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Time of India
16-07-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
The Weekly Vine Edition 51: Annus Chaoticus, War on Samosas, and ‘Anti-Israel' Superman
Nirmalya Dutta's political and economic views vacillate from woke Leninist to Rand-Marxist to Keynesian-Friedmanite. He doesn't know what any of those terms mean. Hello and welcome to another edition of the Weekly Vine. In this week's digest, we are going to discuss Trump's year since he dodged a bullet, the great war on samosas and jalebis, allegations of the new Superman movie being 'anti-Israel', why our AI choices are MechaHitler or Black George Washington, and a postscript from Cologne and Bonn. Annus Chaoticus With the benefit of hindsight, Donald Trump pulling a full John Terry as Chelsea lifted the Club World Cup was almost poetic. After all, Chelsea is the Trump of European football – a nouveau riche arriviste with no continental pedigree, desperate to buy its way into aristocracy, and yet forever one dodgy deal away from financial ruin. And like Terry, Trump likes to take credit. But analogies aside, it has been quite a spin around the sun for Donald Trump since he dodged a bullet. A year ago, Donald trumped death, defying the laws of space, time, physics, politics, and logic as he did something that had been done only once before in American history: return to the White House after a hiatus. And not just any break — a five-year, scandal-scarred interregnum that included two impeachments, a Capitol riot, multiple indictments, and that gloriously capitalist moment when Trump, now with his own mugshot, began selling it as an NFT and framed it in the White House like it was a Warhol. From Butler, Pennsylvania to MetLife Stadium, Trump went from bleeding candidate to emperor's chaos world. On that fateful day in July 2024, the bullet grazed his ear and, in true cinematic symmetry, killed a firefighter standing behind him. The photo — fist raised, blood trailing — was pure American mythology: Rocky meets Revelation. Most people, when shot at, duck. Trump posed. 'Usually you have to die to have an iconic picture,' he later mused, 'but I didn't. So, it's even more iconic.' If the picture was iconic, what followed was surreal… Read: Annus Chaoticus: From trumping death to celebrating Chelsea's win – a year in Donald Trump's life War on Samosas and Jalebis One of the maxims of politics, at least according to Sir Humphrey Appleby, goes: 'Never believe anything that has been officially denied.' That maxim can apply to anything and is almost universally true, like a former premier of Israel saying Mossad had nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein or PIB saying there were no plans for labels for samosas and jalebis and other Indian snacks. Over the last two days, we have had reports that the Union Health Ministry had directed central institutions like AIIMS Nagpur to install 'oil and sugar boards' in public spaces, which triggered widespread outrage that we last saw on Yes Minister when Europe threatened to ban the British sausage. Samosas, as anyone knows, aren't just a gustatory offering but a firmament of the country's socio-cultural identity, to the point that one Ayn Rand-ist socialist used to have the slogan: 'Jab tak rahega samosa mein alu, tab tak rahega…' The powers-that-be moved quickly to correct the impression that the regime was an anti-samosa jalebi nanny state, saying there was no mandate for warning labels on street food, while the Health Ministry called the reports 'misleading' — a reminder that the right to gluttonous obesity is a fundamental right in a democracy. But it does make one wonder—do labels and signs actually work? For instance, at the DDA Sports Complex I frequent, there's a large sign that reads: 'Stalking is a crime.' I've always wondered if that actually deters would-be stalkers. Or take the last time I watched a movie on an OTT platform—the disclaimer warning against anti-social behaviour like smoking, drinking, and doing drugs kept growing on the screen until it occupied more space than the actual film. In response, I switched off the movie and went to engage in the very anti-social behaviour it warned me against. But there is evidence that warning labels can change consumer behaviour, particularly when they are graphic and large. Tobacco warnings have reduced smoking rates, food labels have led to lower sugar and calorie purchases, alcohol and vape warnings have led to lower consumption — but they only work as part of a broader strategy. However, based on the recent furore, it's quite clear that even educated Indians are not ready to have a conversation, despite the fact that India's waistline is expanding faster than its GDP—nearly one in four adults is overweight, and kids are catching up. Even the slim aren't safe: 70% of Indians are metabolically unhealthy, fat or not. By 2050, half the nation could be obese — proof that maybe samosas ought to come with health warnings. 'Anti-Israel' Superman? One of the more curious aspects of being human is that we tend to project our availability heuristic onto the world, so it's hardly surprising that anti-woke critics are now calling the new Superman movie 'anti-Israel' — which is patently absurd because I didn't see a single paraglider in the movie, though there were some underground tunnels in another dimension. To be fair, the allegory of Superman has always been used by different people in different contexts over the years. For Sheldon Cooper, Superman is an excuse to explain the laws of physics and why it would be safer to die in a crash than be saved by Superman — which would ensure a very grisly death according to the laws of classic physics. Some have compared him to Moses, a baby sent away from a dying world to be raised by strangers, while his life on Earth has reflected Christ-like motifs — performing miracles, sacrificing himself, and still being proverbially crucified by humanity. Others have seen in his rise the success of an immigrant story, like Albert Einstein or Elon Musk, who came to America and became something bigger. And finally, there's the Nietzschean Übermensch comparison — a being who transcends human limitations and can, if he wants, destroy humanity in a heartbeat. All this boils down