why we don’t throw peas or just trying to survive another bedtime—I see you. You’re doing the impossible. With heart. With humour. With some very questionable snack choices.

And if you’re still wondering whether gentle parenting “works”—maybe the better question is: What kind of adult do I want my child to become? Start from there. And build your own parenting philosophy—brick by careful, chaotic, compassionate brick.

Demystifying Hanuman Chalisa

2025-03-22T00:05:00.000+05:30

The Hanuman Chalisa emerged from the soul of a poet in the 16th century—Tulsidas, a sage steeped in bhakti and awakened vision. He composed it in Awadhi, the dialect of the common people, far removed from the learned tongue of Sanskrit. This was a radical act: to take devotion out of the temples and place it on village lips.

The hymn’s legend is just as powerful as its verses. Imprisoned by Emperor Akbar, as one narrative goes, Tulsidas composed the Chalisa during forty days of confinement. Each day, he recited a verse. On the fortieth day, an army of monkeys stormed the court, leading to his release. History may not confirm the tale. But the power of the story is symbolic—it speaks to what devotees know: Hanuman comes where he is called.

Architecture of the Divine

The Chalisa begins with a homage to the guru, before flowing into forty chaupais—couplets extolling Hanuman’s strength, wisdom, and unwavering devotion to Rama. It ends with verses promising protection, courage, and spiritual clarity to anyone who chants it with sincerity.

But beneath this devotional surface lies a structure of sublime logic.

Hanuman is praised not because he is a god, but because he is the perfect servant of God. Tulsidas begins not by glorifying Hanuman himself, but Rama, out of respect for Hanuman’s humility—a theological choice embedded in a mystical vision. The hymn becomes not only a celebration of power, but a call to surrender: strength is born from devotion; freedom arises from discipline.

Translating the Infinite

Originally in Awadhi, the Hanuman Chalisa did not remain tethered to one tongue. It has been translated into over twenty-two Indian languages, and into English and other global languages. In Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, and Malayalam, the Chalisa thrives—not just as text, but as tradition.

In Tamil Nadu, the Chalisa appears in temple rituals, often sung with Carnatic flair. In Telugu-speaking regions, it features in Hanuman Jayanti processions, echoed in folk styles. Kannada recitations bring it into communal prayers during festivals. In Maharashtra and Gujarat, it is as familiar as a morning tea—sung in bhajans, performed in kirtans, read during Tuesday observances.

What is profound here is the adaptability of devotion. The Chalisa has not been imposed—it has been invited. Devotees heard it in one tongue and translated it not just into their language, but into their culture.

When Devotion Meets Music

There are hymns, and then there are hymns that sing themselves.

The Hanuman Chalisa belongs to the latter. Its inherent rhythm makes it ideal for music. In the North, it is sung in Hindustani classical style, with harmonium and tabla. In the South, it is performed in Carnatic tradition—veena and mridangam interweaving with syllables of praise.

And then, there is M.S. Subbulakshmi. When she sang the Chalisa, she didn't merely render it—she consecrated it. Hari Om Sharan’s 1974 version still echoes in temple corridors. Hariharan’s digital rendition became the first devotional song to cross 3.5 billion views on YouTube in 2023—a record-breaking resonance for a medieval hymn.

Western artists have not stayed away. Krishna Das, an American spiritual singer, introduced the Chalisa to yoga circles and chanting gatherings. His versions, slow and trance-like, draw seekers from non-Hindu backgrounds. Here, the Chalisa sheds cultural skin and becomes sound, breath, and silence.

Boundaries Melt: From Caste to Diaspora

Hanuman’s image—muscular, kneeling, eyes aflame with devotion—resonates across caste lines, age groups, and identities. Scholar Philip Lutgendorf calls him a “middle-class deity,” accessible and egalitarian. He belongs equally to the sage and the student, the priest and the porter. This democratic appeal is mirrored in the Chalisa’s popularity across social strata.

It is recited in rural Bihar and London temples, in Punjabi households and Mauritian shrines, in Caribbean Indian communities and Silicon Valley prayer rooms. For the Indian diaspora, the Chalisa is not nostalgia. It is continuity. It’s the breath of home in a foreign sky.

In some places, it is read in Sanskritised Hindi. In others, English translations allow children to understand what their elders chant. Community halls, temple basements, even hospital rooms—all have witnessed the Chalisa’s forty verses cradling both joy and grief.

More Than Myth: A Living Philosophy

The Chalisa’s spiritual appeal endures because it affirms an inner truth: that strength without humility is brittle, and faith without discipline is hollow.

It tells us that fear can be met—not by flight, but by focus. That intellect must kneel before love. That the body is not an obstacle to the divine, but its potential.

In the 21st century, with its noise, confusion, and fragility, these are not old ideas. They are essential ones.

A Hymn Without End

You could read the Hanuman Chalisa as a text. Or you could enter it as an experience.

To chant it is to align yourself with breath and purpose. To hear it is to feel protected. To live by it is to be reminded: service is strength, and devotion is freedom.

So the next time you hear those opening lines—“Shree Guru Charan Saroj Raj…”—listen carefully. They are not only invoking a deity. They are calling forth the part of you that remembers—before doubt, before division—what it means to surrender to something higher, wise, and endlessly compassionate.

Anothe₹ ₹ound ?

2025-03-18T00:12:00.000+05:30

Things I never expected in Vadodara include uncivilized public behaviour. But the recent drink and drive case of Rakshit Chaurasiya is intriguing to me. he shouted "Another Round" , "Nikita" and "Om Namah Shivay" after killing and injuring innocents. Which is not unknown to us. It has become a very common scenario where a late-night street in a bustling city, a luxury car speeds past, a loud thud, a body on the ground. The driver? Gone. The headlines the next morning scream outrage, but within weeks, the case disappears into legal oblivion. It’s a script we’ve seen play out time and again, especially in recent years, where young, affluent men behind expensive wheels seem to treat traffic laws as mere suggestions.

