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✍️ Written by Saket Suman Greed has arrived slowly  in the bloodstream of our society and now it has come to be accepted as common sense.  It has previously been rebranded many times as ambition, as hustle or even as growth. It is rarely named but it is signalled in the towers that cast shadows over ration lines, in the malls that shimmer next to neighbourhoods without drains, in the policy documents that speak the language of targets but never of tired bodies. Greed is now a system, and those who refuse to play along are called impractical. Representational Image Source: VinayMutha1212 on X This system of  extraction and  accumulation  is the new dharma of power in India.  A nation once bound by ideals of seva  now finds itself governed by the logic of profit. The shift was not sudden and it came through smaller betrayals when a footpath was handed over to a mall, a meal scheme diluted for “efficiency” or a scho...

✍️ Written by Saket Suman Kashi is unlike most other cities of India, even the religious ones, as it rarely impresses you at the first glance. It simply receives you, like an old river receives everything without pretending those things, like flowers and ash or meditation and commerce, are exact opposites. This is why every attempt to “fix” Kashi is bound to culminate into public anxiety. People are defending a feeling, they are defending the right of an ancient place to remain unflattened by modern categories. In the last few days, short videos of heavy redevelopment work around one of the most sacred burning grounds in Kashi have travelled faster than the truth that might explain them. Bulldozers, broken stones, disturbed idols and dust rising where centuries have settled.  Manikarnika Ghat, Kashi by James Prinsep 1832. Via: Yaduvam The images are blunt and therefore effective. They first invited panic, then outrage, then politics. The stat...

✍️ Written by Saket Suman One of the most overlooked features of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar is that he does not begin the tragedy with conspiracy or bloodshed but with a festival. Rome is in motion, gathered in public ritual at the Feast of Lupercal, an ancient observance tied to fertility, purification, and the turning of the season.  Representational; Via: Shukri Hamk Mark Antony runs the sacred course. Julius Caesar watches, then calls out, asking that his wife Calpurnia be touched in the holy chase so that her barrenness may be lifted. It is a small moment that is easily overlooked but it is doing serious work. William Shakespeare places power inside a seasonal frame before politics hardens into violence. The play reminds us that societies once understood legitimacy, continuity and anxiety about the future through the language of the sun and the body.  That instinct, the urge to pause when the sun turns and to read meaning in...

✍️ Written by Saket Suman There are some words that a civilisation carries for centuries and in due course of time it becomes a part of our living memory. Karuna is one such word in India.  It does not translate cleanly into “compassion” because it asks much more of us than sympathy, charity, or even kindness. Karuna is an obligation. It is the unsettling recognition that somebody else’s suffering is not separate from our own and therefore cannot be ignored without cost to the self. In the Indian philosophical imagination, Karuna holds together ethics, community, and governance in ways that are both simple and righteous. To speak of Karuna, then, is not to speak of benevolence in the abstract but of the moral mechanics by which a society chooses to function or fail. Reprsentational Image of Aloka, the peace dog! Via: Bobby Devito Across India’s spiritual traditions, compassion has never been passive, or at least that is what I found in my ...