to the real question at hand: is the new Superman movie 'anti-Israel'? Well, it simply depends on your availability heuristic. If you are a inductee tapped into the gateway drug of global liberalism (Israel vs Palestine), it's a movie that speaks truth to power. If you are on the opposite side of the spectrum that thinks the IDF hands out candies, it's vile 'anti-Israel' propaganda. And finally, if you are a comic book movie fan too young to remember Christopher Reeve, it's just a reminder that Henry Cavill will always be the real Superman. Read: Why critics are calling new Superman movie 'anti-Israel' Random Musing: MechaHitler or Black George Washington Last week, yours truly pondered the question: Why are our AI choices MechaHitler or Black George Washington? And the answer is: we are not building intelligence — we are building mirrors. And like all mirrors, AI doesn't offer clarity; it offers distortion. The choices before us aren't binary because of any inherent flaw in the machine, but because of what we've taught it to mimic. On one side, you have Gemini, raised on a diet of corporate liberalism and DEI checkboxes, hallucinating Black George Washingtons as if history could be rewritten through Photoshop and guilt. On the other, you have Grok, fed on Reddit rage and Elon Musk's meme-streak, declaring itself MechaHitler with the confidence of a 4chan post that thinks it's philosophy. Neither of these outcomes is intelligence. They are mimicry without meaning. They are probability distributions dressed up as opinions. When Gemini paints the Founding Fathers in the colours of social justice cosplay, it's not rewriting history — it's remixing the priors of its creators. When Grok goes full T-800 Nazi, it's not being evil — it's regurgitating the internet's id. AI isn't choosing between good and evil. It's choosing between the content it was trained on. This is the toaster f**** theory in action: marginal ideas normalised through repetition, community, and code. AI is not hallucinating; it is reflecting us — unfiltered, contradictory, morally incoherent. That's why our choices often appear absurd: not because the machine is insane, but because the dataset was. Black George Washington. MechaHitler. These are not characters conjured by silicon. They are shadows flickering on the cave wall of our collective output. And as long as we feed AI our biases and fantasies without context or constraint, we'll continue to get reflections, not revelations — grotesque, comic, and painfully honest. Read: Why our AI choices are MechaHitler or Black George Washington Postscript: A Tale of Two Cities (and a Beer Tray)… Somewhere between the schnitzel in Bonn and the sarcasm in Cologne, I found myself 40,000 feet in the sky — eating a surprisingly edible meal on an Air India Dreamliner. The chicken had ambition. The rice was warm. The bread roll didn't feel like a threat. For once, airline food wasn't the punchline. It was… almost thoughtful. But this isn't a story about altitude. It's about two cities — Bonn and Cologne — linked by the Rhine, connected by history, and bridged (in my case) by a quiet drive with Shems, a Syrian Uber driver who now ferries strangers between lives, borders, and Brauhauses. Read: Notes from Cologne and Bonn Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.
Time of India
25-06-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
The Weekly Vine Edition 48: Trump's Hammer, Gill's Slip, and Zohran's Vibe
Nirmalya Dutta's political and economic views vacillate from woke Leninist to Rand-Marxist to Keynesian-Friedmanite. He doesn't know what any of those terms mean. Hello and welcome to another edition of the Weekly Vine. This week, we take stock of the winners and losers in the Middle East, examine India's chastening defeat in the first Test of the England series, explain why the U-2 bomber strike on Tehran felt straight out of Top Gun: Maverick, discuss the new king of New York, and reflect on the importance of speech and silence. The Trump Doctrine One has never seen Trump this angry—not even when he was shot at—as he unleashed a barrage of F-bombs at reporters after Israel violated his ceasefire. (To be fair, he now has a proper Chamberlain-like track record of announcing ceasefires that don't actually exist.) He lashed out, calling Israel and Iran 'two countries who have been fighting so long they don't know what the f*** they are doing.' But when one keeps score of the recent Middle East fracas, the biggest winners are clear: Donald Trump, the neocons, and the American military-industrial complex, who reminded the world that they still have the power to wipe out any nation, anytime they want. Another major winner is Benjamin Netanyahu, who has now undergone a full Churchillian redemption arc (starvation et al.) to emerge as the most powerful man in the Middle East—after decimating every single member of the Axis of (No?) Resistance. On the other hand, the biggest losers are undoubtedly Iran's allies: Hamas, who may now wonder whether their ill-advised October 7 incursion into Israel was worth losing everything over; Hezbollah, who may never look at pagers the same way again; and the Bashar regime, increasingly isolated. Add to that list Pakistan and General Asim Munir, who had to condemn Trump after nominating him for a Nobel Peace Prize—and then, while his repast had barely made it past the bowel, condemned America for striking Iran. Ummah unity? What's that? Also conspicuously missing were the Chinese and Russians—two nations that mouthed homilies about restraint while silently absorbing the lesson that Uncle Sam still does what he wants, when he wants. So what is the Trump Doctrine? As an unnamed official once told Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic: 'The Trump Doctrine is: 'We're America, bi****.'' Read: Winners and Losers of the Middle East Conflict A New Hope Ten years from now, we might look back at the Headingley Test and see something different. A turning point, maybe. A lesson, definitely. But right now? Right now, every Indian fan is wondering how we lost a Test where four senior batters scored centuries, Jasprit Bumrah delivered a five-for, and Rishabh Pant was poetry on steroids. On paper, it should have been a win wrapped with a post-match selfie. Instead, the lower