When you grow up in a Pahadi household in Uttarakhand, you get one basic lesson, though no one actually teaches it. Bow before the mountains.

It is not out of fear. It’s in awe. One learns to acknowledge the gigantism of the mountains and learn the basic truth that, ultimately, you are temporary. The roads, the bridges, the tunnels, the dams build will eventually shake to collapse. The mountains won’t. They were there long before you were. They will be long after. And like they read our minds, the Himalayas constantly remind us.

The morning of August 26^th brought another reminder. Just around the Nepal–Tibet border, a block of ice came loose. What followed was not a mere slide. It was an immense chunk of ice, rocks, mud and water gushing through the river below. The force of which felt like a large-magnitude tremor. The floodwave of debris rushed through the Bhotekoshi and Trishuli rivers. it destroyed everything in its path. Within minutes, decades of human construction disappeared. Like a house of cards, it was flattened out. Hundreds are feared dead and thousands missing; life in the mountains has turned into a wail of grief.

The floodwave, described as nearly the force of a tsunami by eye-witnesses, traveled 36 km from the China-Nepal border in just 40 minutes. A river monitoring station registered normal readings at 8:40 AM and then went dead. By the time the authorities understood the situation, it had already snowballed. Now a tricky question: Did the people downstream know anything?

As if on cue-China! I’ll spare you the rant on China’s engineering this disaster. It would require a whole new Substack. This piece is about the upper Himalayas, one of the world’s least visible areas. It is a highly controlled region where no independent reporting is allowed. Information can only travel along official channels. This leads to a bizarre asymmetricity where we know much more about the disaster unfolding on the Nepal side than on Tibet. When a shared natural resource-like a river-flows from your territory into someone else’s, transparency is a serious risk. Your failure to share information or the intention behind not sharing it clearly has an implication.

What makes the whole disaster harder to digest is that this is an unwelcome Déjà Vu. Barely fourteen months ago, in July 2014-the Bhotekoshi rose with unexpected fury. An ice dam-formed by a glacial lake that had overflowed in the Tibetan Autonomous Region-melted abruptly, leading to floods downriver.

This time it happened again, in the same river system-although, with different mechanics. A surge of ice and rock breached its place and blocked the river system, resulting in the formation of a natural dam. Then it broke, unleashing its deathly power. Our scientists have been warning this for decades; warming Himalayas are increasingly becoming volatile. Glaciers melt; they leave behind behind unstable permafrost, ready for collapse. They melt into more melt water, eventually overloading the already unstable slopes.

But for the unfortunate victims downstairs, the difference is just an academic debate. They saw mountains crumble and water come rushing down to wash them all away-lives and livelihoods.

Maybe that is why the dwellers of the mountain have such a weird relationship with it. We know “Leave the mountains untouched,” is a beautiful, catchy slogan, the kind an outsider uses when they haven’t quite grasped the functioning of life in the mountains. It’s an impractical solution.

People must live here. They need transportation, electrical supply, schools and hospitals and work. The solution isn’t to stop the existence, but rather to quit the illusion that we have dominated the mountains.

In every photograph ever taken of me with my family in my ancestral home, I look very, very small next to the colossal mountains surrounding us. Perhaps we should all remind ourselves more often just how insignificant our towering achievements appear before the immensity of their existence. At the end of the day, the simplest lesson from the mountains stays: you may command knowledge and span networks across vast geography. But do never confuse your intelligence with prowess, nor your silence with control.
When mountains roar, everything in their trajectory turns to quiet. That is why, from the elders of my Pahadi roots, I give you this one last lesson: Bow before the mountains.

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We have grown up consuming animation in varying forms. Every frame of animations reveals a very deliberate moral framing. Across the 20^th and 21^st century, we have ventured into two civilizations producing animations. They are built across extraordinary scale and sophistication by Japan and United States respectively. While both gave the world iconic animations, what they invested for the children is widely different.

On one hand is Anime. Anime is a civilization mirror. It reflects Confucian duty, which is giri, Shinto reverence for nature and post-war Japanese values of sacrifice, honor and communal responsibility. On the other hand we have American shows like the Family Guy. It is build on the foundations of absurdism, shock value and the systematic dismantling of consequences. There is one very glaring point of difference. The former is built on culture and the latter is built on memes.1

The Four Pillars of Anime

The Japanese moral philosophy, as is expressed through centuries of drama and literature, bases the following as pillars of anime:

• On: a received favor or benefit that creates a moral debt, a sense of gratitude that binds the recipient to the giver;

• Gimu: sacred, near-unrepayable duty, such as what one owes to parents, ancestors or nation;

• Giri: social obligation, the right conduct between people in a given relationship; not cold rule following but the maintenance of dignity in all human bonds;

• Ninjō: Human feeling of personal desire and empathy; the inner counterweight to outer duty.

The Japanese storytelling, be it Chikamatsu’s 17^th century puppet plays or the contemporary anime, the core drama focuses on the tension between the giri and the ninjō. In plain words, it is the tug of war between what you are obligated to do vs what you desperately feel. This is a very deliberate narrative. The characters are not simply asked to save the world. They are required to sacrifice their personal happiness, love and desires in in the service of a larger purpose.2

These values trace further back to Bushido, the samurai ethical code, which emphasized loyalty, honor, courage and respect. This seeped into Japanese Popular culture through literature, theatre, manga and finally anime. The ethics of the samurai became the ethics of the shōnen protagonist: a child with an enormous burden and discipline to carry it.3

The Weight of Purpose

There have been three shōnen series in the past decades, namely, Naruto, Demon Slayer and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. All three have a protagonist at the center who grows through his suffering.

Naruto Uzumaki is an outcast who earns respect through discipline and the refusal to shun his nakama (comrades). Persistence is his defining characteristic. It is a quality that highlights gambaru very well. Gambaru is a Japanese work ethic which means to persevere or endure. In the Demon Slayer, Tanjiro Kamado demonstrates emotional depth goes hand in hand with physical courage. Tanjiro weeps openly, he grieves at length and still fights. Coming to Fullmetal Alchemist, Edward Elric pays for his ambition with humility.