But has it always been this way? Have hit-and-run cases always plagued India, or is this a new, ugly side-effect of rising wealth, urbanisation, and the lack of consequences? Let’s take a journey through the decades, from post-independence India’s empty streets to today’s AI-tracked highways, and figure out how we got here.

The 1950s: When Traffic Wasn’t the Problem, But the Law Was

In the 1950s, India had fewer than 300,000 vehicles nationwide. That’s right—fewer cars than some Indian cities have today. Most people were still using bullock carts, bicycles, and their own two feet to get around. Yet, even with this minimal traffic, hit-and-run cases happened. Why? Because there was practically no accountability.

The Motor Vehicles Act of 1939 was outdated and lacked clear laws on hit-and-run cases. If someone got caught, the most they faced was a ₹500 fine or a slap on the wrist under Section 304A of the IPC. In 1957, a Mumbai BEST bus driver ran over 12 pedestrians and simply walked away. The case led to a few protests, but in the end? No real punishment. The system didn’t take road accidents seriously yet.

The 1960s: The Era of Mob Justice

By the 1960s, vehicle ownership had increased, and so had road accidents. By 1969, India was reporting 45,000 accidents annually, with about 2,100 hit-and-run cases every year (NCRB, 1969). Here’s where things got interesting: people had lost faith in the police and courts, so they started taking justice into their own hands.

One of the most infamous cases happened in Kanpur, 1967, when a truck ran over 18 workers. The driver? He tried to escape but was caught by a furious crowd and beaten to death. This was becoming a pattern. In many parts of India, truck drivers—especially those driving at night—became the prime suspects in hit-and-run cases. Why? Many were unlicensed, overworked, and sometimes even intoxicated.

By 1969, a new amendment to the Motor Vehicles Act required drivers to report accidents within 24 hours, but guess what? Only 30% actually complied. The other 70%? They either ran away or bribed their way out of trouble.

The 1970s: Drunk Driving and Big Cities Get Deadlier

The 1970s brought rapid industrialisation, and with that came a boom in vehicle ownership—from a few lakhs to over 5.2 million registered vehicles by 1979. The result? More accidents, more hit-and-runs, and more reckless driving.

One of the first drunk driving hit-and-run cases to gain national attention happened in Delhi, 1978, when a truck driver ploughed into a crowd at Connaught Place. He was drunk, fled the scene, and wasn’t caught for weeks. When he finally stood trial, he got a 6-month sentence. The public was furious. This case led to Delhi’s first-ever "zero tolerance" drunk driving campaign.

Despite the rising number of accidents, there were no official blood alcohol limits in India at the time. You could be completely wasted behind the wheel, crash into a bus stop, and still argue your way out of it.

The 1980s: VIP Culture & The Sanjay Gandhi Incident

If the 1970s were about reckless truck drivers, the 1980s were about political and business elites getting away with murder—literally.

One of the biggest scandals of the decade involved Sanjay Gandhi, the younger son of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. In 1980, his car allegedly struck journalist Rajendra Sharma in Delhi. Sharma died, but guess what? The case disappeared. Witnesses changed their statements, the police dragged their feet, and soon, it was as if it never happened.

This was the decade when VIPs realised they could do whatever they wanted on the roads and get away with it. Meanwhile, for ordinary people, the system remained broken. The Motor Vehicles Act of 1988 finally introduced Section 161, which made it mandatory for victims' families to receive compensation. But between 1988 and 1990, only 12% of victims actually got their money (NHRC Report, 1992).

The 1990s: The BMW Era & Courtroom Dramas

If you had to pick a decade when luxury cars officially entered the hit-and-run game, the 1990s would be it.

The most infamous case? Sanjeev Nanda’s BMW hit-and-run in 1999. One night in Delhi, a BMW ran over six people, including three policemen. Nanda fled the scene, tried to escape to Pakistan, and was finally arrested weeks later.

His trial? A nine-year-long circus. Witnesses, including Sunil Kulkarni, the key eye-witness, turned hostile after alleged bribes. The forensic evidence was mishandled. Eventually, Nanda served just two years in jail (Outlook, 2008). Meanwhile, Delhi and Mumbai alone accounted for 35% of India's 20,000 annual hit-and-run cases by 1999, and two-wheelers caused 45% of hit-and-run cases in Chennai (MoRTH, 1999).

The 2000s: Bollywood, Bribes & Bailouts

Now we enter the era of celebrity hit-and-runs.

Salman Khan (2002): His Toyota Land Cruiser crushed five people sleeping on a footpath in Mumbai. He was accused of being drunk, but the case dragged on for over a decade. In 2015, he was acquitted, only to be convicted again in 2016. He spent just two days in jail.

Alistair Pereira (2006): His Toyota Corolla ran over 15 labourers, killing seven. He got six months in jail, but public outrage led the Supreme Court to increase it to three years.

By 2010, hit-and-run deaths had crossed 50,000+ annually, but rich offenders were getting bail within months.

The 2010s & 2020s: AI, FASTag, & Stricter Laws

The 2010s brought in technology, and with it, more evidence than ever before.

Uber Case (2018): A hit-and-run driver in Delhi was caught because Uber’s GPS logs placed him at the scene. He got a 10-year sentence (The Hindu, 2019).

FASTag & AI Cameras (2024): The Pune porche hit-and-run case saw the culprit caught in under 12 hours, thanks to AI-powered cameras. but culprit was asked to an essay of 300 words as punishment!!

