Sense & Sensibility

@greatbong Congratulations! Enjoy the feeling. Many non-Bengalis are just as happy today. 👍

For someone who has suffered under TMC goons, allow me to be happy.

Lenskart cannot respect your bindi. Not because they hate you. Because they literally cannot afford to. Let me show you exactly why. Peyush Bansal tweeted: "We are proudly built in Bharat, for Indians." Beautiful line. Terrible lie. Start with the factory. Lenskart's India plant opened in 2023. Before that, China joint venture. That JV still runs today. Frames. Raw materials. Supply chain. All from China. Indian factory mostly assemble. Now look at who owns this "Bharatiya" company. Peyush Bansal: 10.28% Neha Bansal: 7.74% Amit Chaudhary: 0.98% Sumeet Kapahi: 0.96% All four founders combined: 20%. The remaining 80%? SoftBank: Japan. Temasek: Singapore. ADIA: Abu Dhabi. KKR: New York. Fidelity: Boston. Now here is what nobody tells you. Every foreign investor runs ESG compliance. Before writing a cheque. ESG = Environmental, Social, Governance. A scoring system that has nothing to do with Environment. Built in New York and Amsterdam. It decides who gets capital. Inside ESG lives another animal. Called DEI. Diversity. Equity. Inclusion. DEI was designed in America. Built on American horrors. Black minorities. Gender wars. LGBTQ rights. Never designed for India. Does not understand India. Here is what DEI scores as "positive": Hijab at work = Positive signal. Turban at work = Positive signal. Here is what DEI marks as risk: Bindi = Majority religion marker. Tilak = Majority religion. Kalawa = Majority religion. In Western DEI logic, The majority is the oppressor. Majority does not need protection. So when Lenskart's HR writes a grooming policy, They are not writing for you. They write for their colonial masters. Because Lenskart is chasing a $10 billion IPO. Does your bindi sit anywhere in that number? Their first customer is not you. Their first customer is SoftBank. Their first customer is ADIA. Their first customer is an ESG agency in Amsterdam. You buy one pair of glasses. They invest $500 million. Do the math on who Lenskart listens to. Now the government. You think they don't know? They know everything. Every ministry understands how foreign capital erases civilizational identity. SEBI approved the DRHP. Not one clause protecting Hindu identity. Because the government also wants the IPO. GST. Tax. Economic headline. Your kalawa / kada is not in that equation. This is not a Lenskart problem. This is every unicorn in India. Swiggy. Zomato. Ola. Meesho. Zepto. Check their cap tables. Check the ESG reports. Check the grooming policies in their HR folders. Every company 60-80% owned by foreign capital is a branch office of Western values. "Built in Bharat" is a tagline. "For Indians" is a marketing campaign. The policy document tells you who they serve. Your Bindi. Your Kalawa. Your Kada. Your 5,000 years. Irrelevant to billionaires chasing an IPO. But minority appeasement? That scores points in Amsterdam. And we call ourselves an Independent Nation.

@swati_gs Almost every article in @timesofindia about the crimes of samudaay vishesh has this kind of deliberately neutral wording. So much so that such wording itself leaves no doubt regarding the offenders’ religion. Also, their names are mentioned at the very end, if at all.

A very crucial skill needed for an English language print journalist in India is to be able to hide Islamist activities like sexual exploitation and forced conversion of Hindu women Read this is from a Times of India report on a Nagpur man named Riyaz Fazil Qazi who has been arrested for preying on multiple Hindu women employees of his company

@SanjeevSanskrit Agree. Hope you’ll patch up with the estranged (but still potent) Agniveer team soon and work together towards large-scale gharwapsis, besides other pro-Hindu projects.

Important: The situation is grim. The cancer is spreading. The illegal conversion mafia - its networks and enablers - is the only adversary that matters. At such a time, coming together matters more than past differences. Hence, am setting aside all matters of differences and burning away the past. Those engaged in this Dharma Yuddha have always been my pariwar. Have always stood with, protected, and strengthened my pariwar - regardless of the past. But now, let us come together proactively. If you also hold that this Dharma Yuddha is all that matters, let us hug each other and assert our unbroken Dharmik bond. No apologies sought. None offered. The past is burnt away. Only disciplined, forward action to dismantle the mafia, through Vedic maryada. As one pariwar. Looking forward to hear from you. - संजीव नेवर 🙏 वि मृधो हन्मः रक्षसः (हिंसक राक्षसों की चटनी बना देंगे)

RT if you've never bought anything from Lenskart 🔥

@karnati_srinath @impuni Hinduism is too diverse and complex for most of us to understand and defend passionately. Too many gods, books, stories, festivals, etc. Might help to distill it down to its bare soul and agree on one god, one book, one simple set of rules for every Hindu to uphold and defend.

Look at the Surnames of muslims in TCS, Nashik Love Jihad, Nobody noticed this🚨

@ShefVaidya @EconomicTimes Even ToI refrained from mentioning their names in their story the other day. These secular librandu reporters and editors will only start naming the offenders when they come for their own wives and daughters.

