the.si

On Twitter because the news channels almost had me convinced that internet existed in Mahabharata.

[the.si @freakycharkha]

A thread on the reality of the devastation of #ClimateCrisis

[the.si @freakycharkha]

@_subiii_ Can this be pasted on billboards across the city ?

[the.si @freakycharkha]

@Honest_Cric_fan You guys think you are being sarcastic. Wait till you see this being actually shown on news, whatsapp and rally videos as truth.

[Tony Joseph @tjoseph0010]

@objectivismirl Dr. Singh had the wisdom to rope in people of equal intellectual calibre. Unfortunately, his successor followed the same principle! 😳

[the.si @freakycharkha]

@jasveer10 Okay at least for the rush to board at the gate I know the reason. You will not get space to keep luggage in your overhead compartment if you are late, even if it's just one small backpack.

[sohit mishra @sohitmishra99]

The Tukaram Mundhe impact is clearly visible in Mumbai.. Posters and banners almost outside every restaurant assuring people and authorities that they are following FSSAI norms... it's great to see one man impacting the entire food industry.. imagine if all officials start taking their job seriously.. or is it too much to ask? @Tukaram_IndIAS

[the.si @freakycharkha]

@brarrmandeep The entire idea of attributing the violence to Martians was wonderful.

[the.si @freakycharkha]

@KantInEastt These old buses are pretty polluting. The otherwise clean and amazing environment, reeks of diesel fumes from these buses. Having said that, Sri Lankans have some penchant for cleanliness. The country is a treat to walk around

[Apurva M Asrani @Apurvasrani]

I’m still not sure about the Congress party or its politics, but this man is good, kind and gentle. Ironically, those were the very qualities he was ridiculed for in the ‘Pappu’ campaign that took off after the disastrous Arnab Goswami interview in January 2014.

As a film editor, I knew right then that the interview had been maliciously edited to make him look like a fool (I could write a book on that interview). I said as much at the time, but my voice was drowned out by a strong BJP IT cell working in overdrive.

That bubble has long since burst. Rahul Gandhi has emerged stronger, more relentless, and undoubtedly a far more astute politician than his detractors gave him credit for.

What I find most heartening is that he hasn’t become like those he opposes. He didn’t trade away his decency or his gentleness to take on the brutes. In today’s politics, that may be his greatest strength.🌸
@RahulGandhi @INCIndia

[Sandeep Manudhane @sandeep_PT]

Pratap Bhanu Mehta, who mainstreamed Modi in Indian intellectual circles in early 2010s (like Dhume and Gurcharan Das and many more), now is questioning Millennials and Gen X.
He also needs to see the mirror once, perhaps.

BTW, this is what he says in this piece (pretty mundane and basic actually) -
1) Gen Z’s anger is not only against the Modi government or politicians; it is against a wider social and institutional system that has failed them.
2) Their demands are basic, not revolutionary: fair examinations, quality education, jobs, equal opportunity and institutional accountability.
3) This generation is refusing to accept fear, silence and obedience as the price of survival or career advancement.
4) Many parents encouraged their children to avoid activism, focus on private careers and trust economic growth to bring security and progress.
5) That promise has broken down: careers are uncertain, opportunities are unequal, examinations are unreliable and institutions have lost credibility.
6) Governments are responsible, but institutions were also weakened through countless compromises by professionals, officials, academics, business leaders and ordinary citizens.
7) The deeper message is that parents must acknowledge their own politics of accommodation and help rebuild institutions based on integrity, fairness and public responsibility.

Hmm.

[the.si @freakycharkha]

@PrayRona_ Thankfully, finally someone said this. Sashwat Sachdeva is just a better Badshah.

[the.si @freakycharkha]

@pranesh Almost all right wings don't have the capability to 'think'

[the.si @freakycharkha]

@parashah91 Iffalcon by TCL, 7 years now.

[the.si @freakycharkha]

@shristhikhanna As humans it's easier to organize around fascism because it legitimizes victimhood, especially when it doesn't exist. Liberalism, leftism requires you to do some work, more importantly come out of your comfort zone. That's why hardcore leftists don't horse-trade unlike the rest.

[the.si @freakycharkha]

@NHAI_Official A defining legacy of this regime will be the absolute decay of once credible nation building institutions. Institutions who are now so arrogantly incompetent that they will flaunt it over the internet.

[the.si @freakycharkha]

@pranavpradhi1 All the examples you have cited belong to the 0.1 % privileged class of India. I believe they are all right wing & their liberalism is mere pretense. No Saket, Twinkle or Parakala will ever be on the streets to make change happen

[the.si @freakycharkha]

@Control_Krishna Not sure why this video is getting hate? They are the cast of Khosla ka Ghosla and ideologies aside, each of them came together to make a spectacular movie. Also, I doubt that Boman Irani & Parvin Dabbas share the other's ideology.

[Rahul Gandhi @RahulGandhi]

I stand with the last person in the line. The exploited, marginalised and the persecuted. Their religion, caste or beliefs matter little to me.

I seek out those in pain and embrace them. I erase hatred and fear.

I love all living beings.

I am the Congress.

[the.si @freakycharkha]

@VidyaKrishnan It's okay to party when everyone else has made it safely. The images & videos of party come up in parallel to news of protestors stranded, news of protestors and students all across India being arrested, having FIRs filed against them. Hence, the problem.

[the.si @freakycharkha]

Musk, Vembu are proof that even the wealthiest are not immune to the pitfalls of social media. Just because you have the ability to humiliate yourself in less than 280 characters, publicly, for historical records, does not mean you absolutely should.

[Chief.07 चिफ.०७ 𑘓𑘱𑘣.𑙐𑙗 @above_thenoise_]

i have been watching and listening to his media bites again and again. i don't know mohammad irfan personally. but every time he speaks, he leaves behind a silence that's difficult to shake off. he represents an india that millions still inhabit. the india beyond our metropolitan bubbles, beyond expressways, airports and glass towers. the india of villages, slums and forgotten settlements, where deprivation isn't an exception; it's inherited. generation after generation.

what moves you isn't just the hardship he describes. it's the complete absence of bitterness. there is no self-pity, no performative anger, no attempt to sensationalize his pain. he speaks with remarkable dignity, asking for things that should never have been extraordinary in the first place. good schools, functioning hospitals, decent roads, employment, clean water and a life of dignity. and he isn't asking only for himself. every sentence carries the weight of countless others whose lives look exactly like his.
perhaps this is also why debates around reservation often miss the point.

reservation was never designed to compensate for poverty alone. it exists because generations of social exclusion have produced generations of unequal opportunity. merit does not emerge in a vacuum. it is shaped by the school one attends, the nutrition one receives, the neighbourhood one grows up in, the discrimination one faces and the opportunities one is denied. when disadvantage itself is inherited, equality cannot be measured only at the finish line. and his story is not merely about economic hardship. it is about what decades of unequal development look like through the eyes of someone who still manages to smile. he speaks without ideology or slogans. he simply narrates life as he has lived it. and somehow, that simplicity makes his words far more powerful than any political speech.

when the interview ends, nothing really ends for mohammad irfan. the cameras leave. the headlines move on. social media finds its next outrage. but he returns to the same road, the same neighbourhood, the same uncertainty and the same struggle that his parents lived with before him.

the real tragedy is not that mohammad irfan has a story to tell. the real tragedy is that his story is so painfully ordinary. there are millions like him across this country whose names we will never know, whose lives will never become headlines, and whose children may inherit the very same struggle. not because they lack courage or hard work, but because they were born into a reality they never chose.