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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
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
The Weekly Vine Edition 40: Canada picks an adult, 100 days of Trump, and man vs gorilla
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 40th edition of The Weekly Vine. In this edition, we take stock of the Canada election, reflect on one hundred days of the Trump era, marvel at the surreal montage in Sinners, lament the fate of 14-year-olds who now have to compete with Vaibhav Suryavanshi, and tackle the question on everyone's mind: can 100 men defeat a gorilla? Canada picks an adult There's a popular maxim that goes: Once you go woke, you go broke. The opposite is also true — go unwoke, go unbroke. I apologise to Professor Henry Higgins for butchering the Queen's English, but a lot has changed in Canada since Justin Trudeau finally threw in the maple-scented towel and handed the Liberal reins to Mark Carney — a man so beige he makes porridge feel exotic. And yet, against all odds, he pulled off Mission: Implausible — winning in the age of Trumpian populism. Of course, it helped that Trump treated Canada like a rebellious province and tried to annex it via maple syrup tariffs. Let's rewind. Trudeau, once the glossy mascot of progressive politics, became an international cautionary tale. His pièce de résistance? Picking a fight with India over the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar — a man who, let's be polite, wouldn't pass the airport background check in most countries. Trudeau accused India of state-sponsored murder with the confidence of a man who gets his intel from Reddit, offering no real proof, just vibes and vote-bank panic. The result? A diplomatic meltdown. High commissioners were expelled. Visas got the deep freeze. Indo-Canadian relations went from 'cordially strained' to Saas-Bahu acrimony. But Trudeau was already past his expiry date. His cabinet was diverse in all the performative ways that didn't matter. His policies produced real estate chaos, immigration logjams, and groceries priced like Tiffany jewellery. For all his gender parity and photo-op feminism, Trudeau became what all filtered ideologues eventually become: a glossy contradiction held together by hashtags and hollow mantras. And when you're paying nine bucks for milk, no one cares about your Vogue spread from 2017. Enter Mark Carney — ex-banker, walking sleep aid, and Canada's most powerful anti-Trudeau. His rallies had all the excitement of a quarterly earnings call, but that was the appeal. No silk kurtas. No sanctimony in six languages. Just a guy promising to make Canada boring again. And sovereign — especially after Trump, freshly reinstalled in the Oval Office, suggested Canada should join the US as the 51st state and started taxing maple syrup like it was meth. Carney's secret weapon? Subtraction. He subtracted Trudeau. He subtracted Jagmeet Singh. Most critically, he subtracted the Khalistani freeloaders who thought Canadian politics was just an extension of WhatsApp radicalism. For years, they strummed the sitar of multiculturalism, pushing martyr posters and campaign donations like they were handing out prasad. The NDP collapsed to seven seats. Jagmeet lost his own. The Liberals surged. The Conservatives tripped over themselves. And the fringe? Finally treated like fringe. So yes, once you go unwoke, you go unbroke. But more importantly, you go adult. Canada didn't just reject populism — it rejected performance politics, diaspora cosplay, and Trudeau's selfie-soaked diplomacy. In electing Mark Carney — a man with the emotional range of a frozen waffle — Canada did something radical. It chose competence over charisma. And boredom over melodrama. And that, ladies and gentlemen, might just be the most grown-up thing a democracy can do. 100 days of Trump When Donald Trump was crowned Time Magazine's Person of the Year (again), SNL's Colin Jost groaned, 'No goddamn person has taken so much of our time.' And the 100 days of Trump certainly feels like that — long, loud, and surreal. Trump's first 100 days back in office have been as memorable as the Hundred Years' War, only dumber, louder, and with worse spelling. In 100 short, chaotic, exhaustingly over-reported days, he gutted student visas, turning higher education into a deportation lottery, tanked the global economy with tariffs based on an imaginary economic formula that cannot make sense to any sort of sane person or functioning calculator, hired people who can't handle encrypted group chats or their designer handbags in sensitive national security posts, or even know the difference between artificial intelligence and A1 steak sauce, and — most predictably of all — hasn't stopped a single war anywhere on Earth. He has made everyday items more expensive for Americans, deported innocent citizens to a super-prison across the globe, turned the First Amendment on its head by gutting the notion that Americans have free speech, given undue power to an autistic billionaire who appears to be fuelled by mind-altering substances that might or might not be legal, and declared war on educational institutions that dare