Hi @EconomicTimes scared to say that the ‘six team leaders’ arrested in this case were named Asif Ansari, Shafi Sheikh, Shah Rukh Qureshi, Raza Memon and Tausif Attar and ALL the victims were Hindu women?

@garg_trupti @5UM8O No wonder the ToI did not mention their names in their report of this story today. But one could guess because the report said they were also being accused of hurting the victims’ religious sentiments.

Asif Ansari, Shafi Sheikh, Shahrukh Qureshi, Raza Memon and Tausif Attar have been arrested for harassing, sexually assaulting and blackmailing female colleagues at a reputed multinational IT company in Nashik. A total of 8 complaints have been filed by female employees along with one complaint from a male employee, he was pressured to convert to Islam. Educated or illiterate doesn’t matter they all are same !!

Oracle fired 12,000 of its Indian workforce and is expected to sack more. Another reminder of how fragile stability is in the private sector. One secures employment, income begins to flow, long-term plans take shape, home, car, loans, EMIs. And then, a single decision by the corporate to “rationalize” or “downsize,” and everything collapses overnight. Unless you quickly re-enter the job market, fixed liabilities don’t pause; they compound stress and can upend an otherwise steady life. While you earn, you must pay taxes. The moment you lose your job, you’re on your own. In fact, you even have to pay tax on the severance also. Maybe it’s time to introduce reforms, such as mandating severance pay ranging from three months to one year based on an employee’s tenure, as is the norm in the West; allowing EMI pauses for a 3-6 months; and providing a time-bound monthly allowance from the govt for involuntary job losses. If Ladla/Ladlis can get free money, free ration, free water, and electricity, without paying any income tax, why not support a worker who has been paying taxes and contributing?

That is the fraud. American power on screen is “craft.” British power on screen is “heritage.” Indian power on screen is suddenly evidence of political conditioning. Same cinema. Same nationalism. Different skin colour. The Economist has a wonderfully colonial rulebook for cinema. When America straps a camera to Pentagon hardware and sells state power with a soundtrack, it is “spectacle.” When a film is made with CIA-adjacent mythology around national revenge, it is “serious storytelling.” But when India puts its own enemies and terrorist attack scars on screen, suddenly the magazine reaches for the psychiatrist’s couch. That is the real joke here. Fighter jets, spies, commandos and national vengeance are perfectly acceptable as long as the flag fluttering in the background is American or British. Then it is culture. It is craft. It is cinema doing what cinema does. The Economist has invented a very elegant little rule for cinema: Top Gun: Maverick can fly on Pentagon muscle, RAMBO & Zero Dark Thirty can ride CIA mythology, James Bond can sell six decades of British spy glamour, Dunkirk can turn wartime memory into national legend, and all of that is called storytelling. But the moment India puts terror, retaliation and national memory on screen with Dhurandhar, the magazine starts diagnosing the audience instead of reviewing the film. What @TheEconomist cannot digest is not one film. It is the fact that Indians are no longer outsourcing their memory to London’s approval. A country that has lived through decades of Pakistan-sponsored terror is apparently expected to process all that pain in whispers, with tasteful disclaimers, and preferably under the supervision of foreign editors who still think they are qualified to explain India to Indians. And that is why the review reeks. Not of sophistication, but of the old imperial tic: Western nationalism on screen is a nation telling its story; Indian nationalism on screen is a pathology requiring diagnosis. The costume has changed. The sneer has not. The funniest part is that The Economist probably thinks this is fearless criticism. It is not. It is just another imported lecture from people who never mind propaganda when it wears aviators, a tuxedo, or a CIA badge, but develop exquisite moral sensitivity the moment India stops being apologetic on its own screen. Just FYI: Decades of Pakistan-sponsored terror are apparently meant to be processed quietly, apologetically, and preferably without ever producing a mass-market cultural response. That is the old script. India is no longer following it.

@nehanagarr Singapore for safety, cleanliness, efficient public transport, and of course some Indian vibes.

If you were given option to leave India forever and chose any country of your choice to live in. Which country would you choose and why?

@Mrsinha Hopefully also encourage large-scale ghar-wapsis.

SC/ST privileges will not apply after conversion to Christianity - Supreme court This is truly a landmark judgment. It will help curb illegal conversions.

@jasveer10 Agree completely. With marriages failing more often nowadays, an expensive wedding looks like an extremely risky investment. Better to gift long term assets like stocks or property to the couple after a few years of happy matrimony instead of splurging on their wedding.

Indian weddings are not celebrations. They are insecurity dressed up as culture. Indian middle-class parents are ready to burn 5-6 years of income on one wedding night. Indian parents are not obsessed with weddings. They are obsessed with looking rich for one night. That’s it. The truth is you’re pretending to be rich. No one’s fooled. They just won’t say it to your face. They don’t want a good wedding. They just want validation. They want that one moment where people say ‘wah, kya shaadi thi’ And they’re ready to go broke for it. I’ve seen this very closely - People earning 10-20 lakh a year are burning 30-50 lakh on weddings. Some take loans. EMI for marriage. Think about how stupid that is. You go to office every day. For years. Deal with stress, pressure, bosses, targets. And then you burn all that money in 1-2 days. For what? Just to play Nakali Raja for one day (Ghodi, mukut, talwar) or For People who come and secretly comparing, not celebrating. You’re not celebrating your wedding. You’re acting for society. This is insecurity disguised as culture. Reality is Indian parents are obsessed with image. Status in family, status in society. Even when they can’t afford it, they will stretch, borrow, exhaust everything just to look rich for one night. That’s the real problem - Not weddings. But spending way beyond your reality to satisfy ego. That’s not celebration. That’s financial self-destruction. Not because they wanted to… because they felt they had to prove something. If you’re earning 1 crore and spending 10-20 lakh, that’s reasonable. Spending 400% or 500% is stupidity. And worst part… people don’t even question it.

