Idhar Udhar Ki Baat

“Kon sa nasha karte hain yeh gore? (I wonder which dope these white people are on?)” I said to myself when I heard Peter Navarro remark that Brahmins are profiteering from Russian oil. Such statements are not arrogance. They are usually the result of half-knowledge applied with full confidence. They may have understood parts of Latin America. They may have influenced Venezuela. But Asia is not a spreadsheet. It is a civilisational system. Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iran—even Iraq—have already demonstrated what happens when outsiders underestimate belief systems and societal resilience. India was once fooled by the East India Company. Not because we were weak, but because we were too civilised—shishtachar came naturally to us. But that India is gone. Today, even a villager in the remotest area wakes up, checks his mobile, and starts his day by dissecting the sarpanch on WhatsApp. This is not indiscipline. This is awareness. We joke about Brahmins, but we respect them deeply. The...

I watched the movie Guns of Navarone in 1977. In those days watching Inglish movies was fashionable. The routine was simple. Laugh when others laughed, clap when something exploded, and later discuss the great fights and blasts as if we had understood everything. Looking at the map was never part of the exercise. Not entirely my fault though. I was only twelve and studying in a Hindi-medium school where the Mediterranean Sea was known only as Bhumadhya Sagar . Geography meant remembering rivers and capitals, not understanding why countries fought wars. Years later I learnt something interesting: wars are rarely about anger. They are almost always about geography. In one of those strategic lectures I heard,“ Baku is one of the most important places on earth.” I opened the map. And immediately dismissed the idea. Baku looked like a small projection sticking into the Caspian Sea. It hardly looked like the centre of global strategy. But war has a strange way of teaching geogr...

  I hope the current Iran War doesn't get into a scene as shown on the sketch. A Fable written on Ofghan experience of U ASS is given below. Not very long ago there was a lion in a jungle. His name was U AAS. He had contained his rivals, so he became hegemonic and started acting as a self-appointed policeman. In the same jungle there was a fox called Paak. Paak was living in penury and had lost his house in an earthquake. One day he moved into the den of U AAS. When Paak saw U AAS approaching he spanked his three children (Taliban, Al Qaida and Nuclear Card). The children started wailing.  “Don’t cry my dear children today I can’t get you lion’s flesh as lion seems to have gone out somewhere. You will have to feed on elephant’s flesh,” said Paak.  U AAS got shit-scared. He wondered there must be some monster who has the guts to occupy his house. The kids of that monster want to feed on lion’s flesh. He quietly moved away.  All this was being watched by a monk...