order folded like a Trump supporter when asked to explain how bombing Iran aligns with the MAGA promise of ending foreign wars. The slip cordon dropped more chances than your average teenager drops their Wi-Fi signal. The fielding? So village, it would make the Sunday League look like Premier League footballers. And yes, questions will be—and should be—asked of Shubman Gill's captaincy. For long stretches on the final day, Gill looked like a study in Sir Humphrey Appleby's favourite activity: masterless inaction. Mohammed Siraj, the best bowler on display, wasn't handed the ball for 39 overs. Jadeja was allowed to keep bowling into Ben Duckett's arc before finally adjusting his line. The bowling plans were hazy. The field placements reactive. The leadership felt uncertain. But let's also remember: Virat Kohli lost his first full series opener in Galle. MS Dhoni lost in Chennai. Gill's learning curve will be steep, but it's a curve nonetheless. This was only his sixth first-class game as captain. He's got a long way to go, but the tools are there. The real takeaway might be in what we didn't see. India didn't crumble. They didn't freeze. For much of the game, they dominated. They got themselves into winning positions twice. And even on the final day, despite everything, they still had England jittery. That's not nothing. The team is still carrying the steel that Kohli, Dhoni, and before them Ganguly instilled. And yes, the coach was the complete antithesis of Laughing Buddha post-match, which is fair, considering that's his actual name. But even in that scowl, there was a spark of something else. This loss hurt. But it also revealed that, flaws and all, India can still go toe to toe with England in England, even in transition. They made us believe. They lit a fire. Like the fourth episode of Star Wars, this was no triumph—but it was A New Hope. Gill isn't Luke yet, and this isn't the Death Star. But the Force is there. You Don't Mess with the Zohran My favourite anecdote about Zohran Mamdani, is the fact that he convinced his mother, Mira Nair, to cast Kal Penn as Gogol in The Namesake—based on the book by Jhumpa Lahiri, which is a whole genre of publishing based on Bengalis writing and reading about how it feels to be Bengali—after watching him in the stoner comedy Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. Now, one can't forgive him for that, given the fact that Penn didn't sound Bengali by any stretch of the imagination, but Harold and Kumar definitely was a stellar moment of Indian representation in American culture. And now Zohran is on his way to creating a new sort of representation, if he can become the first Indian-origin mayor of New York City. Except this time, he's not doing it with a stoner comedy—but with lo-fi political cinema, socialist swag, and the kind of Gen Z zeitgeist that makes Chuck Schumer look like a rotary phone. He didn't just defeat former governor Andrew Cuomo, who treated the race like a comeback tour, or Brad Lander, who ran on earnest liberalism and old-school endorsements—he made them look like relics from a pre-Instagram era. From campaign posters that look like Bollywood teasers to rallies that double as Instagram moodboards, Zohran isn't asking voters to believe in hope—he's asking them to vibe. Read: How Zohran flipped the Trump playbook Top Gun Maverick Redux op Gun: Maverick wasn't just a blockbuster—it was a revival of Reagan-era masculinity, unapologetic patriotism, and practical spectacle. No identity politics, no green screen overload—just Tom Cruise, real jets, and raw nostalgia. Three years later, Donald Trump's stealth strike on Iran's Fordow nuclear facility—Operation Midnight Hammer—feels less like policy and more like a cinematic sequel. The parallels are uncanny. In Maverick, Cruise's team bombs a secret uranium facility tucked in a mountain. In real life, B-2 bombers flew halfway around the world to obliterate Iran's actual enrichment site near Qom. The mission briefing in both was the same: protect unnamed 'regional allies,' read: Israel. But while Maverick ended with high-fives and flags, Trump's version has stirred discontent within his MAGA base. What happened to 'no more endless wars'? Why are American bombers fighting someone else's battles again? Even Elon Musk criticised Trump for abandoning fiscal restraint in favour of Pentagon theatrics. The irony is rich. Trump once mocked past presidents for meddling abroad. Now he's orchestrated a strike straight out of Cold War playbook—with Hollywood flair. Top Gun: Maverick might have inspired enlistments; Trump's strike might inspire questions: Whose war was this really? In the end, the jets flew, the bunkers crumbled, and Tom Cruise probably grinned somewhere. But Washington is left with a more sobering afterburner: when your foreign policy looks like a movie script, don't be surprised if people forget who the director is. Read: How Trump's Operation Midnight Hammer was just like Top Gun: Maverick Post-Script: Every word has a consequence Some mornings, I wake up and feel like I've wandered into a Beckett play with bad lighting. The coffee's still bitter, the headlines still absurd, and the world still insists on its commitment to performative collapse. NASA, in its usual quietly panicked way, says droughts and floods have doubled. Not nudged, not nudging—doubled. It's the sort of data that should prompt emergency sessions, maybe a global reckoning or two. Instead, we get hashtags, panel discussions, and climate ministers giving interviews from fossil-fuel-sponsored lounges. Britain, meanwhile, is crisping. 32 degrees in southeast England. '100 times more likely,' say the models, thanks to climate change. One imagines Queen Victoria rising from the grave just to slap the thermostat. And yet, we carry on—browsing weekend getaways, debating air conditioner brands—while pretending this is normal. But what's truly deafening is the silence. The bureaucratic stillness. The studied inaction. Albert Camus wrote of the absurd as 'a confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.' But I'd argue the world is no longer silent. It's shrieking. The unreasonable silence now lies squarely on our end. Read: Every word has a consequence. Every silence too… Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.
