Aman Narain

Six chapters. From Patel's 1950 letter, through 47 tonnes of gold flown to the Bank of England in 1991, through Galwan and Kazan, to the East Room handshake on 6 February 2026. Three thousand words. Sunday reading. open.substack.com/pub/amanwhoblo…

The argument: India hasn't updated non-alignment. It has inverted it. Non-alignment was the foreign policy of a country that couldn't afford to take sides. Multi-alignment is the foreign policy of a country that has learnt to charge for joining one.

The essay opens at a wardrobe in Singapore on a wet Sunday morning. A waistcoat at the back of a garment bag/ Nehru's silhouette, Modi's silhouette; same cut, different cloth. What changed wasn't the tailoring. It was the country's ability to pay for the better weave.

Three Persian rugs on my living room floor. A Sarough, a Kerman, a Kashan. Ten years of searching. One wins this weekend. The other two go back in a taxi. They won't mind. They've been travelling for a very long time.

In 1994, Iran exported $2.1 billion in hand-woven carpets. By 2024, the number was $41.7 million. A 98% collapse. A million weavers walked away. And the most expensive rug ever sold went for $33.8 million at Sotheby's, woven by someone whose name was never written down. The Persian carpet is the world's oldest luxury, oldest alternative asset, and oldest casualty of American sanctions. This week's deep dive: 🧵👇 open.substack.com/pub/amanwhoblo…

"The craft that survived Mongol invasion, Safavid centralisation, British commercial commission and a century of American sanctions may yet be undone by a Shopify storefront." To Dye For: The Story of Silk, Sanctions, Silence Read the full piece and subscribe to A Man Who Blogs: amanwhoblogs.substack.com/subscribe 🕗 8pm SGT · 5:30pm Mumbai · 4pm Dubai · 12pm London · 8am NY

Delhi, last month. A woman at lunch mentioned she had to leave by four. Mahjong club. Within minutes, three others were comparing sets. Bridge ruled my grandfather's Gymkhana. In 2026, a 19th-century Chinese sparrow has quietly conquered the drawing room. New on AMWB 👇 open.substack.com/pub/amanwhoblo…

I've lost weight for the first time in over a decade. India has 100M diabetics. I'm one of them. 47% of Indians are overweight. I was one of them. Most wellness-educated generation in history. Least healthy. That's the wellness paradox. New @A2ZFintech with #SumayaDalmia — the woman who's been training India since 1997. The #Sumaya7: Eat. Move. Train. Sleep. Measure. Recover. Repeat. Pairs with this week's AMWB #36: Sweat, Science & Semaglutide. 🎥 youtu.be/H3APliLOQiw?si… 📩 amanwhoblogs.substack.com/p/sumaya-dalmi…

A million sicca rupees a year at the peak. Rs 1,200 a month at the end. Gold coins still surface during construction in Murshidabad. The ground remembers what the textbooks forgot. Full essay: open.substack.com/pub/amanwhoblo…

"When a nation's bankers mistake a predator for a fiduciary partner, the ledger always closes in blood." The Rothschilds survived: 5 brothers, 5 cities, 5 sovereigns. The Jagat Seths concentrated everything in one province, one mint, one sovereign. Concentration risk killed in 1757. It kills today.

They controlled 12% of global GDP. Ran a credit network from Bengal to Moscow. Minted the currency of a subcontinent. Then the Jagat Seths hired the East India Company to collect a debt. It cost them everything. 🧵 The Medici of the Monsoon: Bankers to the World

India once had 40% of its banking assets under female CEOs. No quota. No mandate. Just talent. Then it collapsed to 13%. New AMWB on the golden age, the Vaghul Doctrine, and the architecture nobody built to replace it. 🔗 amanwhoblogs.substack.com/p/women-in-ind…

I finally figured out what Delhi really is. A Jellycat store. But chaotic. Loud. Slightly judgmental. Convinced it's right. Meet the Delhi Cats 🐱 Pammi Aunty — Gucci bag. Zero tolerance. Colonel Sahib — Bandhgala. Single malt. Very important. Also very available. Simran — Entirely aesthetic. Nani Ji — Chai. Has seen everything. Judges quietly. Firdoz Founder — MacBook. "Can't talk about it yet." Nobody is soft. New post Sunday on A Man Who Blogs. Link in comments. P.S. Toy manufacturers: licensing inquiries welcome. Must survive a North Indian family dinner.

India's foreign bank credit card duopoly never ended. It just changed its clothes. First: @Citi and @StanChart . Then: @HDFC_Bank and @ICICIBank . Now: @Google #Pay and @PhonePe. Same pattern. Completely different physics. Full story 👇 amanwhoblogs.substack.com/p/cards-conver… #IndiaFintech #CreditCards #GooglePay #UPI

"Make in India" was a tagline. Until it wasn't. If you're a fintech leader, supply chain strategist, or board member still benchmarking India through a 2014 lens, this is your wake-up call. I was stuck in Delhi traffic yesterday, crawling past auto-rickshaws and honking SUVs...

The Claw Bots are coming. They'll be faster, cheaper, more consistent. They'll handle every use case. Except the one that matters. Full essay: open.substack.com/pub/amanwhoblo… "Human as a Service" — AMWB #33

My last stop was Friends Electronics. The owner wept for my dad the day after he passed. Refused payment for a cable. This time, three months later, I leaned against his counter and understood: The shop is called Friends. He did not name it casually.

I went back to my hometown for the first time since my dad died. Mum needed me. The paperwork needed doing. I ran five errands. What happened in those five stops turned into an essay about what AI will never replicate. A thread. 🧵