With the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita (2023), hit-and-run now carries a 10-year jail term. Yet, despite all this, the class bias remains—72% of rich offenders get bail within three months (PUDR, 2021).

Will Anything Ever Change? or shall we wait for “another round"...

From the post-independence years to today’s AI-monitored highways, the story of hit-and-runs in India is one of wealth, privilege, legal loopholes, and public rage. The laws have gotten tougher, the tech has improved, but as long as powerful people know they can escape law, will the roads ever truly be safe?

History - Holy - Holi

2025-03-12T23:25:00.000+05:30

Holi’s roots extend deep into antiquity, with references appearing in early Sanskrit texts such as the Purva Mimamsa Sutras and the Kathaka Grihya Sutras, which describe springtime festivities resembling Holi. The Puranas further elaborate on Holi’s significance, particularly the Narada Purana and the Bhavishya Purana, which mention a festival named Holika or Holikotsav. These accounts, along with a 300 BCE inscription from Central India referencing Holikotsav, confirm its existence as an ancient public celebration.

The festival was initially tied to agricultural cycles and lunar worship, particularly the full moon of the Phalguna month. Early celebrations were likely intimate family rituals performed by married women seeking prosperity for their households. However, as Holi merged with broader social customs, it evolved into a more exuberant communal festival marking the arrival of spring.

Mythology also played a crucial role in Holi’s rise. The most well-known legend is that of Prahlada and Holika, an allegory of devotion triumphing over tyranny. According to Hindu tradition, the demon king Hiranyakashipu sought to punish his devout son Prahlada for his unwavering faith in Lord Vishnu. His sister Holika, immune to fire, sat with Prahlada in a blazing pyre, but divine intervention led to her demise while Prahlada survived unscathed. This tale became the basis for Holika Dahan, the bonfire ritual performed on Holi’s eve, symbolising the victory of good over evil.

Holi also draws inspiration from Krishna’s playful pranks with Radha and the gopis (cowherd girls), which introduced the festival’s most iconic element: the throwing of colours. Krishna, whose dark complexion made him insecure, playfully smeared colour on Radha’s face, giving birth to the joyous tradition of gulal (coloured powders). This association remains strongest in the Braj region (Mathura and Vrindavan), where Holi celebrations are particularly grand, re-enacting Krishna’s divine playfulness.

In South India, Holi is connected to Shiva through the legend of Kamadeva, the god of love, who was reduced to ashes by Shiva’s third eye. The observance of Kama Dahanam in Tamil Nadu reflects Holi’s thematic connection to love, destruction, and renewal. These mythological strands—Krishna’s romantic playfulness, Prahlada’s unwavering faith, and Shiva’s fiery asceticism—cement Holi as both a spiritual and seasonal festival.

By the medieval period, Holi had evolved from a village festival into a widely celebrated event, even receiving royal patronage. The 7th-century Sanskrit drama Ratnavali, attributed to King Harsha, vividly describes Holi festivities filled with music, dance, and colour-play. The festival found artistic representation in paintings, such as 16th-century Vijayanagara sculptures showing revelers spraying coloured water and 17th-century Mughal miniatures depicting royal Holi celebrations.

The Mughal rulers, despite their Persian heritage, embraced Holi as a courtly event, integrating it into their cultural milieu. Akbar and Jahangir renamed it Id-e-Gulabi (Festival of Roses) and Aab-e-Pashi (Shower of Colours), respectively. Jahangir’s memoirs mention grand Holi gatherings, and court paintings depict emperors playfully engaging in colour play. The festival became a rare moment of social levelling, allowing courtiers, musicians, and commoners to partake in the festivities.

Sufi mystics also integrated Holi’s themes into their poetry, using the imagery of colours to symbolise divine love and spiritual ecstasy. The Sufi saint Nizamuddin Auliya’s disciple, Amir Khusrow, composed verses about Holi, reinforcing its syncretic nature. At Sufi shrines in Delhi and other regions, Holi was celebrated with devotional music and flower offerings, blurring religious boundaries and transforming it into a shared cultural expression.

Meanwhile, regional variations flourished. In Bengal, Holi became associated with Dol Jatra, a festival honouring Krishna and Radha, where idols were swung in decorated palanquins while devotees sang and sprinkled colours. Eastern India also observed Phagwah, a folk variant of Holi marked by agricultural rituals and community feasting. These diverse expressions underscored Holi’s ability to adapt while preserving its core spirit of renewal and joyous transgression.

With the advent of British colonial rule in the 18th and 19th centuries, Holi encountered both fascination and scrutiny. British accounts likened Holi to European Carnivals for its unruly revelry and temporary social inversion. While colonial authorities acknowledged Holi’s cultural significance, they often viewed it as disorderly. By the early 20th century, nationalist movements began using Holi as a platform for anti-colonial sentiment. The legend of Prahlada and Holika was reinterpreted as an allegory for resisting British oppression.

During the freedom struggle, Holi processions in cities like Kanpur became opportunities for patriotic demonstrations. British officials often sought to regulate large Holi gatherings, wary of their potential to incite dissent. However, Holi’s popularity endured, reinforcing its role as a symbol of resistance and cultural resilience.

At the same time, British presence introduced Holi to a global audience. European artists and photographers documented the festival, leading to its romanticised depiction in Western imagination. Colonial-era Indian elites also adapted Holi, hosting refined soirées that blended traditional colour play with Western-style entertainment.

Following India’s independence in 1947, Holi’s cultural significance only grew, becoming a nationwide event cutting across religious and regional lines. Urbanisation and mass media played key roles in shaping contemporary Holi. While rural communities continued traditional Holi rituals—such as singing Phag and Chowtal folk songs or using organic dyes—urban celebrations became increasingly commercialised. Housing societies and clubs now organise large-scale Holi parties with DJs and Bollywood music, often replacing old customs with modern entertainment.