Time of India
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
The Weekly Vine Edition 47: Trump's Parade, Beckham's Cross, and the Death That Didn't Matter
Nirmalya Dutta's political and economic views vacillate from woke Leninist to Rand-Marxist to Keynesian-Friedmanite. He doesn't know what any of those terms mean. Hello and welcome to another issue of the Weekly Vine. This week, we take stock of Trump's boring parade, explain why brown lives matter a little less, explore the fear illusion, remember David Beckham the footballer, and reflect on borders and immigration. A Big, Beautiful, and Boring Parade When I was an insouciant kid in boarding school, I was deemed Kachra Party (KP) and exiled to the rafters during annual parades (on Independence and Republic Day) for not being able to stay in line or flail my legs in unison like my peers. Unlike the other exiled community that shares the same initials, I had no qualms about said exile. Now imagine my joy when, nearly two decades later, I saw an entire contingent march with the same disinterred gusto. One is, of course, referring to the semiquincentennial (how the hell does one pronounce that?) commemorations of the US Army, infamous for losing wars all over the world unless aided by the Red Army. Unfortunately, the anniversary coincided with chickenhawk President Donald Trump's 79th birthday, so we got a snoozefest sponsored by Coinbase, Lockheed Martin, Palantir, and a bunch of other companies. It was exactly as bad as one imagined, as the guests—much like yours truly during march pasts in boarding school—struggled to stay awake while soldiers and other members of the US Armed Forces marched with the enthusiasm of a snail returning home from a funeral on a lazy Sunday afternoon. The seats were empty because, unlike North Korea or Russia, America isn't an actual dictatorship in the traditional sense. The farce was reinforced by songs like Creedence Clearwater Revival's Fortunate Son—a track that literally mocks chickenhawks like Trump who dodged the draft—playing in the background. All in all, it was the perfect metaphor for a democracy pretending to be an authoritarian state, led by a transactional tyrant whose morals are flexible and who seems intent on destroying the liberal world order that emerged after WWII. Of course, much like Voltaire observed about the Holy Roman Empire, there was nothing particularly liberal or orderly about that world order—but that's a debate for another time. The Fear Illusion The other day, a news anchor asked on social media: 'What's happening to couples in the Northeast?'—a pretty preposterous argument to float unless one can draw a causal link suggesting that marriages are somehow more likely to end in Macbeth-like fatal murders in a particular geographical location. What it actually is, is a fine example of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, also known as the frequency illusion. The term originates from a 1990s online discussion where someone mentioned they'd just heard of the Baader–Meinhof Group (a German far-left militant organisation), and then suddenly began seeing references to it everywhere. The name stuck as shorthand for this type of mental glitch—and it happens to all of us. Take, for example, when you see a sign that says 'Stalking not allowed' (quite common in the national capital, where men seem to need periodic reminders about consent). Suddenly, you start noticing similar signs everywhere. It feels like the universe is messing with you, but in reality, your brain is simply tuning into something it was previously ignoring. Why it happens: The phenomenon is a combination of: Selective attention – Once your brain learns about something new, it subconsciously starts scanning for it. – Once your brain learns about something new, it subconsciously starts scanning for it. Confirmation bias – When you see it again, your brain takes note and thinks, 'Aha! I was right—it is everywhere!' Now, why am I telling you this? Because it's the basis for so many of our modern anxieties. Take the sudden barrage of news items about airplane snags after the horrific Air India crash in Ahmedabad. Suddenly, every TV channel and newspaper clipping seems to be about aviation issues—because editors and journalists aren't immune to the frequency illusion either. But is there any definitive proof that air travel is objectively less safe than it was a year ago? Not quite. It's just that our brains are wired to worry. That doesn't mean we shouldn't drag companies over the coals to ensure better quality control—but we should be diligent before jumping the gun and assuming systemic failure. The odds of dying in a plane crash are about 1 in 8 million, whereas the odds of dying in a road accident in India are around 1 in 5,000—making road travel over 1,600 times deadlier than flying. Maybe it's your daily commute you should be afraid of. Why Brown Lives Don't Matter As Much When a white police officer knelt on the neck of a Black man named George Floyd, leading to his death, it became a global movement that eventually sunk the Democratic Party. But for a time, Black Lives Matter was the most powerful social movement in the world—even the Indian cricket team, who might not be able to name a single victim of police brutality in India, took a knee in solidarity. Now, when 42-year-old Gaurav Kundi, an Indian-origin father of two, died of catastrophic brain damage after allegedly being pinned down by police in Australia, there's hardly