A Bowl of Elusive

The recent revelation of the Electoral Bonds data brought forward some worrying trends – trends that indicate bribes for contracts, possible extortion through agency actions, and large-scale money laundering activity. But what makes the Bonds so sinister is that it gives the parties plausible deniability. And looking at how BJP controls all central investigative agencies, I doubt that any investigations will take place – not against BJP, at any cost.  So the question now is – why should YOU care? In a recent video, Nitin Gadkari proudly claimed that he had no dearth of money, and asserted that no contractor would ever accuse him of taking kickbacks. Now, people tend to forget things rather quickly, but it is common knowledge now that Megha Engineering is BJP’s largest contributor through Electoral Bonds and they were awarded huge contracts after donating to BJP. I pointed this out in the comments of this video and some BJP bhakts jumped in to defend their favorite party.  Their argumen

Back in 2016, I was on a road tour with a gentleman in Madhya Pradesh. He was an acquaintance – a former high-level executive from a smaller brand, who was now working for the same distributor that was dealing with the brand I was working for. Since I wasn’t a local to MP, I was asked by the distributor to accompany this gentleman and meet our business partners across the various districts throughout the state. This gentleman was pretty well-behaved, polite, and friendly. I had developed a very good image of him – until the topic veered to Muslims. Then, things just got weird. I couldn’t believe that a decent guy like him could have such hateful opinions about a whole community. He was talking about how Muslims choose to stay in ghettos and become criminals instead of studying and doing something with their lives. I just nodded and tried to change the topic. I had the counter-argument right there on my lips. “Muslims live in ghettos because they’re not easily rented out places in Hindu

You see this? This is a picture of the Preamble to the Constitution of India shared by a Govt handle recently. Notice something? Here - check this. This was the Preamble we were all familiar with.  The difference? Well, the words “Secular” and “Socialist” aren’t there in the first picture. Why? The govt handle said that they were sharing the original version of the Preamble. These words were added in the 42nd amendment to the Constitution in 1976. But the fact is, that as far as any amendments made to the Constitution are concerned, the latest version is the original version.  Now we all know why the current ruling party is against the word Secular - but what do they have against the word Socialist. Let's find out. I can bet that around 80% of the people on social media today won’t know what socialist actually means. Among those who know, many don’t really understand the implication as far as the Indian Constitution is concerned. So here goes nothing. Socialist refers to a state th

"One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter." – George Galloway. I was in seventh grade when Ajay Devgan’s The Legend of Bhagat Singh was released in theatres. I remember our school took us for a show of the widely acclaimed movie. The movie was heart-wrenching and awe-inspiring, no doubt, but it clearly made it seem like Gandhiji was not interested in saving Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev & Rajguru from execution. I remember a lot of my friends getting disillusioned with the idea of Gandhi that day. But I felt differently. You see, even at twelve years old, I was somewhat familiar with what Gandhi stood for and I could clearly see that Gandhi’s ideology was very different from Bhagat Singh’s ideology. Gandhi wanted non-violent non-cooperation, whereas Bhagat Singh had chosen violence against British authorities in his fight for Indian Independence. An argument can be made for either approach and ideology, but the fact is, that the Indian Independence was a joint effort

My grandfather once told me – You don’t have reservations to support you – you have to work twice as hard – the finish line is further away for you because you’re Brahmin  And that’s what I believed – for the longest time.  I, too, thought of the reservations as an unfair advantage given to undeserving people. This video is going to examine the idea of merit in reservations. My early life was tough – I dealt with abandonment, abuse, starvation, and being orphaned. But you know what I never had to deal with – caste discrimination. Because, after all – I was a “bahman chuaa” or “brahman baccha” for the Hindi speakers. I was a part of such an elite demographic (display upper caste & male) and I didn’t even know it – poor me, grew up with so much self-pity, maybe this knowledge would have made me feel better. Anyways …. (Transition). Like most Savarnas, I was oblivious to my privilege. When I first read about untouchability, I legit thought that was a thing of the past – like most sava

Muslims reproduce with the intention of surpassing Hindus in numbers and establishing a Muslim state in India. Heard this before? So did I, growing up. Let’s debunk that conspiracy theory. This guy, posted a comment on my Hindu Khatre Mein Hai video saying Google the percentage of religion from 1947 to 2023. The insinuation – Muslims reproduce every year while Hindus are forced to stick to 2 kids. Some news outlets named this idea “Population Jihaad”. Let’s look at the numbers. Propaganda chintus will keep scaring you by saying – “Muslim population rose from 9.8% to 14.23% while Hindu population FELL from 84.1% to 79.8%.” The problem with those numbers is that they are ratios – you get a lot less scarier figure when you compare actual numbers. Look at this table. There are 112 Cr Hindus and 20 Cr Muslims today – compared to 30 Cr Hindus and 3.5 Cr Muslims in 1951. Hindu population did not FALL – it rose by 82 Cr since independence whereas Muslim population rose by a mere 16 Crs i.e. Hi

A while ago, I made a video questioning whether the Indian epics Ramayan and Mahabharat were historical events or mythology. It drew a lot of anger from a lot of people. The thing is – I was not always aware that I was an atheist. There was a time when I prayed to God as well – Lord Shiva actually. But I never believed the stories to be true or historical. I viewed them as mythology – which even if it ever happened, happened in some other realm or alternate reality. Because with what we know about science and our own development, we can safely assume that the magical elements in the holy books of all religions are just not possible. I thought everyone knew this – I thought everyone knew that these were stories – metaphorical mostly and meant to impart a moral lesson to the people. So, it was astonishing when a very close friend of mine became seriously offended because I questioned the authenticity of Mahabharat and hence, Shri Krishna in association.  I tried to reason with him, sayin