Bollywood has been instrumental in popularising Holi across generations. Iconic Holi songs from films like Sholay (1975) and Silsila (1981) have become essential to celebrations nationwide. The festival also took on a global dimension as Indian expatriates introduced Holi to different parts of the world.

Today, Holi is celebrated in cities like London, New York, and Sydney, where multicultural audiences participate in colour runs and Bollywood-themed parties.

Despite this global embrace, Holi has also faced modern challenges. The shift from natural dyes to synthetic colours has raised environmental concerns, leading to campaigns advocating for eco-friendly Holi. Issues of misbehaviour, particularly during public celebrations, have prompted discussions on ensuring a more respectful and inclusive festival. Nonetheless, Holi remains a powerful unifier, bringing people together in a shared celebration of joy and renewal.

Power, Peril, and Politics of Laughter

2025-03-09T00:55:00.001+05:30

I used to think laughter was just laughter. You know, that thing you do when someone slips on a banana peel, or when you realise your entire life is just a series of awkward moments held together by caffeine and bad decisions. But then, while working on theology of Devi Puran and the social construction of power (fancy, right?), I realised: laughter is a weapon. Not the kind you use in a bar fight, but one that humiliates, strips power, and occasionally, starts wars.

The Goddess Who LOL’d at a Demon

Mahishasura, the mighty demon, strutting onto the battlefield, flexing his muscles, feeling invincible. And then—BOOM—Durga enters the scene and lets out the loudest, most epic guffaw ever (अट्टहास, for those who enjoy dramatic Sanskrit terminology). Mahishasura, poor guy, suddenly feels… small. Like a man who just realised his Wi-Fi is down. His confidence crumbles.

That’s the thing about mockery—it’s not just ha-ha funny; it’s uh-oh powerful. Durga wasn’t just laughing for fun. She was making it clear: “Dude, you don’t scare me.” And that, my friends, is terrifying for the person on the receiving end.

Bhavai: Where Society Gets Roasted

If you think this whole laughter-as-power thing is history, think again. Take Bhavai, Gujarat’s folk theatre, where no social norm is safe. Bhavai mocks caste, gender roles, and religion, making audiences laugh at the very things that control their lives. For a moment, the audience feels powerful. “Haha! Look at how ridiculous these traditions are!” Until they go home and realise they still have to follow them. Ah, well. Baby steps.

Why Some People Are Offended by Jokes (Hint: Ego)

You might have heard it : “Oh, come on, it’s just a joke!” But here’s the secret: it’s never just a joke. A joke—especially one rooted in mockery—makes someone feel small. And nobody likes feeling small (except maybe chihuahuas, but they compensate by barking at trucks).

People with big egos struggle the most with this. Their brains just cannot compute the idea that they are not all-powerful. So, they do what any self-respecting egomaniac would do—they get angry. They demand apologies. They ban jokes. They cry about “cancel culture” while trying to cancel comedians.

Women Can Laugh… Just Not At Men

Let’s talk about women and laughter. Because, apparently, there are rules.

Back in the day, Kalidasa wrote about women laughing in royal gardens. It was so magical that trees literally burst into flowers. (Botanists, don’t question this. Just go with it.) Women’s laughter was seen as a sign of joy and security. It was painted on temple walls, sculpted onto Buddhist stupas, and basically celebrated. Yay, happy women!

But.

Women laughing at men? That’s another story.

Remember Draupadi in the Mahabharata? Duryodhana trips and falls into a pool (which, let’s be honest, is objectively hilarious). Draupadi laughs and calls him “the blind son of a blind king.” And BOOM. Duryodhana loses it. His ego is so bruised that he vows revenge, and next thing you know—war, destruction, death. All because of one laugh.

The message? Women laughing = good. Women laughing at men = CURSED FOREVER.

Comedians, Beware: Laughter Can Be Dangerous

Durga knew it. Draupadi knew it. Stand-up comedians know it. When you laugh at something, you take its power away. That’s why comedians mock politicians, society, relationships, and basically anyone who thinks they’re untouchable. And people LOVE it.

But not everyone. Some take offence. They demand bans. No more Sardar jokes. No more jokes about politicians, religions, women, Americans, British people, vegetarians, dog owners, bald men, pineapple on pizza.

And don’t even get me started on female comedians. The moment a woman picks up a mic and starts cracking jokes, people suddenly go, “Eh, women aren’t that funny.” Translation: “I don’t like it when women laugh at things I take seriously.”

Clown Who Outsmarted Everyone

Ancient vidushakas (Sanskrit clowns) knew this. They understood that laughter is violence. So, they flipped the game—they made fun of themselves. They painted their faces, wore ridiculous clothes, and basically said, “Don’t worry, I’m the joke here.” It was a survival strategy. Better to be the fool than to make fools of powerful people.

But modern comedians? Oh, they’re fearless. They believe in freedom of expression, even if it means mocking people who don’t have a sense of humour. But let’s be real—what happens when the king can’t take a joke?

Nothing good, right ? court cases, controversies, outrage, trolling….

So, the next time someone laughs at something that makes you uncomfortable, ask yourself: Are they just being mean? Or are they holding up a mirror? And if you ever find yourself the target of a joke, remember—if you can laugh at yourself, no one can ever take your power away.

Bollywood की अशलील Films

2025-02-27T22:01:00.000+05:30

After reading my previous post on joke outrage on a YouTube show, a reader informed me that the outrage happens because of the internet…I said, No!! it's not medium or even content, it's people and culture!!!

