THE ITCH OF WAR: FROM KURUKSHETRA TO HORMUZ

 

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War rarely begins with grand strategy or noble declarations. More often, it begins with something far smaller and far more human. Imagine an itch, an irritation that refuses to go away. One person feels it first, perhaps pride wounded, ego bruised, grievance unresolved. Instead of calming the irritation through restraint, reflection, or compromise, he provokes another. Soon the second person begins scratching as well. What started as a private discomfort becomes shared agitation. Retaliation follows retaliation, and the scratching becomes a spectacle. Others join in, either to defend honour, settle scores, or simply because conflict has a way of pulling spectators onto the stage. Before long, the original irritation is forgotten, yet the pain has spread everywhere. That, in essence, is how wars often grow, not merely from necessity, but from unchecked impulses and the human tendency to export one’s own unrest.

A striking illustration of this dynamic appears in the ancient Indian epic Mahabharata and the catastrophic Kurukshetra War. The conflict did not begin with armies marching across plains, but it began with humiliation, envy, and pride. The rivalry between the Pandavas and the Kauravas escalated through insults, manipulation, and the infamous dice game in which power, honour, and dignity were gambled away. The public humiliation of Draupadi transformed a palace dispute into a moral crisis that demanded redress. What might have remained a family quarrel hardened into an existential struggle involving kingdoms across the subcontinent. By the time diplomacy failed, the original grievances had become secondary. Pride, vengeance, and the perceived need to restore honour had already set the stage for a war that would devastate an entire generation.

History shows that this pattern repeats itself with uncomfortable regularity. Conflict is rarely spontaneous, but it usually emerges within larger cycles of power, insecurity, and shifting influence. When dominant powers sense their authority weakening or their economic foundations wobbling, strategic anxiety tends to rise. Military posturing becomes more visible, statements grow sharper, and warships suddenly begin what might politely be described as “presence missions.” Aircraft carriers do not wander oceans by accident. They are floating signals. When global power feels uncertain, the world often witnesses a season of muscle flexing disguised as diplomacy.

This dynamic is not new. In the nineteenth century, Britain and Russia engaged in a prolonged geopolitical rivalry in Central Asia that later became known as “the Great Game.” The term was first used by Captain Arthur Conolly of the British East India Company’s Bengal Light Cavalry in the 1840s to describe the strategic contest unfolding across Afghanistan, Persia, and the Central Asian Khanates. Later, Rudyard Kipling’s novel Kim gave the phrase its romantic and mysterious aura, portraying a shadowy world of spies, agents, and imperial manoeuvrings. Behind the literary drama, however, the Great Game was simply two empires attempting to secure influence, buffer zones, and strategic advantage without triggering a full scale war between themselves.

What is unfolding today in the Middle East resembles a far more dangerous version of that rivalry. Observers increasingly describe the current crisis as a “New Great Game,” but the comparison is only partially accurate. The nineteenth-century contest revolved largely around territory and imperial boundaries. The modern one revolves around regime survival, strategic deterrence, economic choke points, and global alliances that stretch far beyond the region itself.

The present escalation began dramatically at the end of February 2026, when the United States and Israel launched coordinated high intensity strikes against Iranian political, military, and nuclear infrastructure. The operations, reported as large scale precision campaigns, targeted command centres, missile facilities, and key figures within Iran’s leadership. Reports from multiple outlets indicated that the attacks killed Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with several senior military commanders and government officials. Iranian authorities later confirmed the deaths and declared a national mourning period.

This moment represented a decisive break from the shadow war that had defined US/Iran tensions for decades. Until then, confrontation largely occurred through proxies, cyber operations, covert sabotage, and limited missile exchanges. Directly targeting the leadership of the Iranian state crossed a threshold that previous administrations had avoided. The strategic logic behind the strike appeared to be the classic doctrine of overwhelming force, cripple the command structure quickly and create internal political shock large enough to weaken the regime itself. Officials in Washington framed the operation partly in those terms, suggesting that the Iranian population should seize the moment to reclaim political control from its ruling system.

But wars rarely unfold according to the tidy logic of strategic planners. Iran responded with immediate retaliation, launching waves of drones and ballistic missiles at American installations and allied states across the Gulf. The scale of the response was notable not only for its intensity but for its geographic reach. Missiles and drones targeted locations in Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, while some strikes extended toward Cyprus, Turkey, and Azerbaijan. Explosions were reported near major infrastructure hubs, including ports, energy terminals, and military bases. In geopolitical terms, Iran was sending a blunt message that is, if its regime was threatened, the entire regional system would feel the shock. Interestingly, Iran’s approach relies heavily on cheap, low cost drones, frequently referred to as Shahed-136 and Shahed-131 kamikaze drones. Estimates place production costs between $20,000 and $50,000 per unit, a fraction of the cost of more sophisticated US and Israeli systems like the Patriot missile or Israel’s David’s Sling and Arrow-3 interceptors, which can range from $1 million to over $3 million per launch. By leveraging affordability and sheer numbers, Iran can project strategic disruption without the enormous financial burden of high end missile exchanges, turning cost asymmetry into a tactical advantage.

