I don't swear much. I have, in recent years, taken to using the word 'fuck' a fair bit, but that is mostly because the word lends itself to such an extraordinarily wide range of uses. It is a habit that will very likely surprise people who have not spoken to me in a few years.

As far as insulting goes, I prefer to be clever and tongue-in-cheek about it. So that rules out calling people names or putting labels on them that might imply they have sexual relations with family members (who I naturally have nothing against). I don't say bastard — it doesn't seem like there is anything inherently shameful about being a bastard. It is an aspect of one's being that would seem to be entirely out of one's hands.

The worst possible thing I might ever say to someone I have a catastrophic disagreement would be “fucking idiot”. It's mostly just “idiot” with a pinch of “fucking” thrown in for emphasis and flavour. I use this insult because I do think there is something contemptible about being ignorant and stupid, especially when it is wilful.

Some time ago, on an episode of Game of Thrones, Sam and Gilly were walking back to the wall from the far North. To pass the time, Sam the nerd starts telling Gilly all that he knows about the wall and the history of the night's watch. He knows dates, names, and events of key importance. This amazes Gilly. To her, the fact that Sam can know all these things by simply looking at small squiggly lines on paper, is nothing short of magic. As someone who writes to convey ideas and is rather acutely aware that every word he writes will outlive him by centuries, I often find myself struck by this very same sense of amazement. Writing is a powerful kind of magic that transcends the limits of a human lifespan.

When people first started writing, it was not a commonplace talent. Priests wrote, kings wrote (or had people write things for them and about them). The common folk only heard the stories. This is perhaps why, to this day, something becomes more worthy of trust if it is in writing. Think of the phrase “likh ke deta hoon”.

Isaac Asimov once speculated about the origin of the phrase “Cyclopean Wall”. A cyclopean structure is, according to the dictionary, ancient masonry made with massive irregular blocks. Asimov deduced that even though a civilisation (a Greek city state for example), might have had the technological know-how to build great walls with large blocks of stone, to a less advanced people, it might appear to be magic. In this case, it is possible that they thought these walls had been built by Cyclops — the mythical one-eyed giants of Greek myth and folklore. Since a non-scientific people could not wrap their heads around the idea of man being able to lift and use enormous rocks, they assigned magical qualities to the architectural style itself.

Wrote this originally in 2016, when I was still on Facebook.

A friend of mine mailed in to express her happiness that a recent photo she posted of herself got a gazillion likes. I think Facebook likes are somewhat like the page view counters of yore. They are fun and ego-boosting but entirely pointless in the long run.

One of Facebook’s goals is to be a reasonably accurate reflection of your real life social connections. This goal actually suffers because of the ease with which people can connect on Facebook. In real life, connecting with someone takes effort. You have to travel, you have to make small talk, at the very least you have to pick up your phone and dial a number. You know who is an important part of your life because they come through this filter – they make an effort to be in touch with you. On Facebook, because the amount of effort required to connect with someone is minimal, even people who don’t much care about you and the events in your life end up watching and reacting to your updates.

A large part of the discourse on the future of work leaves out huge chunks of the working class. Just as, a decade or so ago, the discourse on the connecting power of social media left out the capitalistic motivations of the corporations running these platforms. Every technology has an ethic of its own, and the ethic behind generative AI has so far proven to be somewhat akin to robbery on a global scale. Maybe things will change. Maybe they won’t. But questions need to be asked of this new system that seeks to govern how we see labour and how we define work.

In the age of artificial intelligence, we encounter creators and content makers who are deeply optimistic about its potential. Their enthusiasm is understandable; their livelihoods often depend on the increasing use and acceptance of AI. Many of these creators actively encourage others to embrace AI, presenting it as a tool that can revolutionize industries and transform workflows.

Recently, I watched a video where an AI advocate made a point that struck a chord with me. They said, "Customers don't care how the software is made." Their argument was straightforward: whether you write the code manually or use AI assistance, customers only care about the product's functionality. This mindset might work for software, but its implications for creative fields deserve deeper exploration.