The personal cost is rewarded by power eventually. And that is what Anime focuses on in a nutshell. Power is not rewarded for free. This is received well by the audiences as is evident by the global growth. Anime has reached a record $25.1 billion in 2024, with the overseas market growth at 26%.4 This is an appreciation of powerful storytelling.

The Counterpoint of Ghibli

Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli adds another dimension. The teaching extends beyond moral. It is ecological and spiritual. Miyazaki’s heroines, be it Nausicaä, San, or Chihiro, do not resolve conflict through force or rebellion. They resolve it through empathy for the other side. Nausicaä does inhabits the toxic jungle. San reaches an impasse of respect against industrialization. Chihiro outgrows her of the witch Yubaba.5

This is Shinto ethics rendered as animation. Miyazaki states that he draws on women in his personal life for inspiration. He stated that women have more sensitivity compared to men. This shows why Ghibli heroines are strong in their femininity.

The American Cartoons as a Counter

very different from anime, the American adult animation began as a satire. One of the greatest satirical works of the 20^th century is The Simpsons. It showcases suburban American life, consumer culture and the gap between the ideals of a nuclear family ideal and reality. Homer Simpson is humanized fool. His idiocy is a result of postwar American prosperity.6

The tragedy follows next. Family Guy tried to mimic the satire of The Simpsons and dismantled it completely! Peter Griffin is not a critique of an ignorant, white American middle-class like Homer. Peter performs incompetence as entertainment and is rewarded for it without any consequences. The show’s primary goal is joke density. The creators have admitted to packing up as many references in 22 minutes as they can!7

This is followed by the cutaway gag, which is Family Guy’s signature tool. It is a philosophical statement. However, the randomness of the formula leads to severing the narrative. It leads to the joke existing in a void.8 Seeing the indiscriminate application of the cutaway gags by Family Guy, The Simpsons deliberately stopped using them.9 In fact, South Park’s creators were so contemptuous of the formula, they spent two whole episodes mocking it.10

The bigger issue with the cutaway gag is the disconnect it registers. For a generation of children who grew up watching it, the reset button mentality became a norm. The expectation that everything is temporary and incompetence is charming registered as the way of life.

The Cultural Seepage

Anime did not conquer the West just through sophisticated campaigns.11 It worked its way through emotional coherence at a time when the Western media had abandoned it. In 2025, 31% of the global consumers watched anime at least once a week. Among the GenZ, that figure rose to 50%. The viewership in the US between 2020 and 2025 almost doubled.12 It now reaches 22% of the population, with Netflix estimating 300 million individual viewers.13 Audiences raised on cutaway gags and consequence free chaos found stability in anime. It was a stability they did not know they needed. They came across characters that suffered with purpose and sacrificed for something beyond themselves.

Nowhere is the divergence sharper than in the masculinity. For the Japanese boys Naruto Uzumaki is a model of masculinity. He is a despised outcast. Through relentless discipline he earns respect. Similarly, Levi Ackerman in Attack on Titan is cold and terrifying. A comrade’s death showed his strength. In Berserk, Guts is forged in torment. These are not men who avoid suffering. They are men who are transformed by it.14

Meanwhile, American boys grew up watching Peter Griffin. They saw a man whose incompetence is rewarded every single time. The satire on Peter gets dissolved the moment he is portrayed as a protagonist.

Another follow up is the concept of “irony poisoning.” It refers to the inability to hold a serious belief without self mockery. The GenZ’s “meta-irony” and “GenZ stare” reflects this. It is a protective mechanism of indifference. The most common way of showcasing it is the sarcastic layers of irony. This is the product of cultural seepage to a generation that finds it easier to make memes than hold a conversation.15

Anime’s Hyper Sexualization of Heroines

The intellectual honesty demands calling out the fallbacks of anime. The hyper sexualization of heroines in anime is intentional.16 From oversized breasts to skimpy outfits, these portions of anime are focused on male fantasy. This is in direct contradiction to the emotional sophistication of shōnen. The reduction of female characters to possessable fantasy objects is called the waifu culture.17 It refelcts the weaponization of anime’s gender archetype into misogyny. This is a contradiction that stays. It is on this contradiction that the principles giri, on and ninjō sit alongside. Female bodies are treated as commercial units and the female desires are irrelevant.18

Animation is Never Just for Kids

Why does any of this matter? The answer is quiet simple. Animation is not trivially cultural. Long before a child consumes literature or goes to a temple, they watch hundreds of hours of animated content. The question of what the content teaches them is not a trivial matter.

Japan answered it. In anime, the protagonist earns their place, honors their debts, suffer without bitterness, protect those you love. America responded with Family Guy. The messaging travelling across is that nothing sticks, the rest button is real and irony in serious situations. The result is that more people are migrating toward a form of storytelling that tells them that choices matter, pain has meaning and character is something you can build. This migration is signal worth paying attention to!

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Sagarmatha. Chomolungma. Before it was “Everest,” the highest peak on Earth lived in our imaginations as a goddess, the “Forehead of the Sky,” the “Goddess Mother of the World”, a presence we grew up hearing of in stories, prayers and school maps that still carried local names. Those words were not just labels; they were entire worlds: they told us how people oriented themselves to the mountain, how they asked her permission before climbing, how they understood their smallness beneath her snow and stone.

Then, somewhere between colonial surveys and English atlases, that sacred presence was flattened into a neat, foreign syllable: Everest. A British surname quietly stepped in front of ancient Himalayan cosmologies and over time we were trained to treat that new name as the only real one, as if the mountain herself had politely rebranded for the comfort of imperial cartographers. Our nostalgia for Sagarmatha and Chomolungma, then, is not only sentimental; it is an act of remembering what the mountain was before it was measured, renamed and sold back to us through western lenses.

From this landscape of renamed peaks emerges another story of erasure: the man the world knows as “Green Boots.” High on the slopes of this renamed mountain, the body of Indian climber and Indo‑Tibetan Border Police soldier Dorje Morup lay frozen for decades in a shallow cave, his bright boots turned into a direction marker for other climbers. For years, he was referenced in guidebooks, documentaries and casual conversations not as a person but as a landmark, “You pass Green Boots and then you turn left,” as though he were a traffic cone rather than a human being. His real name, his family, his language, his regiment, all disappeared under a nickname based on his gear.