The escalation deepened when Iran announced the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, one of the most critical maritime chokepoints in the global economy. Roughly a fifth of the world’s oil and a substantial portion of liquefied natural gas normally transit through that narrow passage between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Declaring the strait closed, and threatening vessels attempting passage, instantly disrupted global energy flows. Hundreds of tankers were stranded or forced to reroute. Insurance firms began withdrawing coverage for shipping in the region. The economic ripple effects spread quickly through global markets.

At the centre of the crisis now stands a clear strategic confrontation between the United States and Israel on one side and Iran on the other. Washington and Tel Aviv appear to be pursuing objectives that go well beyond slowing Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The pattern of strikes suggests a broader effort to degrade Iran’s missile capabilities, dismantle the network of allied militias often described as the “Axis of Resistance,” and limit Iran’s ability to project influence across Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. Israeli leadership has emphasized that the war is intended to be decisive rather than permanent, though history offers little reassurance that conflicts launched with such confidence remain contained.

Meanwhile, other major powers are behaving with notable caution. Russia and China both condemned the strikes and called for emergency discussions at the United Nations, yet neither has shown serious interest in entering the conflict militarily. Their restraint is not altruism, it is calculation. Russia remains heavily engaged in its own war in Ukraine and has little appetite for a second direct confrontation with the United States. China, while deeply dependent on Middle Eastern energy supplies, prioritizes stability above ideological alignment. India, for its part, is walking a delicate line. New Delhi relies heavily on Gulf energy imports and maintains strategic partnerships with both Washington and Tehran, making overt support for either side risky. As a result, India has largely called for de-escalation and dialogue, emphasizing diplomacy while quietly managing its energy security and regional influence. An open war involving great powers would threaten precisely the economic and strategic stability that Beijing and New Delhi alike rely upon.

That does not mean Iran stands entirely alone. Diplomatic backing, intelligence sharing, technological assistance, and strategic coordination are all possible forms of indirect support. Iranian officials have hinted at receiving “political and other assistance” from both Moscow and Beijing, though the ambiguity appears intentional. In geopolitics, uncertainty itself can function as a strategic tool.

Perhaps the most uncomfortable position belongs to the Gulf monarchies. Countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar host major American military bases while simultaneously depending on regional calm to sustain their economic growth. That dual reality places them directly in the crossfire. Iranian missile and drone attacks have already struck installations in several of these states, including Qatar’s Al Udeid air base and key port infrastructure in the UAE and Bahrain. At the same time, disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz threaten the very energy exports that underpin their economies. In effect, they are both partners and potential victims in the same strategic arrangement.

There is a historical echo here that stretches far back into antiquity. When Xerxes I of Persia, the self-styled “King of Kings”, pushed the Achaemenid Empire westward, his campaign was driven not only by expansion but by the need to reinforce imperial authority after internal revolts in provinces like Egypt and Babylon. His massive expedition against the Greek world required extraordinary engineering feats such as the bridge across the Hellespont and culminated in decisive setbacks at battles like Battle of Salamis. Empires often expand outward when internal pressures rise, projecting strength to consolidate authority at home. The comparison is imperfect, yet the pattern is familiar, which is where the hegemonic power attempts to maintain dominance across a vast strategic theatre while managing political strain, logistical limits, and unpredictable resistance.

The crisis differs from the 19th century Great Game in several important ways. First, the struggle today is less about territorial control than about control over infrastructure and systems, where it focuses on energy routes, financial networks, cyber capabilities, missile defences, and global supply chains. A single disruption in the Strait of Hormuz can shake energy markets from Tokyo to London in a matter of hours.

Second, the battlefield now includes powerful non state actors. Groups such as Hezbollah and various regional militias extend the reach of state power while maintaining enough ambiguity to complicate retaliation. Their involvement blurs the line between conventional war and proxy conflict, increasing the risk of escalation across multiple fronts simultaneously.

Third, and perhaps most significant, the consequences are global rather than regional. Energy prices surge, stock markets wobble, and shipping routes stretch thousands of miles longer as vessels avoid conflict zones. Insurance companies withdraw coverage, logistics networks slow down, and the spectre of recession begins to hover over distant economies that have no direct involvement in the fighting.

All of this makes the modern “Great Game” less like a chess match and more like a complex web of dominoes. One move rarely affects only one square on the board.

The role of media further complicates how people understand these events. If you really want to experience modern warfare without leaving your sofa, forget streaming platforms and try channel surfing instead. Start with CNN, where the graphics move fast, the music is urgent, and the strikes often sound like decisive acts of strategic necessity. Then switch to Al Jazeera and watch the same event transform into an entirely different film, suddenly the language shifts, the victims have names, and the missiles look less like strategy and more like devastation. For an added intellectual workout, flip to BBC, which usually delivers the most carefully balanced version, a calm voice explaining that everything is “deeply concerning,” followed by a panel discussion that politely circles the issue without quite landing anywhere. By the time you finish rotating through the channels, you will have watched three different movies about the same war, complete with heroes, villains, tragedy, and suspense. It is better than any thriller, geopolitics, emotion, moral ambiguity, and contradictory plotlines, all broadcast live.