If there is one thing India loves more than Bollywood, it’s being outraged by Bollywood. It’s a national sport, right up there with cricket and arguing with relatives about politics. Every few years, a film comes along that sends the moral guardians of the nation into a collective meltdown. The offense? Maybe a hint of cleavage, an actor uttering a forbidden word, or—heaven forbid—a woman experiencing sexual pleasure without looking guilty about it. The response is as predictable as a Salman Khan movie: protests, vandalism, court cases, and the inevitable PIL (Public Interest Litigation, or, as it should be called, Public Interference Lunacy).

Before Satyam Shivam Sundaram, Raj Kapoor had already scandalised India with Bobby (1973) and Mera Naam Joker (1970). Bobby had parents panicking over Dimple Kapadia’s swimsuit, while Mera Naam Joker shocked audiences with a topless Russian actress (strategically shot, of course). Meanwhile, Guide (1965) caused moral outrage simply because Waheeda Rehman’s character left her husband and pursued independence—an idea so radical that traditionalists nearly burst into flames. Though these films faced resistance, they are now hailed as classics, proving that if a movie sparks outrage, it’s probably just ahead of its time.

My knowledge about Bollywood’s most “scandalous” films begins with 1978, Satyam Shivam Sundaram, a movie so ahead of its time that people are still debating whether it was about spirituality or simply an elaborate excuse to film Zeenat Aman wearing almost nothing. Raj Kapoor, Bollywood’s original showman, decided that sheer fabric was the best way to convey purity, and India had a collective heart attack. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, where highly respectable judges had to sit and analyse whether too much skin was being shown. The verdict? “Art should not be judged by the standards of the prudish.” Translation: Everyone, please calm down.

Of course, nobody calmed down, which is why just a few years later, Raj Kapoor once again found himself in the middle of a scandal with Ram Teri Ganga Maili (1985). This time, the culprit was Mandakini, who had the audacity to bathe under a waterfall while wearing a white sari—an act so offensive that people simply had to keep watching it over and over again just to make sure they were truly outraged. The real scandal, however, came from a breastfeeding scene, because, apparently, the sight of a mother feeding her baby is more disturbing than all the violent, item-song-filled misogyny in Bollywood combined. The censor board, caught between puritan outrage and the film’s massive popularity, initially granted it a ‘U’ (Universal) certificate before suddenly realising their mistake and changing it to ‘U/A.’ A classic case of “Oops, we forgot Indian culture isn’t ready for realism.”

Fast forward to 1994, when Bandit Queen crashed into theatres like an uninvited guest at a family wedding, refusing to be ignored. Based on the life of Phoolan Devi, the film was brutally real and unflinching in its depiction of sexual violence, something Indian audiences weren’t used to unless it was romanticised in the name of love. The Delhi High Court, feeling personally victimised by the film’s raw intensity, promptly banned it, because clearly, the best way to address a problem is to pretend it doesn’t exist. Thankfully, the Supreme Court had a moment of clarity and overturned the ban, reminding everyone that just because something is uncomfortable doesn’t mean it should be censored. The film was released, India gasped, and then promptly moved on to the next controversy.

That next controversy comes in my mind is of Fire (1996), a film so revolutionary that it suggested—brace yourself—women can love women. Predictably, this revelation was too much for certain groups, who took time out of their busy schedule of being offended by everything to attack cinema halls, tear down posters, and demand that the film be banned. Shiv Sena activists, evidently Bollywood’s unofficial film critics, vandalised theatres in Mumbai and Delhi. But then something unexpected happened—audiences fought back. In Kolkata, when protestors tried to disrupt a screening, the theatre owners and viewers refused to back down. For once, outrage lost, and the movie played on, proving that sometimes, cinema wins over censorship.

By the 2000s, Bollywood’s scandals were no longer just about visuals; words, themes, and even casting choices became reasons to riot. Ek Chhotisi Love Story (2002) was supposed to be a coming-of-age romance, but it quickly turned into a full-fledged legal drama when Manisha Koirala sued the director for using a body double without her permission. Bal Thackeray personally took up her cause, because, as everyone knows, Shiv Sena has always been deeply concerned about women’s rights (except when they’re shutting down films for being too feminist). The court case delayed the release, and by the time the film actually hit theatres, nobody really cared anymore.

By the 2010s, Bollywood had evolved (slightly), but outrage had not. The Dirty Picture (2011) was marketed as a biopic but also happened to have Vidya Balan in some incredibly risqué outfits, which meant scandal was inevitable. Silk Smitha’s family filed a case, arguing that the film tarnished her image (as if Bollywood needed a film to do that). Meanwhile, a Hyderabad court, always eager to protect Indian morals, issued an FIR against Vidya Balan for promoting obscenity. In an act of peak hypocrisy, TV channels initially agreed to broadcast the film but then delayed it indefinitely, because apparently, women dancing suggestively is fine in item numbers, but not in a National Award-winning performance.

Meanwhile, Delhi Belly (2011) introduced a new scandal—language. The film featured expletives, casual cursing, and a song that cleverly disguised profanity as lyrics (“DK Bose” fooled approximately zero people). PILs were filed, newspapers declared it the end of Bollywood’s decency, and theatres braced for riots. But instead of outrage killing the film, it made it even more popular, proving that the fastest way to get young audiences into theatres is to tell them a movie is too vulgar to watch.

Then came Jism 2 (2012), which was accused of being a threat to Indian culture not for its content, but for featuring Sunny Leone, an actual former porn star. Never mind that half of Bollywood’s films are one bad decision away from softcore content—this was different, apparently. PILs were filed demanding a ban, protests were staged, and Mumbai authorities even ordered the removal of its posters from public spaces, as if that would stop anyone from watching it.