The casual certainty that this figure was Tsewang Paljor settled into climbing lore early, thanks to rushed reports that associated him with green boots on summit day. Only much later did Indian authorities reopen the file, gathering DNA from relatives and quietly cross‑checking it against preserved samples linked to the 1996 disaster on the North side. The result overturned three decades of assumption: the body in the cave matched not Paljor, but his teammate Lance Naik Dorje Morup, another member of that ITBP expedition that vanished in the storm.

Tenders and internal documents issued in 2026 finally spelled it out in plain language: India was preparing a mission to retrieve the remains of Dorje Morup, “known for three decades as Green Boots,” from the death zone of the world’s highest peak. With a few lines of bureaucratic prose, two families’ realities shifted, one discovering that the most famous corpse on Everest was not their own, the other realizing that the nameless figure in every documentary had always been their son. Even so, the nickname clings like ice; the world still finds it easier to remember the boots.

This is where Sagarmatha becomes more than a debate about a mountain’s name. The same system that could rename Chomolungma as Everest also makes it seem perfectly natural to talk about a dead Indian climber as “Green Boots” instead of as Dorje Morup. Both are symptoms of a world in which western naming feels default and everything else, namely Tibetan honorifics, Nepali deities, Ladakhi or Indian names, becomes secondary, too complicated or simply optional. The mountain’s true names recede to the margins; the man’s true name is barely spoken at all.

To see what we’ve lost, you have to sit with the original words. In Nepali, Sagarmatha folds together “sagar,” evoking the vast blue above and “matha,” the head or forehead, creating the image of the earth lifting its brow to meet the sky, a title usually glossed as “Forehead of the Sky” or “Goddess of the Sky.” In Tibetan, Chomolungma, Qomolangma, means “Goddess Mother of the World,” placing the peak inside a web of mountain deities who are protectors, mothers and moral presences rather than mere piles of rock to be conquered.

For Sherpa and neighbouring communities, these names are not poetry for tourists; they are coordinates in a sacred geography where monks perform puja before expeditions, where the Nawa system governs how forests and pastures at Sagarmatha are used and where festivals and myth bind local livelihoods to the moods of the mountain. Chomolungma is a being you negotiate with, not a logo on an energy drink. Meanwhile, “Everest”, that elegant, two‑syllable imperial surname, floated in from 1856, when Andrew Waugh decided to honour his predecessor Sir George Everest and the British Survey of India dutifully etched the name into its maps.

We are told this is neutral, that calling the mountain Everest is simply how the “international community” communicates. What this really means is that the imperial naming system became global by brute repetition: atlas after atlas, exam after exam, guidebook after guidebook. The local names were not missing; they were simply treated as provincial footnotes to an English headline.

In global media, the most circulated stories of the Himalayas are told in English, stitched around the experiences of foreign climbers, while Sherpa names, Tibetan names, Indian names, Nepali names are misspelled, shortened or ignored.

Over time, the pattern sinks beneath our skin. We learn to introduce ourselves with shortened, “easier” names in classrooms, offices and airports. We get used to hearing our own languages pronounced as though they are obstacles, not mediums of thought. We scroll through posts where people are astonished to discover that “Everest” is not original, that Sagarmatha and Chomolungma were there first, carrying meanings that stitched earth and sky together. That astonishment itself reveals how far colonial naming has reached: it takes a revelation for people to realize that imperial cartography did not just map the world; it renamed it.

Within this framework, the figure of Green Boots is not just a tragic individual but a metaphor for how whole identities are reduced to something legible to others. His boots are vivid, easy to remember, easy to pronounce; his name, his story, his community, Dorje Morup from the Indo‑Tibetan Border Police, require effort, research, respect. So the world chooses the boots.

To disentangle ourselves from this, we start by insisting that the man in the cave is not just “Green Boots,” but Dorje Morup, a person with a history, a family and a homeland, a person to whom we owe the dignity of a name. Reclaiming names is not a cosmetic correction; it is a way of rebuilding worlds.

This is the work of decolonizing our attention: to look again at the tallest mountain on Earth and remember that “Everest” is only a thin, recent layer over much older names; to look again at the frozen figure in the cave and see a man, not a pair of boots. When we start by asking who Dorje Morup was and what the mountain is called at home, we are not being fussy about vocabulary. We are refusing the quiet suggestion that our own languages and identities are optional.

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It is so common to see “US Deported” slapped proudly on jeeps in North Western India that you’d think someone, somewhere, had turned it into an official honour, like a gallantry award issued by the Department of Border Rejections. The stickers glitter in the sun, parked outside village homes and marriage palaces, declaring to the world that this vehicle and by extension its owner, has done something big enough to be noticed by the United States government itself. On Instagram, the same phrase pops up in bios and reels: sunglasses on, hoodie up, a moody Punjabi track in the background and captions that suggest the only thing standing between the protagonist and the American Dream was an overzealous immigration officer. On the surface, it’s all humour and swagger; underneath, it is a fragile attempt to paint over a very expensive, very risky and often deeply traumatic failure.

In the prestige economy of many villages in Punjab, Haryana and parts of Gujarat, migration is not just aspiration: it is status. Having a son “bahar settled” automatically upgrades the entire family’s rank in the social hierarchy. Marriages become easier and respect flows more freely. In such a world, the worst possible label is not “illegal”, “reckless” or even “deported”. The worst label is “stayed back”. So when someone spends 20–40 lakhs on the Dunki route, disappears into jungles, deserts and detention centres and returns on a forced flight with a deportation order in their file, they cannot afford for it to look like a loss. You don’t come home as a failed gambler; you return as a soldier who “fought the system and came back alive”. The “US Deported” sticker is not just vinyl, it is a shield. It rewrites the narrative from “I lost everything” to “I tried something you never had the guts to attempt.”