And yet, for most people far from the front lines, daily life continues. Bills must still be paid, children still go to school, friends still gather, and football debates remain as heated as ever. The spectacle of geopolitics often unfolds on screens rather than streets. For most of the world’s population, war exists as background noise, distant, dramatic, and strangely abstract. The evening news may flash images of missiles and burning infrastructure, but outside the window the bus still arrives, shops still open, and someone somewhere is passionately arguing about the weekend match. Life has a stubborn rhythm that refuses to pause simply because history is making noise elsewhere.

Yet that distance is fragile. Every global conflict begins somewhere specific, one border, one grievance, one decision taken in a quiet room by a handful of leaders. But the consequences rarely remain contained. Energy prices rise, alliances shift, economies tremble, and narratives harden. The real danger lies not only in the violence itself but in the human tendencies that ignite it, pride that refuses compromise, leaders who gamble with escalation, and societies that mistake retaliation for justice. When those forces converge, the irritation spreads outward like ripples in water. The scratching multiplies.

And eventually, everyone feels the itch.

Still, human history has never been defined solely by conflict. It is also defined by resilience, courage, and the stubborn refusal to surrender to fear. The spirit of that resilience is captured beautifully in the words of Subramania Bharati (aka Mahakavi, meaning the ‘Great Poet’, a 20th-century a revolutionary, patriot, and social reformist), whose famous poem Achamillai Achamillai reminds us that uncertainty and danger have never been enough to stop the human will to live freely,

“அச்சமில்லை அச்சமில்லை அச்சமென்பதில்லையே
இச்சகத்துள் ஒருவனுக்கு இந்நிலையே அமையுமோ?
அச்சமில்லை அச்சமில்லை அச்சமென்பதில்லையே.

உச்சிமீது வானிடிந்து வீழுகின்ற போதினும்
அச்சமில்லை அச்சமில்லை அச்சமென்பதில்லையே.

அஞ்சுவது யாதொன்றும் இல்லை,
அஞ்சி நிற்கும் காலமும் இல்லை.”

(an excerpt from the Subramania Bharathi’s poem “The Fear”)

“There is no fear, there is no fear, there is no such thing as fear.
Can such a state truly exist for a human in this world?
Yet I say again, there is no fear, there is no fear.

Even if the sky itself were to shatter
And come crashing down upon my head,
Still there is no fear, there is no fear.

There is nothing in this world to be afraid of,
Nor is this a time to stand trembling in fear.”

Bharati was not naive about the dangers of the world, he understood them deeply. But his message was clear, humanity must not surrender its courage, its dignity, or its hope. Wars may erupt, powers may compete, and the machinery of geopolitics may grind loudly in the background. Yet ordinary life continues precisely because people refuse to let fear define the boundaries of their existence.

So, while empires manoeuvre and alliances shift, people will still gather around dinner tables, argue about football, plan their futures, and teach their children to dream of a better world. History may move in storms, but humanity moves in hope.

Cheers.

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WHERE TIMES BOWS TO IMPERMANENCE: A Lineage of Faith, Memory, and the Living Dhamma

 

The Buddhist Maha Vihara

(Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur)

Beneath the quiet dignity of the Buddhist Maha Vihara in Brickfields, founded in 1894 and now enclosed by the glass, steel, and ceaseless motion of a modern city, time itself appears to pause. The world beyond presses forward with urgency and ambition, yet within these grounds, stillness abides. Perhaps it is so because where the Dhamma is the very purpose of existence, time relinquishes its authority.

This sacred place stands not merely as architecture fashioned of stone and cement, but as a living continuum of faith sustained through intention, sacrifice, and unwavering devotion. My wife, Greeja, traces her lineage to her great-great-grandfather, Mr. Udanis, among the earliest Sinhalese settlers in Malaya, whose efforts helped establish and nourish the early flowering of the Buddha’s Dispensation in this land. What was once a fragile seed, planted with faith and perseverance, has endured through generations, taking firm root and maturing into the thriving Buddhist congregation that exists in Kuala Lumpur today, among whom is the De Silva family, to which Greeja belongs.

Today, however, our presence here is of a more intimate and solemn nature. We have come to offer prayers and merit in remembrance of Greeja’s dearly departed aunt, Madam Lalitha Pathmalata De Silva. In this act of recollection and offering, the temple becomes a mirror, reflecting back to us the fundamental truth proclaimed by the Blessed One:

“All conditioned things are impermanent.”
(Sabbe saṅkhārā aniccā)

This truth was not taught by the Buddha as a matter of abstraction but revealed through compassion grounded in wisdom. Once, a woman named Kisā Gotamī, distraught by the death of her only child, approached the Buddha carrying the child’s lifeless body, imploring him for medicine to restore him to life. Seeing her sorrow, the Buddha neither dismissed her anguish nor fed her despair with false hope. Instead, he asked her to bring a mustard seed obtained from a household untouched by death.