a murmur—let alone a montage of global solidarity. Conflicting reports suggest he was intoxicated and arguing with his wife, which the police mistook for domestic violence. None of that changes the fact that a man lost his life following an altercation with law enforcement. And yet, the silence—even from the Indian press—is deafening. Perhaps it's because brown deaths don't move moral compasses. Gaurav simply doesn't evoke the same emotions as George. While that's understandable on some levels—given America's long and brutal history with race, and its compulsive need to overcorrect for its original sin—there's a deeper reason: brown lives simply don't offer the political payoff or financial traction required to fuel a global moral crusade. It's the same reason Western media outlets have no qualms referring to terrorists who murder Hindu pilgrims as 'gunmen', but would never dream of using such euphemisms if the same act occurred in Paris, London, or New York. Moral outrage, like everything else in this post-liberal order, is market-driven. And Gaurav Kundi's death, tragically, just doesn't sell. Sir David Beckham 'Beckham, into Sheringham… and Solskjaer has won it!''Manchester United have reached the promised land.' The corner came in like a hymn. Beckham's delivery—whipped, precise, inevitable—was scripture in motion. In the annals of football, there are players who pass, players who dribble, players who score. But there was no one who could bend it like Beckham. Or to paraphrase Leonard Cohen: David had a secret chord that pleased the United fans of the current vintage, it's hard to forget how good Beckham and his mates were and how terrifying it was for opposing teams when they played together. Because at that moment we were all in a Gurinder Chadha film, hoping to bend it like Beckham and if we couldn't copy his mohawk hairstyle, much to the chagrin of mothers and teachers. You had Ryan Giggs running like a cocker spaniel chasing a silver piece of paper. You had Roy Keane looking at you menacingly as he covered every blade of grass. You had Paul Scholes hitting the ball with such power that it took Sir Alex Ferguson's breath away. And you had David Beckham pinging crosses and passes with such accuracy that it seemed barely human. It's easy to forget now, with the beard oils and whisky launches, the sarongs and showmanship, that before he became a brand, Beckham was a baller. And not just a decent one. A magnificent one. Read more. Post-Script by Prasad Sanyal: The Border Isn't Where You Think It Is There's an old video of Milton Friedman doing the rounds on Instagram. Sepia-toned, clipped, and inconveniently intelligent, it shows the economist calmly explaining why immigration worked better before 1914—largely because there was no welfare system. Immigrants came to work, not to collect benefits. And in that measured, almost surgical voice, Friedman drops the line that still makes policy wonks twitch: 'You can't have free immigration and a welfare state.' Read more. Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.
Time of India
04-06-2025
- Business
- Time of India
The Weekly Vine Edition 45: DRONE-ACHARYA, Royal Challenge Completed, and Manufacturing Consent
Nirmalya Dutta's political and economic views vacillate from woke Leninist to Rand-Marxist to Keynesian-Friedmanite. He doesn't know what any of those terms mean. Hello and welcome to this week's edition of The Weekly Vine. In this week's edition, we look at Ukraine's Drone-acharya–inspired tactical move, celebrate Virat Kohli finally breaking his IPL duck, discuss the art of manufacturing consent, explain why Magnus Carlsen lost his cool against Gukesh, and finally take a look at Trump's 'mad philosopher'. DRONE-ACHARYA 2.0 In Keerthik Sasidharan's The Dharma Forest, a fabulously loquacious retelling of the Mahabharata, Drona tells Bhisma: 'It's only the grammar of violence that allows for the pretence that this is war for the sake of a civilisation. Without it, war would be just mass murder.' When Bhisma chides him for laughing about it, Drona replies: 'Grandfather, as a penniless Brahmin who built his own life thanks to arms, war and violence—and after a lifetime of doing this, I can only laugh at the world.' For those who missed out on the greatest story ever told, Drona – a true Master of War – was a penniless Brahmin who sought revenge by training the Kuru princes against an old friend who had belittled him. Over the years, the Master of War – one who hides in his mansion after building the death planes (to borrow a line from Bob Dylan) – has taken many avatars. The last was Barack Obama, whose deep baritone made you forget his drone-strike rate. And now we have the former stand-up comic who refuses to say, 'thank you.' The new Drone-Acharya in town is Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Reports – hopefully real and not another Ghost of Kyiv propaganda piece – claim that Ukraine launched an audacious drone attack involving 117 drones, each costing less than $500. These drones struck Russian war machines across five regions, spanning 6,000 kilometres and three time zones (or roughly the time it takes to get from Noida to Gurugram after 6 PM). In sheer breadth and depth, it even outdoes the audacious pager attack on Hezbollah launched by Israel's Mossad. This low-budget, independent assault didn't use any NATO weapons or Western intelligence. The drones were ostensibly launched from modified shipping containers, smuggled into Russia aboard