The Dunki route itself has been mythologised into a kind of dark hero’s journey. The trailer version, which circulates in conversations and reels, is oddly glamorous: the airport selfie with new sneakers and a brand‑new backpack, the mysterious “transit” through exotic-sounding countries, the jungle crossing framed as an adventure trek, the border fence as a final boss fight. In the highlight reel, even the moment of being caught becomes a badge: handcuffs and mugshot angles turned into edgy visual content. What quietly goes missing are the less cinematic realities: days of walking with blistered feet, drinking dirty water, hiding from armed groups, being robbed or beaten, spending nights in overcrowded detention centres where your name is replaced by a number. Those details don’t look good on reels, so they get cut in the edit. The end product is a story that makes even disaster look thrilling, which is exactly how you get the next batch of teenagers lining up for the same route.

The economics behind this “flex” are brutal. Families often liquidate their security, mortgaging land, selling jewellery, borrowing from moneylenders at painful interest rates, to fund a single ticket in this high‑risk lottery. There are no refunds if the journey fails. The agent, sitting in a gleaming office with a world map on the wall, has already collected fees in advance. When the son returns empty‑handed, the assets are gone but the EMIs remain. Yet, in public, the family cannot afford to narrate the full extent of the damage. Humour steps in where honesty would hurt too much. The jeep rolls through the village with its “US Deported” label, as if to say, “We had enough money to gamble big,” turning loss into a performance of wealth. It’s a cruel irony: the symbol of pride is often financed by loans that will take years to clear.

Under all this runs a rigid script about masculinity and honour. In many of these communities, a “real man” is expected to take bold steps, provide for his family and push beyond the boundaries of his birthplace. Staying in the village, driving a local cab, running a small shop or taking up a low-paying job can feel like admitting defeat in front of peers who post pictures from Toronto basements and New Jersey strip malls. The Dunki route promises a shortcut from anonymity to heroism: you don’t have to wait for visas, exams or skill-building. You can buy your ticket into the myth with cash. When it doesn’t work out, the same ego that pushed someone onto that path cannot easily admit, “I took a reckless decision and dragged my family into debt.” So it improvises a new script: “I was courageous enough to try; the system couldn’t handle me.” The louder the jokes, the more likely they are covering unspoken fear, shame and disappointment.

Social media acts as both amplifier and anesthetic in this ecosystem. Every journey, no matter how chaotic, can be reformatted into a coherent narrative with a trending audio track and quick cuts. A clip of walking through a forest becomes “adventure”; a selfie from a detention bus becomes “behind‑the‑scenes”; a photo outside an immigration facility becomes “proof of having gone far.” Agents quietly encourage this aesthetic. After all, nothing sells the dream of illegal migration better than a feed full of people who look like they “survived it and came back laughing.” What the feed doesn’t show are those who never made it back, the ones who went missing in transit or the families who never got to see or bury their sons. Algorithms are allergic to nuance and so entire communities end up basing life‑or‑death decisions on a curated highlight reel of half‑truths.

And then there is the private aftermath that rarely gets spoken about. A deported migrant often comes back with layered trauma: memories of suffering, fear of authorities, a constant sense of having let everyone down. Yet, the expectation at home is performance, not vulnerability. He is supposed to be entertaining, not honest; strong, not shaken. So the pain leaks out sideways: as aggression, as heavy drinking, as cynicism or as a determination to try again on an even riskier route. The joke becomes a cage; the sarcasm that once protected him now prevents him from openly saying, “What I went through was terrifying and I don’t want anyone else to experience it.” The community, meanwhile, keeps using his story as either romance or warning, depending on what suits the moment, without really grappling with the full cost he has paid.

A fair, steel‑man reading of this culture has to admit two things at once. First, there is undeniable courage and desperation in these journeys. It takes a certain raw nerve to leave home, risk jungles and borders and face the power of foreign states with nothing but an agent’s promises and a borrowed backpack. It also takes resilience to return to the same streets you once dreamt of escaping, knowing everyone will be watching. Second, courage without information is often just recklessness and resilience without reflection can harden into denial. A society that celebrates “US Deported” as a punchline risks normalising dangerous routes and lawless pathways, encouraging more young people to gamble their futures instead of investing in skills, education and legal mobility.

Maybe the real rebellion now is not another illegal attempt or another clever sticker. Maybe it is a quiet refusal: a young person deciding not to turn their life into content for agents and algorithms, not to fund someone else’s smuggling network with their family’s life savings, not to confuse risk with bravery. It might look far less cinematic: nights spent studying for language tests, filling in visa forms, learning a trade, building something small but stable in their own state or city. There are no viral reels of that grind, no dramatic detention scenes, no cool one‑liners about being “too hot for the US border.” But there is something dignified in choosing a path where, if you succeed, you keep both your life and your self‑respect and if you fail, you don’t have to paint your pain over the side of a jeep in bold letters to make it bearable.

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In the cold, measured calculus of modern statecraft, the term “friendship” is often a diplomatic euphemism for transactional alignment. Yet, as the dust settles on the 16th India-Japan Annual Summit in New Delhi this week, it is becoming increasingly clear that the partnership between New Delhi and Tokyo has transcended the performative nature of traditional diplomacy.

We are witnessing a structural pivot. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi have moved beyond the low-hanging fruit of cultural exchange and basic trade. They are now engaged in a far more profound project: the architecture of sovereign autonomy.

The most striking evidence of this pivot is the formal commitment to the UNICORN (Unified Complex Radio Antenna) project. To the casual observer, this is a technical upgrade for naval vessels. To the strategist, it is a statement of intent. By integrating multi-functional radio antennas into a single, stealth-optimized dome, India is not merely acquiring Japanese hardware; it is absorbing a design philosophy that prioritizes low-observable warfare. In an era where maritime disputes in the Indo-Pacific are increasingly defined by electromagnetic surveillance, the ability to operate “in the shadows” is the ultimate force multiplier. Bringing this production under the Atmanirbhar Bharat umbrella is a calculated move to strip away dependence on foreign OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) for critical defense infrastructure.

Perhaps more critical is the emerging AI stack. For years, the global digital order has been bifurcated between American software ecosystems and Chinese hardware dominance. India and Japan are now carving out a third, distinct path.