By 2013, Bollywood had fully embraced the sex-comedy genre, leading to Grand Masti (2013) and Mastizaade (2016), both of which were essentially two-hour-long compilations of innuendos. Courts got involved, FIRs were filed, and yet, the films were still released. Meanwhile, Unfreedom (2015) wasn’t even given a chance. The CBFC outright banned it, claiming that its themes of lesbian love and terrorism were just too much for the Indian public to handle.

But the best controversy of the decade belonged to Lipstick Under My Burkha (2017), a film about female desire that was initially banned because it was “too lady-oriented.” Yes, really. The term became an instant meme, Twitter exploded in protest, and even people who had no idea what the film was about suddenly wanted to watch it. The Film Certification Appellate Tribunal finally stepped in, reversed the ban, and the film was released to critical acclaim, proving that the fastest way to make a feminist movie popular is to try and suppress it.

…and the list goes on!!!

it's not medium or content, it's people’s perceptions that creates an Outrage. Outrage is temporary, but good storytelling lasts. And no matter what, art and bollywood will always find a way to scandalise, because, honestly, it’s just too much fun watching people freak out over a movie.

India's Got a Joke...

2025-02-14T23:43:00.001+05:30

We Indians love a controversy. And this time, it wasn’t over politics, cricket, or Bollywood—it was over a joke. A joke so inappropriate that it sent the internet into full meltdown mode.

At the center of it all? India’s Got Latent, a dark-humor, satirical version of India’s Got Talent, hosted by Samay Raina. The show was known for its edgy jokes, sarcastic commentary, and unfiltered humor—not like our average family-friendly entertainment. Everything was going fine until Ranveer Allahbadia (BeerBiceps) asked that question which broke the internet.

Even for a show that thrives on dark humor, this one was a nuclear-level misfire. Within days, the clip went viral, and outrage poured in. Politicians jumped in, lawyers filed complaints, news channels found their new prime-time topic, and Ranveer found himself the target of an FIR.

In fact, this wasn’t the first time India saw moral policing disguised as law enforcement. Back in 1951, Jawaharlal Nehru introduced the First Amendment, limiting absolute free speech. Why? Because he wanted to control newspapers that were being “too critical” of the government. His justification? Young Indians were being corrupted by vulgarity.

Sound familiar? Because that’s the exact same argument being used today. The government and media aren’t protecting society—they are controlling narratives. The moral outrage is selective, and the enforcement is politically convenient

But here’s the million-dollar question: Was it immoral? Yes. But was it illegal? No...

This is where things get interesting !!

i feel, morality and legality are two very different things. A joke can be distasteful, offensive, and disgusting—but that doesn’t automatically make it a crime. If the law starts punishing "bad taste", where do we stop? Does this mean every adult comedy, dark humor sketch, or even abusive word is a criminal offense?

If morality were the law, half of Delhi would be in jail for cursing in traffic.

This is where the government’s selective outrage becomes obvious. The same people who scream about morality allow explicit content on OTT platforms. The same political leaders who call for bans on comedians have their own history of making problematic comments. Suddenly, when a YouTube joke goes viral, it becomes a “threat to society”, but the actual threats to society—crime, pollution, corruption—go conveniently ignored.

The Constitution’s Article 19(1)(a) protects free speech, but with reasonable restrictions. These include threats to national security, public order, or obscenity. But here’s the kicker—“obscenity” is not clearly defined. It’s an open-ended term, giving the government a free pass to shut down anything it finds inconvenient.

Ranveer’s joke? Immoral? Absolutely.

But illegal? Highly debatable.

If jokes like these are grounds for police action, then entire Bollywood franchises (like Grand Masti and Alt Balaji’s soft porn “content”) should be wiped off the internet.

And yet, here we are.

So why was this joke specifically targeted? Because outrage is a political currency. It’s easy to ban a joke. It’s much harder to fix unemployment, reduce pollution, or improve education. And since no one gets viral engagement by solving real problems, politicians and media houses latch onto the easiest distraction available—an internet scandal.

This cycle keeps repeating. Outrage, FIRs, arrests, then silence. Remember Aryan Khan’s drug case? The nation debated it 24/7—until the controversy was over, and no one actually cared what happened afterward.

The same pattern is playing out here.

So, what do i learn? Morality is subjective, but law should not be. a personal offense cannot be the government’s legal standard. If you don’t like something, criticize it, boycott it, demand an apology. But criminalizing a joke? That’s a slippery slope. Because today, it’s a bad joke. Tomorrow, it could be your opinion that’s deemed illegal.

And that’s not just unfunny—that’s dangerous.

Atmanirbhar Ch Ai na...

2025-01-30T21:48:00.000+05:30

The collapse of the dot-com bubble in the early 2000s and the devastation of the 2008 financial crisis were seismic events in the history of the global economy. However, neither compares to the technological storm that erupted in 2025, reshaping the global power dynamics of artificial intelligence (AI). The U.S. tech sector witnessed an unprecedented market collapse, losing $1 trillion in a single day. At the heart of this disaster was Nvidia, the titan of AI chip manufacturing, which saw $600 billion wiped off its valuation within hours—a scale of destruction never before seen in American corporate history.

The shock did not originate from regulatory crackdowns, economic downturns, or investor panic. It came from an unexpected revolution in AI, orchestrated by a small Chinese company and a handful of engineers who introduced the DeepSeek R1 model—an AI system so efficient and disruptive that it threatened to topple Silicon Valley’s dominance.

DeepSeek R1: The Disruptor of the AI World

DeepSeek’s R1 model shattered conventional assumptions about AI development. Until now, the world believed that advancing AI required massive computational resources, costly AI chips, and billion-dollar investments—the formula mastered by OpenAI, Meta, and Google. DeepSeek upended this paradigm.