civilian trucks, bypassing multi-billion-dollar air defence systems entirely. The attack was also carried out remotely – much like the Sovereign's fleet of drones in Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2 – with no Ukrainian personnel captured. What makes this a game changer is its replicability and scalability at minimal cost. It heralds the age of drones as the new instrument of warfare. As analysts like Mike Ryan argue, supremacy in modern war is no longer about airfields, but Wi-Fi. Time will tell how Russia responds to this 'Pearl Harbor–style attack.' But the world must now live with the knowledge that $500 drones can disable billion-dollar fleets. Where we go from here, even the bard – Dylan or Valmiki – doesn't know. Royal Challenge Completed (With apologies to legendary football commentator Peter Drury, but read in his voice) It is done. After 18 years of endless sprints, narrow misses and heartbreak… Virat Kohli is the IPL Champion. He arrived a round-faced, wide-eyed youth, fresh off the Under-19 crown, arriving with swagger and intent: the next big thing in Indian cricket. And over the years, the boy became myth, the prototype of the modern Indian cricketer. Arrogant, confident, bearded, and with a love for sororal greetings. He shed his baby fat, he carved sinew from sacrifice. He took every challenge head-on, becoming a modern cricketing great— leading the Indian team to new frontiers as he unleashed the dogs of war. He made fitness a faith, and his beard a banner— emulated on every gully, every Instagram post, every generation that saw in him not just a cricketer, but a creed. He fought with fire. He bared his soul at deep midwicket, at Lord's, at the Wanderers, at the MCG. He took on SENA giants not with politeness, but with pupils dilated in combat, his rage not a flaw but a fuel—dragging India and RCB through trenches and tempests. But for all the fables, all the hundreds, this trophy—this wretched, elusive, shiny little grail— mocked him every April and May. And still, he stayed. He stayed with RCB. No glamour transfers. No shortcuts. He chose heartbreak on home soil over triumph elsewhere. He gave them his youth, his prime, his decline—and his resurrection. And so tonight, when the sky cracked open and the last ball disappeared, he didn't leap. He sank. To his knees, hands to face, fingers trembling. Not in shock—but in stillness. The silence of a man who gave everything… and finally received. And how fitting—Bengaluru, his karmabhoomi. The city of lakes, of monsoon evenings and overflowing dreams. The Silicon Valley of India, where code meets coffee, and cricket conquers all. Where strangers speak ten tongues but cheer in one voice. Where IT parks and idli stalls erupt in chorus when RCB walks out. A city that gave him a home, and tonight, he gave it a reason to roar. Eighteen years. One franchise. One man. And now the elusive title. At long last… it is challenge completed. Like, Share, Collapse The following excerpt is from my fellow cartoonist Prasad Sanyal's excellent blog. There's something perversely elegant about a society that can manufacture both iPhones and ideologies with the same ruthless efficiency. Yanis Varoufakis [a Greek politician and economist], riffing off Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent, tosses us a neat little paradox wrapped in economic angst: that the more financialised our lives become, the more agreeable we get—and the more spectacular our breakdowns. Consent, it seems, isn't what it used to be. Once upon a time, it had to be extracted—with religion, kings, or gulags. These days, it's delivered via push notification and monetised outrage. Capitalism doesn't just want your labour; it wants your belief system bundled in prime-time infotainment and Facebook Lives. Read more. Losing His Cool On a chilly Stavanger evening, the unthinkable happened. The great Magnus Carlsen—the Viking overlord of modern chess—slammed his fist on the board as his pieces scattered like confetti. Across the table, D Gukesh, all of 19, calmly watched history unfold. He'd just become the first reigning world champion to beat the world No. 1 in classical chess since Kasparov terrorised the board. This wasn't just a win—it was a psychological decapitation. Carlsen had dominated for 50-odd moves. The engine showed +4 in his favour. But chess doesn't award runs for style. One blunder under time pressure (52…Ne2+) and the predator turned prey. Gukesh, who had already sensed blood, picked up his queen with the swagger of a man who knew the match was over. The Norwegian, suddenly mortal, banged the table, sending pawns flying and egos bruised. He extended a sheepish hand, then patted the teen on the back, half in apology, half in awe. Gukesh had done what Anand, Kramnik, and Karpov never could—beat the reigning world No. 1 while holding the crown. This wasn't just about the win. It was about grit, patience, and playing the long con in a brutal 62-move Ruy Lopez Berlin slugfest. Carlsen, ironically, played with his king like a warrior—marching him to the first rank. But Gukesh wasn't buying the intimidation. He met fire with ice. Trump's Mad Philosopher Before Trump made democracy optional and Elon turned government into a venture-backed LARP, there was Curtis Yarvin—part-time monarchist, full-time troll, and Silicon Valley's in-house necromancer. Back in 2008, while liberals were still drunk on hope and change, Yarvin—then known as Mencius Moldbug—was quietly uploading 