@greatbong In part 1 too, the scene where Yalina confronts Hamza in their home, he gives her the option to leave the house, and she walks up to the open door and shuts it from inside indicating she wants to live with him, was similar to a scene in Akele Hum Akele Tum.

There is a sequence in Dhurandhar: The Revenge that, when I was watching it, I immediately recognized as a variation on a sequence from an iconic Bollywood movie of the 90s. (I am being vague to be spoiler-free.) And right after the sequence finishes, the title track of the 90s movie plays, as a lovely hat-tip to my favorite decade. Such moments of subtlety come few and far between in the three and a half hours of Dhurandhar: The Revenge, giving a new meaning to one of the movie's lines: patience is a form of courage. In the second installment of India's most successful movie ever, Aditya Dhar does a better job than he did in the first part when it comes to crafting the elements of a good story: background, characterization, and motivation. Dhurandhar 2 is most successful in the quieter scenes, like the one where the main villain is taunted by his father (yes, in the Dhurandhar world, that is the definition of "quiet"), scenes where the camera locks into two people in a dramatic, non-physical confrontation that sets the context or unravels the consequences of its extreme violence. But these are very few and far between.  The rest of Dhurandhar 2 is more of what made the first part successful: physics-bending action sequences set to 80s-90s songs remixed with rap, half-true, half-false weaving of history and imagination, and over-the-top violence. Which, one can argue, is exactly what people want. In a way, reviewing Dhurandhar as a movie is an exercise in futility. Whether you love it to the extent that you will abuse anyone who criticizes it, or hate it to the extent that you will deplatform anyone who loves it, depends entirely on how you believe the world is, who you believe the good guys are, and why you believe the bad guys do what they do.  It does not depend on whether the movie could have been edited by a good 45 minutes, whether many of the twists at the end could have been more earned, or whether there could have been more variety in its action set-pieces.  None of this matters.  Everyone who loved Dhurandhar had their minds made up before they walked into the theater. And for everyone who hates it, nothing the two movies could have done across their seven-plus hours of combined runtime would have changed that, and the only reason they are hate-watching it is so then they can go out and drop a video review on X and rake in Musk-dollars. For decades, Bollywood has pushed the narrative that war is bad, that it is waged between the governments of India and Pakistan while the people of both countries love each other. Dhurandhar takes the opposite track, socking it to the libs in their soft tissue, framing the conflict as one driven by an ideology founded on hatred of the other, and the only solution being a new India that recognizes that hatred for what it is and then exacts retribution, in a language the other side understands, by entering their house and disturbing their furniture. Much of art is propaganda, and Dhurandhar's originality lies not in its cinematic craft but in occupying the opposite side of what has been the predominant Aman ki Asha political message. Dhar is good at engendering raw emotion in the audience through cinema, and it is that effectiveness that both riles those who call it toxic and emboldens those who, seeing their perspective finally represented on screen in a way that cannot be trivialized, watch it in theaters and then go after anyone on social media who thinks otherwise. Either way, watch Dhurandhar or do not. There is no "let's wait for reviews and then decide." #Dhurandhar2‌

@talk2anuradha I still remember the India Today cover page featuring his self-immolation attempt. His lower legs and his hair were ablaze in that captured moment. I also remember Madhu Trehan’s Newstrack story covering the agitation… showing protesting students shot and dying.

A man who died fighting for the merit and future of this country. Yet today, nobody remembers him !

@5UM8O Yes, I’ve always wondered at the sheer unfairness of so many M nations finding loads of oil right under their ass while a dharmic and righteous nation like ours has to buy it from them and also behave extra-nice with them. India deserved unlimited oil reserves instead.

@5UM8O You had me at the first sentence. 👍 Followed you.

@jyotipunwani @HPhobiaWatch Trust you to assume all Abduls are dudes. Ever heard of Paula Abdul? 😀

@sunwrites @HPhobiaWatch Trust u to assume I'm a man.

The only reason I am staying in Himachal and probably settle here despite having a Kangress govt is because Moslem presence is almost negligible Sometimes I go a month without seeing Topi or Burkha. Thats the ultimate safety line

@jyotipunwani @HPhobiaWatch Hey you know, many of us do happily live in clean, safe neighborhoods where Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, Sikhs, and even Christians peacefully coexist with each other, and the ones who cannot coexist are quietly kept out. :-) But thank you for your attention to this matter, Abdul.

@sunwrites @HPhobiaWatch Hey why don't u guys form a hindu only ghetto n live happily there?