This is not a simplistic “AI collaboration.” It is a structural marriage of Japan’s precision semiconductor manufacturing, long a gold standard in deep-tech engineering and India’s massive, highly scalable software architecture. By anchoring this in institutional partnerships like those between IIT Bombay and Japan’s National Institute of Informatics, the two nations are attempting to build an AI ecosystem that is resilient to the “chokepoint politics” of global technology. They are insuring themselves against a future where their digital infrastructure could be turned off or throttled by external actors.

Overlooking the “Trash-to-Treasure” initiative as mere environmental signaling is, in fact, a masterclass in decentralized resilience. By fast-tracking 1,000 biogas plants, the summit addresses a core strategic vulnerability: energy reliance.

By turning agricultural biomass into a viable, localized fuel source, India is insulating its rural economy from the volatility of global oil and gas markets. It is an acknowledgment that in the 21st century, true sovereignty is not just about nuclear-powered carriers or frontier AI, it is about the ability to keep the lights on and the supply chains moving when the rest of the world goes dark.

There is a maturity to the 2026 engagement that was absent a decade ago. Both New Delhi and Tokyo recognize that the “Old World” order is fracturing. In this context, the India-Japan axis is transforming into a sophisticated anchor for a multipolar world.

The 129 Memorandums of Understanding signed this week are not just bureaucratic paper; they are the gears of a new machine. It is a machine designed for self-reliance. As these two nations harmonize their technological and strategic assets, they are sending a clear, unambiguous signal to the world: the future will be built by those who possess the capability to build it themselves and who have the foresight to build it together.

This video provides an excellent summary of the summit’s key outcomes, including strategic insights from former diplomats and experts on why this partnership is currently at its most consequential level.

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Welcome to the ultimate masterclass in geopolitical gaslighting, where history is not a record of what happened, but an open-source Wikipedia page waiting to be aggressively vandalized for soft power points.

For nearly eight decades, Pakistan’s state-sponsored identity has been built on a very simple, very loud premise: “We are absolutely, fundamentally, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES INDIAN.” The entire point of Partition, the literal raison d’être of the state, was that Hindus and Muslims were two entirely separate civilizations that could not possibly breathe the same air, let alone share a history. However, consistency is for amateurs.

Welcome to the new era of Pakistani statecraft, where the Islamic Republic is suddenly dusting off the Vedas, clearing its throat and proudly declaring: “Actually, we are the true custodians of ancient Indian heritage. Please ignore the sledgehammers.” To understand the comedic peak of the current irony, we have to look at the historical trajectory.

For decades, Pakistan’s textbooks skipped directly from the Indus Valley Civilization to the arrival of Arab invader Muhammad bin Qasim in 712 CE, treating the intervening millennia of rich Hindu, Buddhist and Vedic history as a minor filing error. Temples were repurposed as public restrooms, schools or convenient piles of rubble. The Hindu population was systematically driven down, converted or marginalized. The logic was foolproof: to preserve the purity of the Islamic state, every single marking of its polytheistic, Sanskrit-soaked past had to be scrubbed from the earth.

Then came the 21st century. Arab nations started building museums, investing in tech and hosting Formula 1 races, while Pakistan realized that a reputation as a global hub for extremism wasn’t doing great things for tourism revenue.

Suddenly, a bureaucrat in Islamabad had a mid-life identity crisis. The realization must have been spectacular: “Wait. Taxila is inside our borders. Mohenjo-daro is here. The Rigveda was composed near the Indus. If we can’t sell modern Pakistan to the world, maybe we can sell ancient India!” The irony was in the face of how quickly Taxila and Mohenjo-daro became more than sites to be desecrated by their public. And thus, the grand appropriation began.

The irony shifts from subtle to slapstick comedy when you look at the specific historical figures Pakistan is currently attempting to adoption-claim:

Pāṇini: The legendary 4th-century BCE Sanskrit grammarian who formalized the language of Hindu scriptures. Yes, the language that the Pakistani state spent decades erasing from its schools is now being claimed because Pāṇini happened to be born in Shalatula (modern-day Lahor, aka Little Lahore or Chota Lahore, Pakistan). One can only marvel at the cognitive gymnastics required to claim the father of Sanskrit grammar while simultaneously outlawing the teaching of Sanskrit.

Chanakya (Kautilya): The ancient strategist who authored the Arthashastra, an absolute pillar of classical Indian statecraft, who taught at the ancient university of Taxila. Chanakya, a deeply devout Brahmin whose entire life’s work was unifying the Indian subcontinent (Akhand Bharat) to repel foreign invaders, has officially been retroactively drafted into the Pakistani civil service. Somewhere, Chanakya is calculating the precise geopolitical interest rate on this sheer audacity.

It takes a truly special kind of audacity to systematically persecute the living descendants of a culture while claiming their ancestors as your foundational branding material. The peak of this comedy isn’t just about attracting Western tourists with yoga mats to Taxila. It’s about the Indus Waters Treaty. For decades, the narrative was that Pakistan’s rivers belonged to the pure Islamic state. But as water scarcity hits hard and the treaty faces modern strains, the geopolitical strategy has shifted. Pakistan now wants to fight a “civilizational narrative war.” To claim absolute moral and historical right over the Indus waters, they must argue that they are the Indus civilization.

The irony is now a perfect, self-consuming snake: A state created explicitly to reject Indian civilization is now claiming to be the original Indian civilization, solely to stop India from upstream water management.

Ultimately, Pakistan finds itself trapped in a historical farce of its own making. You cannot spend 75 years blowing up the foundation of a house and then suddenly invite guests over to admire the architecture of the basement. If Pakistan wants Chanakya and Pāṇini, it has to accept the uncomfortable truth that comes with them: that before the borders were drawn in 1947, the soil they stand on IS PROUDLY, UN-IRONICALLY AND COMPLETELY INDIAN.

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In the hallowed halls of “independent journalism,” where The Guardian humbly shakes its digital tin cup for $3.45 a week to keep the lights on, we have been gifted a truly remarkable “exclusive.”