With faith in his words, Kisā Gotamī went from door to door. Mustard seeds were readily given, yet in every household she encountered the same truth, a parent lost, a spouse mourned, a child remembered. There was not a single home free from death. Through this quiet pilgrimage, her grief was gradually transformed. What had been borne as a private tragedy was revealed as the universal condition of all beings subject to birth. Returning to the Buddha, she understood that what arises must pass away, and that clinging to what is impermanent is itself the root of suffering.

So too does loss remind us, gently, yet unmistakably, that life is fleeting, that those we love are entrusted to us only for a time, and that all compounded things are in ceaseless change. Yet within this truth there is no call to despair. As the Buddha taught Kisā Gotamī, within impermanence lies the ground for wisdom, restraint, and compassion. The Dhamma does not ask us to deny sorrow, but to see clearly the nature of existence and to live in a way that is blameless, mindful, and generous.

Thus, amid the fragrance of incense and the measured cadence of chanting, surrounded by generations of devotion and the quiet certainty of change, we are reminded why the path matters. Not to stand against impermanence, but to understand it, and not to cling to what must pass, but to cultivate what does not decay. In aligning the heart with the Dhamma, one learns to meet arising and passing away with wisdom, dignity, and peace.

SADHU … SADHU … SADHU

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“The Neanderthal Paradox” - Outer Progress, Inner Regression

 

AI Generated Image

When Neanderthals shaped stone into knives and spears, they weren’t just making tools, they were externalizing thought. Each strike against stone reflected judgment, foresight, and risk. A poorly made spear meant hunger or death. Tool making, then, was not convenience, it was cognition made visible. That is why early tools marked a genuine progression in human development where they extended imagination without replacing it.

This raises a troubling question today. If stone tools signalled human ascent, does artificial intelligence signal another evolutionary leap or a quiet regression to a new kind of prehistory, where thinking itself is outsourced?

At first glance, the arc of history seems clear. Tools evolved from survival aids to instruments of comfort, then to systems of efficiency. What began as necessity slowly became desire. Discovery was once driven by hunger and danger, but now it is driven by optimization and convenience. Yet this shift has altered not just what we make, but how we think.

To understand this transformation, it helps to briefly align a few thinkers, not as authorities, but as lenses.

Charles Darwin explains the biological groundwork. From his perspective, tool use is an evolutionary advantage, not a moral or historical turning point. Humans who could cooperate, imagine, and manipulate objects survived better. Tools followed intelligence but they did not direct it. Darwin’s account is powerful but limited as it only explains how tool making emerged, not how tools later came to reorganize human life.

Friedrich Engels fills that gap. For him, labour and tool making were not passive outcomes of evolution but active forces shaping the human hand, brain, language, and society. Tools didn’t just help humans survive but they helped create humans as conscious, social beings. Here, tool making is transformative, not merely adaptive.

Karl Marx extends this insight into history. Tools become “means of production,” and whoever controls them controls social life. Technological progress, Marx argues, restructures society and concentrates power. Tools amplify productivity, but under certain systems they also alienate humans from their own creative capacities. Progress outward, impoverishment inward.

Yuval Noah Harari updates this story for the present. What distinguishes modern humanity, he suggests, is not tools alone but shared imagination, which includes myths, money, laws, and now algorithms. Today’s tools are no longer just physical objects but they are systems of belief encoded in software. AI, financial models, and data infrastructures don’t just assist decision-making but they define what counts as a decision.

At this point, a pattern becomes visible. Human development is not driven by biology alone, nor labour alone, nor economics alone, but by their interaction with imagination. Tools once expanded imagination. Now they increasingly replace it.

Ancient traditions sensed this risk intuitively.

In Indian thought, craft (śilpa) was never just mechanical skill. The Śilpa Śāstras treated toolmaking as disciplined knowledge aligned with cosmic order and ethical purpose. Even Vedic metaphors compared crafting an object to crafting a thought where both acts of mindful construction. Action without reflection was never idealized.

Greek philosophy made this distinction explicit through technē. Plato warned that writing, an early cognitive tool, could weaken memory by externalizing it. Aristotle valued technē but insisted it be guided by phronēsis, practical wisdom. Tools were legitimate only when governed by judgment and ethical ends.

In both traditions, tools were subordinate to inner clarity. Thought preceded action. Skill served wisdom.

Modern technological society reverses this order.

Today, tools do not merely help us think but they structure how thinking happens. Recommendation algorithms decide what we read. GPS decides how we navigate. AI copilots draft our emails, summarize our meetings, and increasingly suggest what decisions to make. None of this is coercive. That is precisely the danger. Dependence arrives disguised as ease.