Creativity is Personal

Unlike software, creative endeavors don’t operate solely on utility. Creative works depend on interpersonal relationships between the creator and the audience. For instance, if I write a story and share it with you, the relationship we form is based on my honesty about the work's origins. If I claim it’s entirely my creation but secretly relied on AI, you might feel deceived. Transparency here becomes critical.

A common defence of Capitalism is that at the end of the day, money is all that matters and that all the high-faluting talk about social justice, equality, and rights is secondary before the basic needs that everyone needs to consider - food, money, shelter.

This argument is then used to justify the claim that it is only money that has any kind of redemptive value as far as the human condition is concerned. It is described as the most basic of needs, and therefore by extension, the only thing that matters.

So you find people looking at everything through the lens of money. They say that Reservation for the marginalised will not solve the problem of discrimination, money will. They say that a truly independent woman who is financially independent. They say that the entrepreneur is more virtuous than the social worker because it is he who is solving his employees' money problems.

I discovered a little video clip showing a futuristic police robot of sorts. There was politics written all over it. Here, see for yourself.

A lot has been said about how technology can solve social problems and how focus on science and "problem-solving" is the way to an equal society. And the thing that all that idle talk misses is that before we can solve a problem, we must first understand it.

A riot control unit such as this will surely "control" riots. But what happens in situations where the police itself is helping the rioters? What happens when the police is actively participating in riots? What happens when a certain kind of rioter is dressed like the police and is in fact running the anti-riot machine - both physically and metaphorically?

I think we have made too much out of ‘authenticity’. In fact, we may have made more out of it than we should have. We are told to be authentic on social media, but ask yourself, do you really want to see people’s authentic selves? I know I don’t. I want to see good people’s authentic self. I don’t want to see the authentic selves of fascists and casteists and homophobes and transphobes. They can stay in the closet till they fucking die.

We harped on authenticity too much without really wondering if it was a good thing. We created an online culture that rewarded all that was ‘raw’. As a result, we now have raw bigotry and raw discrimination smeared all over our faces. Big Boss! Big Boss! Big Boss!

If it is all the same with you, I would very much like to return to the age where garbage human beings used to pretend to be civilised. An age before ceaseless chants of ‘be yourself’ and ‘show them who you truly are’ drew them out of their slimy burrows and unleashed them upon the rest of us. Fuck this shit forty-four times on Friday!

I am not saying authenticity isn’t a value worth pursuing. I am saying that it means nothing by itself. It has to be tempered with an awareness of what we are getting the most authentic version of. Because guess what? Gobar that is authentically gobar is still gobar.

I grew up reading Phantom. But a reboot of this problematic property is going to have to effectively destroy the legacy of the franchise. Because at the end of the day, we are talking about a White man sitting on a throne in an African tribe and being worshipped by them as a god.

The only acceptable way to revive the Phantom is acknowledging its deeply racist roots and consciously abandoning them to head in a new direction altogether. The Phantom’s origin story is devoid of cultural context and drenched in “White Man’s Burden” thinking. It shows not only in the aforementioned forest setting, but also in the globetrotting, foreign government destabilising, saving his white wife from being abducted by men of colour tropes that form no small part of the Phantom universe.

Lee Falk, the creator of the Phantom, had actually created the Phantom as something entirely different — a millionaire who dresses up in tights at night and fights criminals. But Bob Kane stole that premise and created Batman and was able to sell more. Falk, in an attempt to differentiate his character from Batman, changed his back story to something resembling Tarzan, another White guy being praised as a hero by tribes in Africa. Falk, who had probably never been outside of America, called the Phantom’s tribe the Bandar tribe (after the Hindi word for monkey) and the place Bengala (after the Royal Bengal tiger). He clearly couldn’t tell the difference between Africa and the Indian subcontinent and I doubt he and his contemporaries would have cared even if they knew.

Don’t say “you can do it” to people you don’t know. Learn who they are and perhaps you will find that the obstacles they face are greater than anything you are even capable of imagining. The problem with the online “motivation” market is that it doesn’t understand privilege.