It is an interview with Umar Khalid, that manages the impressive linguistic feat of being conducted without the reporter actually, you know, meeting the subject. Instead, questions and answers were shuttled back and forth via family and friends like a game of high-stakes middle-school telephone.

The article paints a moving, tear-jerking portrait of a man “isolated” and “dehumanized,” suffering in the “dank yard” of Delhi’s Tihar prison. Khalid laments being “reduced to just an image” and completely “forgotten” by those who should care.

It is a deeply tragic narrative, though it is slightly complicated by the author’s own accidental admission that there are “few in India who do not know Khalid’s name.”

Yes, he is so thoroughly erased from public consciousness that his name is “spat” nightly by primetime TV anchors, shouted by activists at rallies and in the ultimate mark of modern obscurity, printed onto trendy T-shirts. He is so completely ghosted by the world that even a prominent New York politician found the time to send him a handwritten note of solidarity, a gesture so low-profile and quiet it sparked an international diplomatic row.

It must be truly hard not to unravel completely when you are an international brand with a fan club that spans multiple continents. The tragedy of being a silenced voice is much easier to swallow when your merchandise is selling out.

Because no prison profile is complete without a heavy dash of 19th-century Russian gloom, the article highlights Khalid’s profound discovery that he shares a “state of mind at sunset” with Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Apparently, 150 years ago, Dostoevsky also felt a bit down about being in jail. It’s a poignant literary parallel. It beautifully elevates the prisoner from a “key conspirator” in religious riots to a “mad soul who is free even in captivity,” a sentiment practically scrawled right next to his cell-wall picture of a revolutionary.

Perhaps the most delightfully “punchy” moment of the piece is Khalid’s biting critique of “celebrity activists” who have “made a career out of piggy-backing on people’s movements.”

This bold, anti-celebrity critique is delivered from within... an exclusive, high-profile media rollout that solidifies his own status as the face of anti-government protests. Oh and it also beautifully promotes his upcoming book, Fractured Communities, based on the PhD thesis the government tried to stop him from submitting.

It is a remarkably brave stance to decry the “normalization” of a “post-truth society” while serving as the primary protagonist in a meticulously curated media narrative.

Finally, the author explores the “dystopian” nature of Khalid’s six-year stint without trial under terror laws. The judicial system is described as a “poisoned chalice” where judges repeatedly delayed, adjourned and recused themselves.

Yet, the government openly welcomes these rejections of bail. This proves that while the process may be “dystopian” for Khalid, it is functioning exactly as intended for the people he opposes. It’s a win-win, depending on which side of the bars you’re sitting on.

Ultimately, the profile serves as a brilliant testament to the sheer power of “independent” reporting: it manages to portray a man as simultaneously a silenced, forgotten victim and a world-famous, T-shirt-selling revolutionary.

And it did it all without ever having to step foot in the same room. Now that is journalism.

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Alexa, play “No Body, No Crime” by Taylor Swift.

At this point, one is almost tempted to ask the obvious question: did Siya get confused between Chetan and Ketan? After all, only one letter separates the two names. Perhaps somewhere between the wedding invitations, the secret romance, the conspiracy, the trek to the fort and the subsequent police investigation, an unfortunate spelling error escalated beyond all reasonable limits.

If one follows the public reaction to the Ketan murder case, something immediately stands out. The murder itself, as shocking as it is, is not what dominates the most attention. What truly takes over is the discourse that follows it.

A young man is dead. The allegations involve betrayal, deception and calculated violence. Yet a remarkable section of public commentary seems far less interested in examining the actions of the accused and far more invested in constructing an expanding catalogue of alternative culprits. Parents become responsible. Society becomes responsible. Marriage expectations become responsible. Patriarchy becomes responsible. Tradition becomes responsible. Caste becomes responsible. Family pressure becomes responsible. At this rate, one almost expects the Geological Survey of India to issue a statement accepting responsibility on behalf of the fort itself.

In this unfolding moral narrative, the accused appear to occupy a strangely detached position. Everyone else seems to have agency. Everyone else seems to have influence. Everyone else seems to carry responsibility. The individuals directly accused of the act, however, are increasingly described in ways that strip them of meaningful choice altogether.

This is where the conversation stops being just about a criminal case and starts revealing a deeper cultural contradiction.

Modern society has spent decades building and reinforcing a core idea: adults are autonomous individuals. They can choose independently of family expectations. They can reject tradition. They can pursue relationships, careers and identities on their own terms. They can define the direction of their lives. This principle of agency forms the foundation of modern liberal thought.

And rightly so. But something peculiar happens when cases like this enter public debate. The language of agency begins to collapse under pressure. The independent adult suddenly becomes a figure shaped entirely by circumstance. Choice gets reframed as compulsion. Responsibility gets softened into victimhood. Decision gets dissolved into conditioning.

The shift is striking. A woman may be old enough to vote, travel, enter relationships, defy family structures and make consequential life decisions. Yet when faced with allegations of serious wrongdoing, many voices suddenly argue she lacked the very capacity to make the most critical decision of all: the decision not to commit the act.

One cannot help noticing the asymmetry in how accountability is applied. When men are accused of crimes, explanations rarely drift into extended sociological excavation. The general framing tends to remain anchored in agency. Actions reflect choices. Choices reflect character. Responsibility is individual. But when the accused is a woman, commentary often expands in a different direction entirely. Social pressures are examined in detail. Cultural conditioning is dissected. Family dynamics are scrutinised. External influences are mapped with precision. Everything is explored except the possibility that an adult individual may have knowingly chosen to do something wrong.

This is not equality. It is paternalism presented in the language of empathy. Perhaps that is the irony at the centre of it all. Many of the same voices that advocate empowerment often drift into a framework where women are subtly treated as less accountable whenever accountability becomes uncomfortable. The underlying implication becomes difficult to ignore: a man acts because he chooses to, while a woman acts because circumstances act through her.

What begins as compassion slowly transforms into a quieter form of condescension. Because denying agency is not empowerment. Reducing responsibility is not progress. Treating adults as incapable of moral decision-making is not liberation. True equality is more demanding than that. It requires accepting that women are as capable as men of ambition, intelligence, generosity, cruelty and wrongdoing. The same freedom that allows for admirable choices also allows for reprehensible ones. Freedom without accountability is not empowerment; it is indulgence.