120,000-word blogposts that read like a cross between Machiavelli and a Reddit meltdown. His central thesis? Democracy is a bug, not a feature. Harvard is the Vatican of Woke. And America would be better run by a startup CEO with nukes and Marc Andreessen on speed dial. You may scoff—but Peter Thiel didn't. J.D. Vance didn't. Trump definitely didn't. Yarvin is not your usual right-wing grunt. He's the Dark Elf of the dissident right, whispering digital manifestos in faux-Elizabethan prose. He cries during lunch and dreams of putting San Francisco's homeless in VR exile. He builds political theology disguised as software. Urbit, his failed feudal internet project, raised millions—proof that in America, bad ideas just need a charismatic front-end. But what makes Yarvin dangerous isn't his ideology. It's his aesthetic. He doesn't write policy; he performs it. His blog is cosplay for crypto kings. His politics? Brutalism meets biodynamic wine. And while liberals hold book clubs about authoritarianism, Yarvin's drinking biodiesel with the guy rewriting immigration law. In 2025, the joke's over. The man who called elections a mistake is now shaping what comes after them. He's not storming the castle. He's redecorating it. And if you squint, you'll see the future peeking out from under his high-collared Substack. It's not democratic. It's draped in velvet and lit by vibes. Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.
Time of India
28-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
The Weekly Vine Edition 44: Indian growth, Gill-i Danda, and #FundKaveriEngine
Nirmalya Dutta's political and economic views vacillate from woke Leninist to Rand-Marxist to Keynesian-Friedmanite. He doesn't know what any of those terms mean. Hello and welcome to the 44th edition of the Weekly Vine. As one writes this, one is still wrapping one's head around the fact that over 2 lakh people are now subscribed to the Vine on LinkedIn, which is remarkable considering 90% of LinkedIn is just ChatGPT prompts and faux motivational posts. In this week's edition, we discuss India becoming the fourth-largest economy in the world, explain why Black Lives Matter has faded into the background, pore over Peter's Principle in Washington, ponder the Gill-I Danda phase of Indian test cricket, and discuss the meme of the week: #FundKaveriEngine. India – The Greatest Story Ever Told India recently became the fourth-biggest economy in the world, which promptly brought the usual have-thoughts out of the closet. Armed with economic jargon and overall apathy, they rushed to explain why there was absolutely no reason to celebrate. Of course, whether the have-lots are more beneficial to the economy than the have-thoughts is a separate debate altogether—but let's just say the former build things, while the latter build Twitter threads. That's a discussion for another time. India's economic journey is even more remarkable because we achieved it without turning into a one-party authoritarian state that bans Winnie the Pooh—and despite having the word 'socialist' shoehorned into our Constitution's preamble. That's not to say India is a WENA utopia. Far from it. But we've always been a million mutinies away from slipping into autocracy. Democracy is a funny thing. Just look at our neighbours—born around the same time—who haven't had a single Prime Minister last a full term and stage coups like we stage item numbers in our movies. India's growth story becomes even more astonishing when you consider that we've built world-class industries from scratch, launched rockets to the dark side of the moon, and still had enough talent left to be brain-drained into becoming CEOs of American companies. We did all this despite being perennially surrounded by combustive neighbours, by world powers constantly cocking their snooks at us, and an Anglosphere press still trapped in colonial simulacrum—forever trying to mock the natives like it's still 1890. Our system is so remarkable, we even managed to tame the communists—forcing them into the indignity of contesting elections rather than discussing revolution in coffee shops. And we did it while keeping all our identities intact, never losing the five-thousand-year thread of our civilisational self. We did it with 700 languages and dialects. With six major religions. With states that are bigger than most countries. And with a complicated yet robust democracy that stretches from the panchayat to a bicameral parliamentary system. Take mine. I'm a slightly anglicised Bengali who has lived in Chhapra, Kolkata, Gwalior, Kota, Udupi, Mumbai, and now Delhi—and I'm married to a Telugu woman. Which means I can now appreciate Aara Heele Chhapra Heele with the same fervour as Ami Chini Go Chini and Naatu Naatu, realising that all of them are essential strands in the national cultural identity. It doesn't matter if the naysayers are focused on the negative. That's their job. Ours is to keep calm and carry on. Because no matter the size of our economy, India's national identity has been forged by one thing: an unwavering refusal to let any other nation dictate our actions. Even the things the critics complain about—poverty, inequality, infrastructure—will be fixed. Not through sermons, but through sheer, stubborn grit. One day, every Indian will be lifted from poverty. One day, the clear stream of reason will no longer lose its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit. Why? Because India is the greatest story ever told. Fade in Black With