stand up to him, and tried to annex countries because he can. And he has also made it impossible for anyone to make any sense of what he is doing. But look at the bright side: only 1,361 days to go. Sinners – The surreal montage There are few art forms that match the range of cinema — where in one instant, you're jolted into believing something divine might exist. Because how else do you explain the sheer, staggering beauty of what you've just witnessed? Like the climax of Gangs of Wasseypur: Part 1, when Sardar Khan is gunned down, and his chaotic life finds sudden tragic grandeur as Manoj Tiwari's 'Jiya Ho Bihar Ke Lala' reframes him not as a gangster, but as an icon. Or when Captain America, bruised and broken, tightens the strap on his shield to face Thanos alone, and a voice crackles: 'On your left.' And then, there is the Sinners montage. A hallucinatory, time-shifting reverie, the 'surreal montage' in Ryan Coogler's Sinners doesn't just transport viewers — it initiates them. Set in a smoky Mississippi juke joint, it's where a single blues performance by Sammie (Miles Caton) becomes a metaphysical invocation of the Black musical continuum. Through the crackle of a slide guitar, the hum of a drumbeat that might as well have come off a Ghanaian kpanlogo, and the swagger of hip-hop, Coogler collapses centuries into seconds. Only cinema can do this. Only cinema can make you feel like you're not watching a film but communing with ghosts — that when Sammie sings, he's singing not just to you, but through you. The magic lies not in the pastiche, but in the invocation. Göransson's cue, 'Magic What We Do,' becomes more than a score — it's a séance. The IMAX frame doesn't just show you the room, it immerses you in it, each pan and swirl placing you inside the storm of sound and spirit. When the juke joint begins to burn — not with panic, but with revelation — it's as if the blues itself is being reborn. That's the thing about great cinema: you don't just watch it. You feel it in your marrow. Here comes the Son The BBC is under fire these days for its asinine coverage of the Pahalgam terror attack, but there are times when the organisation puts the British taxpayer's money to good use—like the time it made the period drama United, a riveting tale about the Busby Babes, whose lives were cruelly cut short by the Munich air crash. In the movie, there's a scene where an opposing team member tells a young Bobby Charlton, after getting thrashed by Manchester United: 'How can you play like that when you are just kids?' There's something remarkable about seeing a young sports star step up and act like he belongs there. Football fans of a particular vintage will remember a 16-year-old Wayne Rooney running onto the field and scoring that goal against Arsenal. Or an 18-year-old, brace-wearing, geeky Cristiano Ronaldo dribbling past defenders. Cricket fans will remember the awe they felt the first time they saw Sachin Tendulkar bat—and now, they will remember Vaibhav Suryavanshi, the 14-year-old who smacked veteran bowlers all over the field like a student finally getting the chance to seek revenge against a truant schoolmaster. He said after the match: 'Ball meri radar mein aayi, maine maara. First ball ka pressure nahi tha, bas apna game khelne ka socha tha.' ('The ball came into my radar, so I hit it. There was no pressure on the first ball—I just thought of playing my natural game.') It's the most excitement any of us has felt about a young man from undivided Bihar since a long-haired Railways employee tonked bowlers all over the park—and before that, a prince from Nepal taught the world the meaning of inner peace. For a long time, the word Suryavanshi would bring to mind an Amitabh Bachchan film that was almost always playing on Set Max. In Hindu theology, the term Suryavanshi refers to the legendary lineage of Lord Rama—the descendants of the Sun God. But going forward, it will always be associated with the young man from Bihar who, at 14, played an innings we will never forget. To paraphrase a line from George Harrison: Here comes the son. Can 100 men beat a Gorilla? What science actually says It begins, as most things on the internet do, with a stupid question and an even stupider amount of confidence: Could 100 unarmed men beat a gorilla in a fight? Let's introduce the contestants. In one corner: a 220kg silverback gorilla—basically nature's powerlifter with fangs. Can bench-press your Toyota, sprint faster than you, and has a bite force that makes lions jealous. In the other: 100 men in gym shorts and delusions of grandeur. No weapons. No plan. Just vibes. Science, unsurprisingly, says the gorilla wins. Easily. Why? Because evolution didn't equip us for brawling—we got brains, not biceps. And without tools or tactics, humans are basically meat-filled balloons. The first 30 get turned into paste. The rest panic. Could they win? Maybe—if they formed a human dogpile, accepted massive casualties, and hoped the gorilla got bored. But the most likely outcome? Gorilla: 1. Men: Several funerals. And yes, this is all hypothetical. No gorillas were harmed in the making of this mental breakdown. Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.