None of this is to suggest that context does not matter. Social pressures are real. Family expectations are real. Cultural norms are real. They influence behaviour in countless ways. But influence is not compulsion. Explanation is not exoneration. Context is not acquittal.

Every criminal act has a background. Every poor decision has circumstances behind it. But if circumstances alone determined morality, the entire idea of personal responsibility would collapse. Civilised societies are built on the opposite assumption: that human beings, despite pressure and pain, still possess the capacity to choose. They must live with the consequences of those choices and not conveniently play the hapless victim of their crimes!

Countless people experience betrayal, family conflict, emotional turmoil and romantic breakdowns without turning them into violence. They argue, they separate, they suffer and they move on. The vast majority do not translate personal crisis into criminal conspiracy. That distinction is not minor. It is fundamental.

Somewhere beneath the noise, beneath the ideological framing, beneath the search for ever-expanding explanations, there remains a very simple principle: adults deserve dignity because they possess agency and adults deserve accountability for the same reason.

And yet, for all the loud theorising, the footnotes of sympathy and the endless attempts to redistribute moral weight across society, there is a quieter reality that rarely gets sustained attention: the family left behind. While public discourse stretches itself into complex explanations of influence and conditioning, Ketan’s parents are left navigating a far more immediate, irreversible truth. There are no philosophical loopholes for them, no abstract debates to soften the absence, no competing narratives that dilute what has been lost. What remains is a life reorganised around grief, unanswered questions and the permanence of an ending that cannot be reinterpreted into comfort. In the end, while everyone else debates who or what is responsible, they are the ones who continue to live with the consequences: without commentary, without theory and without the luxury of distance.

Perhaps Siya did not confuse Chetan and Ketan. Perhaps the real confusion lies elsewhere: in how easily public discourse slips from explanation into exoneration. And that confusion is becoming far too common.

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Few historians have enjoyed the kind of influence that Romila Thapar has exercised. For decades, Thapar has presented herself as the champion of evidence-based history and her place in India’s intellectual landscape is beyond dispute. Which is precisely why her recent interview on the occasion of her memoir Just Being is so revealing. Not because it contains anything particularly shocking. Quite the opposite.

The interview is fascinating because it feels as though it has arrived from another era. The language is familiar. The assumptions are familiar. The villains and heroes are familiar. Even the solutions are familiar. One hears once again about secularism, pluralism, communalism, liberalism and the dangers of majoritarian politics, presented with the same certainty that characterized India’s academic establishment several decades ago.

The problem is not that these ideas are being discussed. The problem is that they are being discussed as though the last thirty years never happened. Throughout the interview, Thapar repeatedly invokes plurality as the defining characteristic of Indian civilization. On the surface, this is difficult to dispute. India has always been a land of immense diversity. It has accommodated innumerable sects, traditions, customs, languages and local identities. But what is striking is the peculiar conclusion she draws from this observation.

For Thapar, diversity appears to function primarily as an argument against civilizational unity. The existence of multiple traditions is treated as evidence against the existence of a larger Hindu civilizational framework. Yet historically, the opposite question is equally valid. How did such extraordinary diversity remain connected across centuries? Why did pilgrims travel across the length of the subcontinent? Why did sacred geographies transcend political boundaries? Why did epics, philosophical traditions, pilgrimage networks and cultural symbols circulate across regions that were often ruled by entirely different kingdoms? Plurality explains part of the story. It does not explain the whole story. Indeed, one could argue that the persistence of Indian civilization lies precisely in its ability to sustain diversity without dissolving into complete fragmentation.

This is where a broader pattern emerges. Again and again, phenomena that might point toward civilizational continuity are interpreted through frameworks that instinctively seek fragmentation. Shared identity becomes suspect. Cultural cohesion becomes a political project. Civilizational memory becomes a modern invention.

Nowhere is this more evident than in Thapar’s discussion of Hindutva. She argues, as she has for many years, that the intellectual foundations of Hindutva are deeply indebted to colonial categories. James Mill, racial theories, colonial notions of nationhood and nineteenth-century European ideas all make an appearance.

There is certainly an interesting discussion to be had about colonial influences on modern political thought. No serious student of history would deny that colonialism shaped the vocabulary through which Indians came to understand themselves.

But what is remarkable is the asymmetry. Colonial influence is treated as decisive when discussing Hindu political consciousness. Yet the intellectual traditions from which post-independence secularism emerged are rarely subjected to the same scrutiny.

After all, the categories of majority and minority, religion as a census classification, race, tribe, caste enumeration, communal representation and even many modern understandings of nationhood entered Indian political discourse through colonial institutions and colonial knowledge systems. If the presence of colonial influence is sufficient to delegitimize one tradition of political thought, then the same question must surely be asked of the others.

The issue is not whether colonial influence existed. The issue is why it is invoked selectively. Perhaps the most revealing aspect of the interview, however, is not what is said but what remains unsaid.

The rise of Hindutva is presented largely as the triumph of a flawed political ideology. Missing from the discussion is any serious reflection on why millions of Indians found it persuasive in the first place. Ideas do not acquire mass support simply because they are repeated. They acquire support because they speak to experiences, frustrations and perceptions that people believe are real.

For decades, large sections of India’s intellectual class treated expressions of Hindu civilizational consciousness with suspicion while simultaneously celebrating almost every other form of identity politics. Religious identities, caste identities, linguistic identities, regional identities and minority identities were all considered legitimate subjects of political mobilization. Hindu identity alone was expected to remain permanently private, permanently fragmented and permanently apologetic.

To point this out is not to endorse every claim made in the name of Hindutva. It is simply to acknowledge that political movements do not emerge in a vacuum. They emerge as responses to existing intellectual and political conditions. This is perhaps the central weakness of the framework represented by Thapar’s generation. It is extraordinarily skilled at diagnosing the dangers of its opponents but remarkably reluctant to examine the failures of its own assumptions.