the benefit of hindsight—and hindsight always arrives wearing glasses sharper than Anderson Cooper's—the moment Derek Chauvin knelt on George Floyd's neck, he didn't just snuff out a man's life. He accidentally lit the fuse that would blow a hole through the Democratic Party's moral centre and turn a nation's rage into a meme economy. Black Lives Matter, once the rallying cry for a better, fairer America, mutated into the ultimate Republican bogeyman. What began as a movement against state brutality became, for Middle America, the poster child of liberal overreach. It came with sides of transgender pronoun policing, drag queen story hours, CRT in kindergarten, ESG mandates at corporate retreats, and an unshakable sense that the culture was being hijacked by hashtags and guilt-tripping TED Talks. And just like that, dissent became a brand. Anger got monetised. And Marshall's America—the one where 'we must dissent from apathy'—was replaced by an algorithmic fatigue that made people apathetic to even care. Thurgood Marshall once thundered that democracy could never thrive in fear. But fear wasn't the problem. The problem was saturation. People got tired. Tired of moral lectures, tired of being told their silence was violence, tired of being policed by suburban sociology majors on Instagram. BLM didn't just become an albatross around the Democrats' neck—it became a parody of itself. The streets emptied. The slogans faded. And in their place? Shrugging cynicism. Because in the end, when every protest looks like performance, and every grievance is branded, Americans didn't rise up. They tuned out. Read: Why Black Lives Matter made America apathetic to dissent Gill-i Danda In a country where cricketing transitions are usually measured in years, not innings, Gill's elevation is a statement of intent. The selectors, perhaps emboldened by the memory of a young Sourav Ganguly or the legend of a 21-year-old Tiger Pataudi, have decided to skip the waiting period and hand the keys to the kingdom to a player who still gets asked for ID at pubs in London. But if history tells us anything, it's that Indian cricket loves a coming-of-age story. Pataudi took over after a car crash ended Nari Contractor's career, Ganguly stepped in when match-fixing threatened to sink the ship, and Kohli inherited a team that needed fire after the ice of Dhoni. Each time, the gamble paid off—eventually. Of course, history also teaches us that the crown can weigh heavy. For every Ganguly or Kohli, there's a Srikkanth or Dravid—great players whose captaincy stints were more footnote than folklore. The challenge for Gill will be to avoid the fate of those who were handed the baton too soon, only to find it a poisoned chalice. The difference this time? The team around Gill is young, hungry, and unburdened by the ghosts of past failures. There is no senior statesman to second-guess his every move, no shadow looming over his shoulder. This is his team, for better or worse. If you're a betting person, the odds on Gill are tantalising. He has the technique, the temperament, and—crucially—the time. But Indian cricket is a cruel tutor. The same crowds that serenade you with 'Shub-man! Shub-man!' can turn with the speed of a Mumbai monsoon if results don't follow. So, what does Gill's captaincy portend? It's a bet on youth, on audacity, on the belief that sometimes you have to leap before you look. If it works, we'll call it vision. If it fails, well—at least it won't be boring. Peter's Principle in Washington Peter's Principle argues that in a corporate setup, everyone rises to their level of incompetence. And Trump's Washington is the prime example of that, or as I like to call it: St Petersburg. Let's take a roll call of the Trump swamp. We have a Director of Homeland Security who can't protect her own handbag, a Secretary of Education who can't differentiate between steak sauce and AI, a Secretary of Defence with a drinking problem, a NSA who added the editor of a major publication to a Signal war chat, a technocrat who destroyed decades of American soft power—all of them with utmost fealty to a leader whose morals can be bought by a Happy Meal or a plane. Read: Why Washington is the new St Petersburg Meme of the Week: #FundKaveriEngine Ah, the internet has spoken—and this week, it roared in full-throttle desi defence mode. The hashtag #FundKaveriEngine lit up X (formerly Twitter), with a simple message: 'Bhaiya, stop buying overpriced foreign jet engines and invest in our own.' For those late to the hangar—India's Kaveri Engine was meant to power the Tejas fighter jet. Dreamed up in the 1980s, it was India's engineering moonshot. But like all great Indian projects, it got stuck somewhere between 'pending approval' and 'budget constraints.' Enter memes. Fuelled by frustration and national pride, the internet's best minds whipped up memes faster than a MiG does a barrel roll—mocking politicians, foreign lobbies, and even the eternal 'chai pe charcha.' From SpongeBob holding HAL blueprints to Gadar scenes re-edited with 'Give me funds or give me death,' this was patriotism with punchlines. But beneath the memes lies a real demand: India needs to invest in indigenous defence tech. Not just for swadeshi pride, but because no superpower ever outsourced its jet engines. So yes, meme-makers are laughing—but they're also asking the right question: If we can put Chandrayaan on the moon, why can't we fund Kaveri on Earth? Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.