Trained on a shoestring budget of just $5.6 million, DeepSeek R1 achieved efficiency levels unheard of in the AI industry. Unlike traditional AI models that require high-precision computing and enormous memory, DeepSeek employed low-memory processing and selective activation of model parameters, drastically reducing hardware needs. It ran on outdated chips and delivered performance that rivaled, and in some cases, exceeded, OpenAI’s latest models.

Beyond its efficiency, DeepSeek R1 was open-source, allowing researchers and developers worldwide to tweak, refine, and deploy the model for their own needs. This marked a significant shift from the closed, proprietary approach of Western tech giants and instantly democratised AI innovation, eroding the monopoly of Silicon Valley.

The implications were immediate and catastrophic for the U.S. AI industry. Nvidia, whose high-end GPUs were considered indispensable for AI training, saw its market advantage disintegrate. OpenAI’s premium-priced AI services were suddenly 30 times more expensive than DeepSeek R1, raising existential questions about the sustainability of its business model. The AI economy, once thought to be an exclusive domain of billion-dollar corporations, had been redefined by a budget-conscious Chinese startup.

China’s Strategic AI Leap: A National Effort

The rise of DeepSeek R1 is not an isolated incident—it is a product of China’s long-term strategy to establish dominance in cutting-edge technology. While the U.S. imposed stringent chip export bans to stifle China’s AI growth, China circumvented these restrictions by developing low-cost, high-efficiency alternatives. DeepSeek’s breakthrough is proof of China’s ability to innovate despite external constraints.

For decades, Western analysts dismissed China’s technological ambitions, assuming that a centrally controlled state could not foster true innovation. However, since the launch of the Made in China 2025 initiative, Beijing has methodically invested in AI, quantum computing, semiconductors, space technology, and renewable energy—transforming the nation into a formidable scientific and technological power.

The results are undeniable:

China’s R&D spending in 2023 reached $723 billion, approaching U.S. levels and exceeding India’s tenfold.
China dominates 80% of global solar module production, making renewable energy cheaper than ever.
In 2024, 60% of global EV sales were in China, while India’s share remained at a mere 2%.
China developed its own space station in 2021, after the U.S. banned Chinese astronauts from the ISS.h
Cina’s hypersonic missile advancements, naval technology, and AI-driven military capabilities now challenge U.S. supremacy.
China is no longer merely competing with the U.S.—in some domains, it is surpassing it.

Where Does India Stand in the AI Race?

Amid this high-stakes technological showdown, India finds itself invisible. The same country that once defied U.S. sanctions to develop the PARAM supercomputer (1991) and indigenous cryogenic engines for space exploration (2014) has now abandoned the AI battlefield entirely.

When Rajan Anandan from Peak XV asked Sam Altman (CEO of OpenAI) in 2023 whether India could build foundational AI models, Altman scoffed—implying that India lacked the capability. Two years later, China disproved Altman, but India remained absent.

The tragedy is not that India lacks resources. Indian IT giants like TCS, Infosys, and Reliance could easily invest the $50–$100 million required for an AI breakthrough. The failure lies in a lack of vision, risk appetite, and a cohesive national strategy. While China aggressively repatriates top AI talent, India celebrates brain drain—boasting about Indian-origin CEOs leading American companies while doing nothing to retain its own innovators.

Moreover, India’s governmental priorities are misplaced. The Ministry of Electronics and IT should be driving AI policy and R&D investments. Instead, the IT Minister tweets about a Coldplay concert, while Indian universities remain preoccupied with non-vegetarian food debates.

Even worse, India’s educational investment is dwindling. The University Grants Commission’s budget was slashed by 61% in 2024, and school enrollments have dropped by one crore. While China marches towards technological leadership, India’s focus remains stuck in historical grievances and cultural rhetoric.

Beyond AI: A Broader Geopolitical Shift

The DeepSeek phenomenon is not just an AI revolution—it is a symbol of the shifting global order. The U.S. and China are engaged in a 21st-century technological cold war, where supremacy in AI, quantum computing, and renewable energy will define global leadership.

China’s trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has expanded Beijing’s trade and diplomatic influence across 150 countries.

In military technology, China has now tested its 6th-generation fighter jets, while the U.S. has kept its own under wraps. Meanwhile, India struggles to deliver 40 Tejas fighters due to supply chain constraints.

In nuclear fusion, China’s EAST reactor set a world record in 2024 by maintaining 100 million degrees Celsius plasma confinement for over 1000 seconds—a crucial step toward clean energy dominance.

These developments illustrate a strategic, long-term approach to global leadership, while India remains reactionary and directionless.

The Path Forward: Urgency for an AI Renaissance in India

India cannot afford to remain a bystander in the global AI race. The time for complacency is over. If India wants to remain relevant in the next technological revolution, urgent and radical policy shifts are required:

National AI Mission: Invest billions into AI research, semiconductor development, and quantum computing.
Talent Retention and Repatriation: Offer competitive incentives to top Indian AI researchers working abroad.
Public-Private Collaboration: Tech giants like TCS, Infosys, and Reliance must spearhead foundational AI model development.
Education Reform: Prioritise STEM education, R&D funding, and scientific literacy over ideological distractions.
Strategic Autonomy in Technology: Reduce dependency on foreign semiconductor imports, replicate China’s self-sufficiency model.

If India fails to act now, it risks falling irreversibly behind in the technological arms race of the 21st century. China has moved ahead. The U.S. is fighting back.

And India? India must decide whether to lead, follow, or remain irrelevant.

Evolution of Khumbh Mela

2025-01-18T21:48:00.002+05:30

Kumbh Mela reveals a side of Hinduism that is often not talked about.