Martin Heidegger foresaw this condition. He warned that modern technology is not neutral, it “enframes” reality, turning everything, including humans, into resources to be optimized. Under this logic, thinking becomes calculative rather than contemplative. We learn how to operate systems fluently while losing the habit of questioning their purpose.

You can see this everywhere. University students rely on AI not to test ideas, but to avoid struggling with them. Professionals follow dashboards and metrics without understanding what is being measured or why. Social media platforms optimize “engagement,” subtly shaping attention spans, desires, and outrage cycles, while users feel more informed than ever. Judgment hasn’t vanished but it has been deferred.

Hannah Arendt helps explain the moral consequence. In her analysis of thoughtlessness, she showed how responsibility dissolves when individuals stop thinking and start merely following processes. Today’s conformity is not enforced by authority but by systems. “The algorithm recommended it.” “The model decided.” Obedience has become procedural.

Herbert Marcuse sharpens the critique. Technological societies, he argued, produce the “one-dimensional” human, highly capable within systems, yet incapable of imagining alternatives. This is not ignorance but it is a narrowing of possibility. A person may optimize workflows flawlessly and still struggle to ask whether the workflow should exist at all.

Ancient wisdom offers a counterpoint. The Thirukkural insists that action must be preceded by reflection:

“எண்ணித் துணிக கருமம்; துணிந்தபின்
எண்ணுவம் என்பது இழுக்கு.” - Kural 467

“Think carefully before acting; once resolved, wavering is weakness.”

Here, dignity lies in judgment, not execution. When action becomes automated and thought outsourced, efficiency increases, but agency erodes.

This is where the Neanderthal comparison becomes illuminating rather than insulting. Neanderthals lived amid uncertainty. Every tool demanded engagement, improvisation, and risk. Their tools expanded human capability without replacing human responsibility.

Modern humans, surrounded by vastly superior tools, risk becoming cognitively passive. We execute without originating, optimize without imagining, comply without questioning. The regression is not biological, it is existential.

The danger of AI and advanced technology is not that machines will become human like. It is that humans may become machine like, precise, efficient, obedient and inwardly hollow. Civilization advances outward while retreating inward.

True progress is not measured by the intelligence of our tools, but by the vitality of the minds that wield them. When tools assist imagination, humanity advances. When tools replace imagination, humanity regresses, quietly, comfortably, and with great efficiency.

That is the real question before us, where it is not whether AI can think, but whether humans will continue to do so.

Note:

This writing was inspired by my friend Rajender, who poked this question a few days ago.

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You Can’t Bomb a Currency: Why the Venezuela Narrative Misreads Power in 2026

 

A story has been circulating, asserted confidently in some quarters, that the United States struck Venezuela on January 3, 2026, seized Nicolás Maduro, and announced plans to “run” the country during a transition. Whether framed as breaking news or treated as fait accompli, the narrative is revealing regardless of its factual status. It exposes how readily we reach for an old explanatory crutch, the petrodollar. The claim goes like this, Washington, fearing de-dollarization, used force to reassert control over oil and thereby defend the dollar’s supremacy.

That reading is seductive. It is also wrong.

To see why, it helps to separate myth from mechanism and to ground the analysis in history, real, documented cases where oil, currency, and U.S. power intersected. When we do, a different picture emerges, one in which spectacle, domestic politics, and performative dominance matter far more than any coherent strategy to “save” the dollar.

Start with the petrodollar mythos itself. Yes, in the mid-1970s the U.S. and Saudi Arabia struck arrangements that entrenched dollar invoicing in global oil trade. And yes, “petrodollar recycling” channelled oil exporters’ surpluses into U.S. Treasuries, helping finance American deficits. But even at its peak, oil pricing was never the sole pillar of dollar dominance. The dollar prevailed because the United States offered what others could not, deep and liquid capital markets, a credible legal system, and unmatched financial infrastructure.

History is instructive here. When Iraq under Saddam Hussein switched some oil sales to euros in 2000, it did not dent the dollar’s reserve status. The euro did not surge, the dollar did not fall. Likewise, when Libya experimented with non-dollar oil transactions in the 2000s, global currency markets barely noticed. These episodes mattered symbolically, not structurally. Currency hegemony is not a light switch you flip by changing the invoicing unit of a few million barrels a day.

Contrast that with moments when the dollar truly wobbled. The Nixon Shock of 1971, ending gold convertibility, was a monetary event, not an oil war. The Volcker shock of the early 1980s, which restored confidence in the dollar through punishing interest rates, had nothing to do with crude supply. More recently, the dollar’s resilience after the 2008 financial crisis rested on the Federal Reserve’s role as global dollar lender of last resort, not on any assertion of control over hydrocarbons. When stress hits, the world runs toward dollar liquidity, not toward oil fields.

Oil itself has also changed position in the hierarchy of power. The 1973 oil embargo could bring advanced economies to their knees, the 2020 pandemic oil crash could not. Electrification, efficiency gains, and diversified energy portfolios have reduced the leverage of any single producer. The United States, now one of the world’s largest oil producers, is less vulnerable to supply shocks than at any point since World War II. If oil were still the master lever of monetary power, the shale revolution would have translated into an unassailable petrodollar renaissance. It didn’t, because the lever no longer works that way.

