Posts

India’s War on/with Numbers

Image
Listen In English · Listen in English Listen in Hindi · Listen in Hindi What do you call a democracy that’s afraid of numbers? A performance. India, the world’s largest democracy, has quietly stopped counting. Not people. Not jobs. Not food. Not death. Not hunger. Certainly not truth. Since 2014, this country armed with satellites, biometric surveillance, and digital dreams has managed to misplace its most basic tool of governance: statistics. A Government of Headlines, Not Data You may have noticed. Every time the numbers start to get ugly unemployment rises, consumption drops, or fewer children are vaccinated those numbers vanish. Like magic. And if they don’t vanish, they arrive so late they miss the news cycle entirely. Take the 2021 Census. It’s now 2025. Still missing. We’re running a welfare state based on population data from when TikTok didn’t exist, and Modi was just entering his first term. Unemployment reached a 45-year high in 2017-18. That’s not a rumour,...
Post a Comment
read entire post >

Why I Love Hansa Parekh...

Image
When I became a father, people asked me the usual question: “So, what will you name her?” I said, quite seriously, “Hansa Parekh.” There was a moment of stunned silence, then everyone burst out laughing. Apparently, this was either too lame or too meta for them. But for me, Hansa wasn’t just a sitcom character from Khichdi , she was an emotional landmark. I adored her since school days. She represented a kind of cheerfully oblivious optimism that no syllabus or sociological theory could ever teach. I often wondered: does anyone actually behave like this in real life? So detached from logic, yet so self-assured? Years later, when I stood in front of a classroom full of Gen Z students, I had my answer. They were all... a bit like Hansa. Confidently wrong, beautifully incoherent, and mesmerising in their ability to treat life like an abstract painting that nobody asked to interpret. Why do they take blurry selfies and call it “aesthetic”? Why are half their Instagram stories just ...
Post a Comment
read entire post >

I want to write, but I don't have readers...

Image
“ I want to write, but I don't have readers .” With this quiet lament, Nagendra Vijay; editor of Safar, announced the end of a magazine that, for over four decades, had faithfully delivered science in Gujarati to curious minds across India. For me, someone who love to finish reading entire issue of safari as soon as it arrives; Its closure is not merely a matter of lost pages but a signal of a much deeper cultural crisis: the erosion of scientific temperament in contemporary India. Safari kept me ahead from my time, I knew about Brahmos in 1997, I knew about Gazi Attack, Iraq evacuations, RAW missions, Massod Missions, Gaza Conflicts, Afghan war etc. before films/series were made on them through safari, Safari covered, history, polity and sociological topics in most engaging and intriguing ways. This magazine played vital role in groming my personality, my career and my thinking pattern. Now I think, what happened to a country that once positioned science at the heart of its nation...
Post a Comment
read entire post >

दास्तान - ऐ - Dal Dhokali

Image
While watching interesting culinary history episode of Raja, Rasoi aur Kahaniyan, I shared my observations claiming richness in water, agriculture and migration adds to richness in cuisines of Punjab and Gujarat. As usual, my father clichèd about Gujarati cuisine by naming Dal Dhokli, as the rich cuisine of Gujarat 😉. Though the most neglected recipe, Dal Dhokli holds valuable significance to me as a student of society. When Fields Were Recipes (c. 2000 BCE – 1000 BCE) Let’s go back; way back; to Chalcolithic Gujarat. At Lothal and Rangpur, archaeobotanist find traces of pigeon pea, black gram, wheat, barley, and millet. These weren’t just crops; they were culinary philosophy. The land dictated the menu: protein-rich pulses + carb-dense grains = complete, resilient diet. This ecological pairing seeded what would later become Dal Dhokli. No, it didn’t arrive in a clay pot as dumplings in daal; but the logic was there. The pulse-grain matrix. The blend of sustenance and satiety. Rituals...
Post a Comment
read entire post >

Non Brahminical Gods

Image
Last time when I wrote a blog post on Non- Brahmanical Goddesses, my friends asked questions about Non-Brahmanical gods. When I started looking around, I figured out many local Pir, Veer, Dev, Maharaj… these Deities are worshipped by people on the margins. their rituals, legends, and lores are really intriguing… You've probably encountered a shrine that felt a little too real. Not the polished marble kind with donation counters and security guards, but a heap of stones under a neem tree, a red flag fluttering nearby, maybe a clay horse or a garlanded sword. You might pause and think: is this also a god? The answer is yes; but not the kind who sits quietly in a textbook. These are the folk deities of India: untempled, uncanonised, and utterly indispensable. They don’t descend from Sanskrit verses. They emerge from oral memory, bone-deep loyalty, and local justice. They live where myth meets mud. Headless Heroes and Snakebite Promises Let’s begin with Bhathiji Maharaj; or as some tr...
Post a Comment
read entire post >

Cartoon, Culture and Conflict

Image
It all began, as many profound sociological inquiries do, with a toddler, a cartoon, and an unintended insult. I overheard an Indian mother scolding her three-year-old son for calling his father "Papa Pig." The horror in her voice was matched only by the child's innocent grin. Now, calling someone a pig in India isn’t just cheeky, it’s bordering on blasphemous. Yet here was a child, clearly influenced by Peppa Pig, nonchalantly dropping farm-animal epithets. Intrigued, and slightly amused, I began to dig deeper. After all, cartoons aren’t just moving pictures. They’re miniature empires of soft power. Me, who grew up with Mowgli’s jungle wisdom, Uncle Scrooge’s capitalist acumen, Dexter’s lab-coat logic, and the Powerpuff Girls’ sugar-spice-chemical-X formula for justice, I hold a certain reverence for cartoons. But today, as a father and a sociologist, I find myself questioning: what are these cartoons really teaching our children? And who, exactly, is doing the teaching?...
Post a Comment
read entire post >

UnTh!nk!ng India...

Image
It began with an earnest LinkedIn post; a student sharing reflections on his coursework, unaware of the quiet storm he would stir. His sincerity was disarming, even moving. But more than that, it was revealing. It laid bare a systemic fissure so wide and deep that it forced a confrontation with one of India’s most uncomfortable truths: we are creating workers, not citizens. This isn’t a new phenomenon. The colonial British administration designed Indian education to produce a subservient workforce—literate, skilled, but obedient. Their ideal subject was efficient but unquestioning, trained to execute rather than inquire. This colonial residue, far from dissipating in post-independence India, has been inherited and adapted—by corporations, by governments, and, most insidiously, by our educational institutions. Today, India finds itself in a paradox. We aspire to be a Vishwaguru, a global teacher, a beacon of civilisational knowledge, while systematically undercutting the very foundation...
Post a Comment
read entire post >

Adolescence (भारत में)

Image
This week, I came across an intriguing series titled "adolescence" . full of drama and excellent subject matter that made me think about the plight of young “adolescent" India. India has 253 million adolescents, the largest in the world, teeming with potential energy. One might believe this generation stands on the cusp of greatness, poised to lead India into a luminous future. And yet, the harshness of reality intervenes: India’s adolescents are dying in tens of thousands, not through war or famine, but through a systematic betrayal perpetrated by social media, unhelpful educational institutions, and an insidious consumerist culture. Let me share why I am saying so… between 1995 and 2021, 134,735 adolescents aged 10–19 years died by suicide,  an average of over 5,180 per year. In 2021 alone, 10,730 adolescents under 18 ended their own lives — marking a 42% increase compared to the year 2000. Suicides are rising not only among 15–19-year-olds but also among younger ado...
Post a Comment
read entire post >