More than half the “hustle” bros are also subscribers of modern toxic positivity culture. The only adversity they struggle with is “I didn’t get that thing I wanted”. It’s empowerment of the selfish. And the sad part is their faux motivation reaches those whose troubles are a result of social inequality. Young ones who end up believing they are not hustling enough. That if they just think positive and “work harder”, social discrimination will disappear from society.

And when it fails, these kids end up thinking they are inadequate somehow. That it was THEY who failed. Hustle culture motivation crap promotes the idea that societal inequality is not a thing that exists. And that the obstacles in the path of the privileged are the same as the obstacles in the path of those without such privilege.

Here's how it works: Some rando decides to rise up in life. He looks around and sees that criminal / communal / abusive behaviour is being rewarded by the powers that be. He decides to take his chances and joins the bandwagon.

Often nobody cares about most of them. There are many wannabes unleashing communal farts into the void out there. The only timelines they show up on are the ones on their own six fake accounts. These are the unpaid IT Cell workers, the ones that are happy to do shit for free in hopes that someday, someone will invite them to a meeting where they will be able to get a picture with some saffron neta and use it as their Twitter DP. However, there are people who have (or had) a little influence who are also part of this literal rat race. These are often retired government employees, D-grade actors etc.

These people have a bit of a following and a little reputation. They are somewhat more successful at online rabble-rousing.

I watched a YouTube video by someone who enjoys balancing rocks on top of each other. The end result looks exquisite. But they also said that when they shared pictures on social media, many people responded by calling them fake or photoshopped.

This got me thinking of another way in which the ever-increasing unreliability of media content is doing damage. It is causing us to see all, or at least much of reality, through the lens of misinformation. In addition to making us think of the fake as real, it is also making us reject the real as fake. It is engendering a cynicism with respect to reality.

People are starting to think of something that is possible as something impossible. The maker of the video took this one step ahead and asked how many things there might be out there that we can do but we reject as impossible because our sense of what can be real has been damaged by a never-ending stream of lies and half-truths. Could there be experiences we refuse to have because we think them impossible?

Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the podcast.

I wanted to talk about importance—about how we know something is important and how we know something is not important—and how that method of measuring importance has been somewhat impaired in our information superhighway age.

I wanted to talk about letters because that is exactly what I found myself talking to my father and mother about some weeks ago. I was inundated with messages, and I asked them how many messages they had to deal with back in the days before even telephones existed. Back when the primary methods of entertainment and information were radio, and people used to send letters to each other in order to communicate because there was no electronic method of doing so.

My mother said she had a lot of friends who were really, you know, avid letter writers, so she used to get multiple letters every week—like maybe four or five. My father said maybe twice a week, and on really uneventful months, maybe a few—like four or five a month. And it varied, of course, depending on how many people one was in contact with and how much information people wanted to share.

I was speaking to a chatbot the other day (because humans are stupid) and it told me (in response to a very directed prompt) that perhaps the way forward was for humans to give up trying to be better than AI at the things that they have so far thought of as being uniquely human achievements. Perhaps a Buddhism-flavoured religion of the future will be all about freeing oneself from this attachment to credit and accomplishment.

On the one hand, it feels like something a pseudo-utopian tech bro would say. On the other hand, even though I disagreed with the chatbot for practical reasons (writers need to be attached to credit to succeed professionally), I did somewhat entertain the notion of detachment. I sometimes sense a reality that is just beyond my reach – one where I am not writing to be read and don't care about people's approval or social validation or praise that I am a good writer. It feels like this reality exists out there but it is not the one I am in.

At this point in my career as a writer, at least some people read me because they like me as a person and not because they see merit in my words. I am not sure how I feel about that. Perhaps it is a natural progression from writer to celebrity (barf). Perhaps it is a sign of a bad creative economy. I don't know. But I do care. I care at least enough to want to be free from my own identity.

The artist does not exist to decorate your walls and to paint your house. Her purpose isn't limited to making sure you are entertained.