What has changed, and where real pressure on U.S. financial power exists, is payments architecture. This is where de-dollarization actually lives. China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) has grown steadily as a renminbi clearing layer. The BIS-backed mBridge project has demonstrated real-time, atomic settlement across central bank digital currencies. These systems don’t require oil, coups, or airstrikes. They require code, coordination, and patient institutional buy in. History again offers a parallel, SWIFT did not become dominant because NATO bombed Brussels, it became dominant because banks voluntarily joined the most efficient network available.

Venezuela’s role in this landscape is often overstated. It does hold vast reserves. over 300 billion barrels by common estimates, and it has talked loudly about escaping the dollar, pricing oil in yuan, and aligning with BRICS-adjacent initiatives. But talk is not transformation. Venezuela’s production capacity has been crippled for years by mismanagement and sanctions. Even at full tilt, Venezuelan crude cannot anchor a new monetary order. If controlling barrels were sufficient, Russia, one of the world’s top energy exporters, would not feel pressure to build alternative payment rails, oil wealth alone has not insulated it from financial sanctions.

This is where the rhetoric attributed to U.S. officials in the circulating story matters more than the mechanics. The emphasis was not on balance of payments stability or reserve composition. It was on “getting the oil flowing,” “capturing” a leader, and “running” a country. That language echoes past interventions driven less by systemic necessity than by political theatre.

Consider Panama in 1989. Manuel Noriega was removed under the banner of drug enforcement and democracy, but the operation also served as a dramatic assertion of U.S. dominance at the end of the Cold War. It was fast, overwhelming, and symbolic. It did not secure a currency regime or an economic doctrine, it secured a moment. Or look at Iraq in 2003. The war was sold on weapons of mass destruction, later reframed around democracy, and endlessly speculated about oil. Yet two decades on, the invasion weakened U.S. legitimacy, destabilized a region, and did nothing to fortify dollar hegemony. If anything, it accelerated global scepticism about American stewardship.

Even the narcotics pretext, often invoked in Latin American interventions, has a thin empirical record. In the 1980s, drug rhetoric justified militarization from Colombia to Panama without reducing U.S. demand or overdose deaths. Today, the opioid crisis is driven primarily by synthetic drugs produced and trafficked through networks far removed from Venezuelan territory. History shows that “drug wars” abroad are politically useful narratives at home, not effective strategies.

Seen through this lens, the Venezuela story, real or rumoured, fits a familiar pattern. Oil becomes a prop. Currency becomes a post-hoc justification. The underlying logic is exhibitionist, demonstrate power, punish defiance, create a made for television victory. That is politics of spectacle, not monetary statecraft.

And the irony is sharp. If the lesson absorbed by the rest of the world is that challenging U.S. financial dominance invites coercion, the rational response is not submission, it is diversification. After the freezing of Russian reserves in 2022, central banks openly discussed reducing exposure to dollar assets. That debate did not require bombs, it required precedent. Force, far from preserving hegemony, can hasten the search for exits.

The dollar remains dominant because it is useful, liquid, and embedded in institutions people trust. Those qualities cannot be enforced at gunpoint. They can only be maintained by law, openness, and predictability. History tells us that when empires confuse spectacle for strategy, they win headlines and lose foundations.

If the goal were truly to defend the dollar, the battlefield would be regulatory standards, financial plumbing, and digital rails, not Caracas. You can seize a refinery. You can even topple a government. But you cannot bomb a payment protocol.

Cheers.

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A World Too Certain to Be Human

 

A World Too Certain to Be Human

Have you noticed how much we try to control life these days? From planning every detail of a wedding to predicting the gender of a baby before birth, we seem obsessed with certainty. We track, test, forecast, and optimize everything, as if life were a spreadsheet waiting to be perfected. We want guarantees, about careers, relationships, children, success, and even happiness. But when everything becomes predictable, when uncertainty is treated as a flaw rather than a feature, do we lose the magic of living itself?

For thousands of years, people have spoken about equality. From the wisdom of the Vedas to Greek philosophers and Renaissance thinkers, the idea of fairness between men and women has never been absent from human thought. Yet when we look around today, the world still does not feel fully equal. Beneath modern language, progressive laws, and polished speeches, old preferences and power structures quietly persist. One of the clearest examples appears in how societies celebrate birth. Many families still hope for “at least one boy.” This is not just a private wish, but researchers have documented it across cultures and continents. Inheritance laws, family lineage, social security in old age, and long-standing customs have shaped this mindset for centuries, making it feel natural even when it is deeply biased.

Ancient Tamil wisdom cuts through this obsession with remarkable clarity. Thiruvalluvar never speaks of sons or daughters when he speaks of wealth. “Of all the wealth a man can earn, none is greater than having wise children,” he says. And in another couplet, he writes, “Sweeter than nectar is the porridge stirred by your child’s tiny hands.” The joy he describes is universal, untouched by gender. What matters is character, affection, and wisdom, not chromosomes. Yet in our age of gender reveals, prenatal predictions, and social pressure, we often forget this simple truth and reduce life to checklists rather than relationships.