When confronted with the decline of the Nehruvian consensus, the instinct is rarely self-reflection. Instead, the explanation is sought in misinformation, communalism, populism or democratic failure. The possibility that the consensus itself may have contained deep contradictions is seldom entertained.

Ironically, one of the strongest points Thapar makes in the interview is that societies are never static. Every generation, she argues, must continually reassess its assumptions and confront changing realities.

That is excellent advice. It is advice that India’s intellectual establishment would do well to apply to itself. Because historical interpretations, like societies, are not immune to change. And no orthodoxy, not even one that speaks in the language of pluralism and critical inquiry, should be exempt from critical inquiry itself.

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When we think about the history of a place, we often begin with rulers, dynasties, battles and kingdoms. We search for the earliest inscriptions, the first capitals and the rise and fall of political powers. Yet the oldest stories of a civilization are often not found in chronicles. They survive in myths, sacred landscapes and collective memory. In the case of Kumaon, the oldest story is not be about a king at all. It is about a Tortoise.

The region that we know today as Kumaon was historically referred to as Kurmanchal: the Land of Kurma. The name itself preserves a memory that predates many of the region’s recorded political histories. Kurma, the tortoise avatar of Vishnu, occupies a unique place in Hindu tradition. His story emerges from one of the most celebrated episodes in Hindu mythology: the Samudra Manthana or the Churning of the Ocean.

According to the tradition, the devas and asuras joined forces to churn the cosmic ocean in search of amrita, the nectar of immortality. Mount Mandara was used as the churning rod, while the serpent Vasuki served as the rope. But the mountain could not remain stable and began sinking into the depths of the ocean. To prevent the cosmic effort from collapsing, Vishnu assumed the form of a gigantic tortoise and supported the mountain on his back. Only then could the churning continue.

At first glance, the connection between a Himalayan region and a cosmic tortoise may seem distant. Yet myths are rarely concerned with geography alone. They are concerned with meaning. The image of Kurma is the image of support, endurance and stability. He bears an immense burden without seeking recognition. He represents the unseen foundation upon which great endeavors become possible.

Perhaps this symbolism explains why the memory of Kurma became attached to the region. The Himalayas themselves have long been imagined as more than mountains. They are the abode of gods, the source of sacred rivers and the setting for countless acts of penance and revelation. In such a landscape, the idea of a cosmic foundation, of a force that silently upholds the world, would have carried profound significance.

What is particularly fascinating is that the identity of Kumaon appears to have been shaped by this sacred narrative long before the rise of the region’s famous dynasties. Before there were courts and kingdoms, there were stories. Before there were political boundaries, there were sacred associations. The memory of Kurma transformed the landscape into something more than territory. It became a place woven into a larger civilisational imagination.

This reminds us of the difference between geography and sacred geography. Geography tells us where a place is. Sacred geography tells us what a place means. A map can show a mountain, a river or a valley, but it cannot explain why generations considered those places holy. It cannot reveal the stories that connected local landscapes to cosmic narratives. Those stories are what give a place its cultural depth.

Today, many people encounter Kumaon as a beautiful mountain region known for its forests, temples and scenic towns. Few pause to consider the older memory embedded in its name. Yet names often function as cultural fossils. They preserve fragments of a worldview that might otherwise be forgotten. In the case of Kumaon, the name Kurmanchal preserves the memory of a sacred association that has endured across centuries.

The story of Kurma may not provide dates, inscriptions or political history. It belongs to a different kind of truth. The truth of how a people understood their landscape and situated themselves within the cosmos. Such stories are not valuable because they can be verified through archaeology. They are valuable because they reveal the imagination of a civilization.

The oldest story of Kumaon, then, is not a story of conquest or kingship. It is the memory of Kurma, the cosmic tortoise who supported the mountain during the churning of the ocean. And perhaps that is fitting. For before places become states, they become stories. Before they are governed, they are imagined. Before they are mapped, they are remembered. The deepest foundations of a civilization are often not found in its monuments, but in the stories it chooses to carry forward.

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Ask any Indian school student about Greek mythology and chances are they can tell you who Zeus is. Ask them about the folk traditions of their own district and the conversation often ends there. This is not a criticism of Greek mythology. It is a question about cultural inheritance.

Greek mythology is fascinating. The stories are rich, dramatic, and timeless. Through books, films, television series, video games and social media, characters like Zeus, Athena, Hades and Achilles have become globally recognizable figures. But what fascinates me is not that Indians know Greek mythology. It is that many of us know it better than the stories that emerged from our own landscapes.

How many people can name the folk deities worshipped in their district? How many know the legends associated with a nearby river, hill or temple? How many have heard the local versions of the Ramayana or Mahabharata that have been passed down for generations? India is not merely a land of grand epics. It is a civilization of countless local narratives. Every region has its own heroes. Every village has its own sacred stories. Every community has preserved memories that rarely make it into textbooks. In Rajasthan, there are tales of Pabuji and Tejaji. In Bengal, stories of Bonbibi continue to shape life in the Sundarbans. In Assam, Manasa and Behula remain part of a living cultural memory.

Across India, folk traditions survive in songs, rituals, festivals, oral narratives, and community practices. Yet many of these stories remain invisible to the educated classes. Why? Part of the answer lies in the way modern education functions. Schools often prioritize standardized knowledge over local memory. Global culture is easier to distribute than regional culture.A Hollywood adaptation reaches millions. A village legend often survives only if someone chooses to tell it. The result is a curious paradox.

We have become increasingly connected to global narratives while becoming disconnected from the stories rooted in our own soil. This is not a call to reject foreign myths or global culture. Civilizations have always learned from one another. The real question is whether we are extending our cultural horizons or replacing them.A healthy cultural inheritance allows us to engage with the world without losing sight of where we come from.

Perhaps the issue is not that young Indians know who Zeus is. Perhaps the issue is that they know Zeus but not the stories their grandparents grew up hearing. And when those stories disappear, we lose more than entertainment. We lose memory and context. We lose the countless threads that connect people to place, community and history.

The challenge before us is not to choose between Greek mythology and Indian folklore. It is to ensure that our own stories are not forgotten while we learn about everyone else’s. After all, a civilization survives not only through what it creates, but through what it remembers.

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