The artist is your society's conscience. The artist is the one who reminds you that you are human. The artist is the one who shows you beauty and fear and kindness and ugliness so that you may see it all in yourself.

Without the artist you will forget who you are. Without the artist you will fail to be human. There is a reason the study of the arts is called the Humanities.

The artist doesn't hurt religion. She hurts your view of religion. And religion is not, as you think sometimes, a thing that came from above. It was the artist who gave you religion. And the artist gives you religion every single day.

The other day, a young person messaged me on Instagram and wanted to share ideas about how India can become a superpower. Now, having been spent much of my youth under the illusion that development means roads, bridges, and malls, I told him that my idea of a super power is a country where everyone has access to free healthcare and education.

The young person agreed with this, but added that “both things are important”. Sure, he was all for social upliftment and stuff, but malls and roads were what really got him starry-eyed. This was a middle-class, upper caste, aspiring engineer and therefore none of this was surprising.

On another occasion, someone on Twitter responded to something I had posted about how in India of 2020, disagreement is seen as being anti-national. They said that it happens on both sides, completely blind apparently to the fact that only one side was in power and in a position to punish the other. People disagree and are aggressive all the time. But only one side is able to run campaigns of incitement against another. When I pointed this out, they said that they agree but we should look at “both sides”.

In this episode, I delve into the cultural and linguistic challenges we face in understanding artificial intelligence. I argue that our current dissonance stems from the lack of appropriate language to describe AI entities that exhibit human-like behavior, such as expressing emotions or giving advice. Traditionally, words like "robot" and "artificial intelligence" have denoted futuristic concepts, but now, as these technologies become part of our everyday lives, we’re forced to redefine them in the present, creating confusion and unease.

I liken this challenge to having a future guest arrive unexpectedly early, prompting a need to adjust quickly. This dissonance, I suggest, is partly rooted in the speed at which AI has arrived, catching us off guard. Now, society must confront this technological shift and determine whether to welcome this change or resist it. The episode closes with a call for reflection on how to integrate AI into our world thoughtfully and pragmatically.

Disclaimer: This summary was generated with the assistance of an AI tool.

Our evolutionary history, stretching back as it does millions of years, has not been fair to us, and why should it be, when fairness is our own fragile invention? Nevertheless, since, I am human, I hereby give myself permission to complain about it.

First, let me tell you what evolution has made you. You are an empathetic creature that can feel the pain of another. In fact, your empathy may very well be the single greatest reason behind the continued existence of your species. It brought your people together, made them care for each other, and helped build the foundations of what you now refer to as 'civilisation'. However, you are also a bloodthirsty monster. You are a killer who needs to ruthlessly hunt for food and murder innocents in order to feed himself. There is literally no way out of it for you – you either kill or you die. Your life necessitates the death of other life forms.

This contradiction is what evolution set as the foundation of our existence. This is what evolution made us – the caring beast that will have to kill, the killer who needs kind company in order to survive. We were not lonesome hunters any more than we were sweet pixies who lived in happy communes. We were both. We had to be.

I recently had the opportunity to re-visit the Odisha State Maritime Museum and remember once more that people from my home state were known for their seafaring adventures in ancient and medieval times.

It's simple. If the system requires change, who is going to bring it? Those who are comfortable in it? Or those who are hurt by it? The answer is obvious. The ones with comfort lose nothing if change doesn't come. Ones without it stand to lose even more if things don't change.

So the question "why do they have to protest?" only comes from those who benefit from the system as it exists right now. The reason they don't see the need for opposition is that the system isn't broken in their eyes. Because it works for them. They don't even see the problems when the problems are specifically pointed out to them. Their frames of reference are so different that they are literally unable to understand how the lived experience of someone else might be different from theirs.

As far as they are concerned, theirs is the only way of life and the only lens through which to see the world. This is why we see privileged folk ask questions like "Why do only they protest?" and "Why don't you see us civilised people on the roads?" The answer of course is that what they think of as civilised is only privilege. And because they don't understand this answer (because privilege only makes sense in context and they have no context except the context of their own life experience), they fall for the dehumanising answers.