The lives of Kadambini Ganguly and Anandibai Joshi remind us how powerful uncertainty can be when met with courage. In the late nineteenth century, when women in India were barely encouraged to read, these two women dared to imagine something almost unthinkable, becoming doctors trained in Western medicine. Their journeys were filled with uncertainty, ridicule, resistance, and isolation. Anandibai Joshi traveled across oceans to study medicine at a time when crossing the seas was considered taboo, especially for women. She faced illness, cultural alienation, and constant scrutiny, yet she persisted. Kadambini Ganguly fought not only patriarchal norms but also colonial prejudice, enduring public attacks on her character simply because she stepped into a profession reserved for men. Neither woman could predict success. There were no role models to follow, no assurance of acceptance. And yet, precisely because they embraced uncertainty, they transformed history. Their triumph was not merely personal, it expanded what society believed was possible for women.

Steve Jobs’ life offers a powerful modern echo of this idea. He was adopted at birth, unwanted by his biological parents, and raised without knowing where his life would lead. By today’s standards, his beginnings were uncertain, even imperfect. Yet that uncertainty shaped him in profound ways. Had his life been “optimized” from the start, had every variable been controlled and predicted, the world might never have seen Apple. Jobs himself famously said, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backward.” His story reminds us that unpredictability is not a flaw in life, but it is its fuel.

Jobs’ journey was filled with detours that no life plan would have approved. He dropped out of college, wandered into a calligraphy class out of pure curiosity, and later admitted that it seemed useless at the time. Yet that single, unplanned decision shaped the typography of the Macintosh and changed digital design forever. He was fired from the very company he founded, a public humiliation that felt like failure. But that loss led him to new ventures, new insights, and ultimately to a return that redefined Apple. None of this could have been scripted. Creativity, innovation, and meaning emerged not from control, but from openness to the unknown.

History repeatedly warns us what happens when humans try to control life too tightly. China’s one child policy, designed to engineer economic stability and population control, left behind an aging society and deeply imbalanced gender ratios. The attempt to regulate birth through policy ignored the cultural realities beneath it, producing long-term consequences that continue to haunt the nation. Nazi Germany’s Lebensborn program sought to manufacture a “perfect race,” reducing human beings to biological experiments in the name of ideology. Both arose from the same dangerous belief, that life can be designed without moral consequence. When humans play god, the cost is always paid by future generations.

Tamil literature captures this danger through moral storytelling rather than statistics. In Silappathikaram, Kannagi’s quiet strength turns into righteous fire when justice is denied. Her husband is wrongfully punished, and her anguish burns Madurai. not out of blind rage, but out of moral clarity. Her story reminds us that a society without fairness, without ethical grounding, will eventually collapse no matter how powerful it appears. Control without justice becomes destruction, and authority without compassion leads only to ruin.

The twentieth century gave the world another towering lesson in the power of uncertainty through Nelson Mandela’s life. Mandela entered politics knowing full well that the path ahead offered no guarantees. When he chose resistance against apartheid, he did not know whether he would live to see freedom, or whether his struggle would succeed at all. He spent twenty seven years in prison, cut off from family, stripped of freedom, and subjected to profound isolation. At any point, he could have chosen bitterness or surrender. Instead, he embraced an inner uncertainty, uncertain about outcomes, but certain about principles.

Mandela’s greatest triumph was not merely the end of apartheid, but the moral imagination he displayed afterward. When he emerged from prison, he surprised the world by choosing reconciliation over revenge. Many expected anger, retaliation, and bloodshed. Instead, Mandela chose forgiveness, a path far riskier than vengeance. There was no assurance that forgiveness would work, no data to guarantee peace. Yet that willingness to step into the unknown saved South Africa from civil war and offered the world a rare example of moral courage. Mandela’s life teaches us that uncertainty is not weakness, it is often the birthplace of ethical greatness.

Today, science once again tempts us with control. Gene editing, embryo screening, and the idea of “designer babies” promise a future where disease is eliminated and traits are selected. While medical advances can and should reduce suffering, the dream of choosing intelligence, creativity, or personality remains largely science fiction. More importantly, it raises a deeper question, even if we could choose everything, should we? Intelligence without empathy, strength without humility, and perfection without struggle risk creating hollow lives. The stories that inspire us, Mandela’s endurance, Anandibai’s courage, Kannagi’s justice, Jobs’ creativity, are powerful precisely because they were uncertain.

Thiruvalluvar reminds us that knowledge without ethics is empty, “Learning is worthless if it does not shape conduct.” He also says, “Compassion enlarges the heart.” These lines speak directly to our age of technology. Innovation without humanity becomes tyranny. Progress without empathy becomes oppression. Steve Jobs understood this balance instinctively. He believed technology should serve human intuition and beauty, not dominate it. That is why Apple products were not just functional but emotional, imperfect yet deeply human.

