A Bowl of Elusive

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