It is not about temples, gods, devotion, songs, or saints.

It is primarily a ritual, dominated by boisterous masculine energy embodied in naked ascetics (digambara).
These ascetics are covered with ash (bhabhut), with matted hair (jata), and hold staffs (dandi).
They belong to various gymnasiums (akhara).
They evoke the followers (gana) of the wild form of Shiva (Bhairava).
It's a ritual gathering, not about meditation or contemplation.
It is about taking a dip in a particular spot in the river at the right time, after it's consecrated by bathing ascetics.
The roots can be argued to be Tantrik, involving the body (tanu, in Sanskrit).
Such rituals happen in many parts of India, where the ash-smeared ascetics congregate.
These ascetics likely originated in the east, in the Terai region, and challenged the Vedic order from the western Punjab region, possibly around 1000 BC. They clashed at Gangadwar, now called Haridwar; an event captured in the Mahabharata where the ascetic Shiva beheaded Daksha, the Brahmin patriarch.
These ascetics (some with skulls) have been known as Pashupata, Kapalika, Kalamukha.They changed over time, becoming milder and influenced by ideas like Nathism, Vaishnavism, even Sikhism.Currently, they are called Naga (from nagna or naked).
The ascetics' wandering calendar is determined by the movement of the moon (every month), sun (every year) and Jupiter (every 12 years) through the Zodiac.
It was known as Kumbh in Haridwar and Simhastha in Nashik when Jupiter was in the Aquarius (Kumbh) and Leo (Simha) constellations.
Calling all gatherings "Kumbh" and linking it to "nectar of immortality" is a branding effort that began after 1857 to reaffirm the Hindu identity, threatened by the new British regime.

The akharas typically trace their origin to Adi Shankaracharya, who popularized Vedanta in the 8th century. He opposed Buddhism, not Islam.
Stories of Adi Shankara's wanderings, resistance, and debates were codified in the 13th century by Brahmin scholars of the Vijayanagar Empire.They saw Hinduism threatened by the arrival of Turks from Central Asia.
Unlike earlier Huna, Saka, and Kushan hordes from Central Asia, these Turks were not just incomers seeking wealth and power. They were seeking to change the local culture, known as "Turuku Dharma."
"Turuku Dharma" involved a formless god, rejection of idols, and a strict form of worship in a community hall, facing west, where caste rules didn't matter. "Turuku Dharma" is now referred to as Islam.
The warrior-ascetic tradition of Hinduism became prominent after 1500 AD in reaction to the rising power of Islam. Mystical musical Sufis were mirrored by mystical musical sants of Hinduism.

Militaristic Ghazis were challenged by aggressive Nagas.
Nagas protected trading caravans and received patronage of kings and merchants, mostly in river basins of Ganga (Haridwar, Varanasi, Prayagraj, Ujjain) and upper Godavari (Nashik).
These zones were contested in the 18th century between the waning Mughal power and the waxing Maratha rule.

Words like shahi and Peshwai reveal Persian-Maratha influence and this culture is not prominent in the South.
Celibacy was key for ascetics, as was caste, though it's currently downplayed.
This celibacy was not mere renunciation as preached by Buddhist and Jain monks but was about power (siddhi).
Siddhi was obtained by retaining and ritually charging bodily fluids, and using the power of mind and mantra to push fluids up the spine to germinate inside the head.
Only men could do this, granting them occult powers.
These powers included walking on water, flying, travel on wild animals, shape-changing, and controlling minds.
These were the original "Jedi" masters, depicted in Tantric Buddhist art of the Himalayan region.
Warrior-ascetics were containers of great power, sought after by kings for military glory.
These medieval ideas, popular since Adi Shankaracharya, are now downplayed, even forgotten.
The power of these warrior ascetics is in their bodily fluids, soaked by special cow-dung ash smeared on limbs which gets washed off during "Shahi Snan." This makes the water special, nectar-like, capable of transforming health and fortune.
The potency is increased by the perfect alignment of stars and planets at the confluence of Ganga (from the sky), Yamuna (terrestrial), and Saraswati (subterranean).

The Kumbh Mela is distinctly male, ascetic, ritualistic, occult, military and royal in nature; about displays of Hindu power.
It is about mighty Bhairava of the mountains, mighty Hanuman of forests, and mighty Dattatreya of the plateaus.
We can couch it in Vedic words like atma (soul) and moksha (liberation) and dharma (order), but it's primarily about siddhi (enlightenment) and shakti (power) revealed in the Tantras.

People, Principles & Progress

2024-12-16T00:44:00.000+05:30

Today, I binged watched an intriguing 2nd season of 'Bandish Bandits.' It sparked questions about why we adhere to societal rules and the consequences of either following or defying them. The series presented a dilemma faced by talented individuals who struggle to balance their principles with societal expectations.

Reflecting on this, I identified three types of people. First, there are those who steadfastly adhere to their principles despite societal pressures, similar to Bhishma. He upheld his vows and principles, even when faced with complex moral dilemmas. However, principles may not always hold true as times change, necessitating reinterpretation.

Second, some individuals, like Krishna, value ethical standards but adapt them to incorporate new ideas and evolving contexts. Such people exemplify the ability to reinterpret ethics to serve the greater good, ensuring relevance and inclusivity.

Lastly, some, like Ravana from the Ramayana, reject existing norms altogether, creating their own values and principles. Though disruptive, such individuals challenge society to re-evaluate and innovate, ultimately fostering progress and diversity.

The act of balancing principles with adaptability, requires wisdom and creates a dilemma to choose over principles or people. Whatever one may choose will have consequences. These consequences are not personal but social, guiding a path of progress for entire humanity.