Some voices today claim men are in crisis, pointing to higher suicide rates among men. This is a serious issue that demands compassion, mental health support, and cultural change, but not a return to rigid gender hierarchies or nostalgic dominance. Panic driven narratives help no one. Similarly, sensational headlines about the Y chromosome disappearing ignore scientific reality. Fear thrives where understanding is absent, and fear often pushes societies toward greater control rather than deeper care.

The deeper issue beneath all these debates is our discomfort with uncertainty. We want guarantees, about gender, success, happiness, identity, and meaning. But life has never worked that way. Mandela did not know he would become a symbol of freedom rather than a forgotten prisoner. Kadambini Ganguly did not know she would open doors for generations of women. Anandibai Joshi did not live long enough to see the full impact of her courage. Jobs did not know he would be fired from his own company or that the setback would lead him back stronger. Kannagi did not know her silence would become legend. Thiruvalluvar did not prescribe formulas, he offered values.

When we remove surprise from life, we remove wonder. We lose the unexpected laugh, the unplanned question, the sudden turn that reshapes everything. A world where every child is designed, every path preselected, and every outcome predicted may be efficient, but it would be lifeless. The human spirit grows through friction, uncertainty, and risk. Equality itself has always advanced not through certainty, but through brave individuals willing to step into the unknown.

Life’s beauty lies in its unpredictability. When we try to control every detail, gender, genetics, destiny, we risk losing the very essence of being human. As Thiruvalluvar reminds us, the joy of a child’s touch is sweeter than nectar, and as Kannagi shows, justice and virtue matter more than power or perfection. Nelson Mandela teaches us that forgiveness can be stronger than revenge, Kadambini Ganguly and Anandibai Joshi show us that courage can rewrite social limits, and Steve Jobs proves that creativity flourishes where certainty ends.

Perhaps the wisest thing we can do is loosen our grip, trust life a little more, and allow its surprises to shape us into something better than we ever planned to be.

CHEERS.

ravivarmmankkanniappan@1427030120263.0567° N, 101.5851° E

WITH DIVINE MERCY

 

Arjuna & Krishna

(Geetha Upadhesam)

There are phrases we hear often and pass by without stopping, “with God’s mercy” being one of them. I had done so myself, until a quiet moment of reading changed its weight for me. In a passing comment by someone who had attended a discourse on the Bhagavad Geetha, I encountered the words, “…. unless one is fortunate to receive the mercy of Krishna….”. The line lingered, as some words do, asking to be held a little longer. It stirred a feeling that something subtle in the Geetha had escaped my notice. What follows is born of that pause, not certainty, but a wish to listen more closely, and to understand what ‘mercy’ might mean when spoken of in the language of the divine.   

Within spiritual discourse it is commonly stated that one can cross the ocean of material existence only by the mercy of Krishna or His devotee. While such language has devotional and relational significance, a critical reading of the Bhagavad Geetha itself reveals that the idea of “mercy” as an emotional or selective intervention of the Supreme is philosophically unnecessary and potentially misleading. Bhagavan Krishna is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, and therefore does not operate through fluctuating emotions such as favouritism or pity. Rather, He functions through immutable laws governing consciousness, action, knowledge, and causality. Spiritual advancement, accordingly, is not dependent on an external bestowal of grace but on an individual’s disciplined alignment with these eternal principles.

This is precisely the method Krishna employs in instructing Arjuna. He does not console Arjuna emotionally or promise deliverance through favour, instead, He reorients Arjuna through clarity, responsibility, and detachment. Bhagavad Geetha 2.47 establishes this foundation unequivocally, one has the right to perform prescribed duty but no claim over the fruits of action. This instruction removes entitlement and expectation from spiritual life. If liberation were contingent upon mercy, one would remain psychologically attached to outcomes, even spiritual ones. Krishna instead demands action free from hope, fear, or emotional bargaining. This discipline is further defined in 2.48, where equanimity in success and failure is identified as yoga itself. Yoga, therefore, is not emotional devotion or passive reliance on divine intervention, but the stabilization of consciousness amidst dualities.

Krishna reinforces this principle in 3.19 by stating that one attains the Supreme by working without attachment to results. The verse leaves no room for selective grace whereby attainment follows naturally from correct action performed with the proper inner disposition. Liberation is thus not granted as a favour but realized as a consequence of alignment with truth. This framework makes clear that the Supreme does not interfere with the lawfulness of existence, but He reveals it.

The role of the spiritual master must be understood in the same light. Bhagavad Geetha 4.34 instructs the seeker to approach a realized teacher with humility, inquiry, and service, because such a person has seen the truth and can impart knowledge. The guru does not bestow liberation through mercy but transmits correct understanding. Knowledge is communicable but realization is personal. The necessity of the spiritual master lies not in divine favouritism but in epistemic precision. Just as ignorance in any discipline is removed by proper instruction, ignorance of the self is removed by those who know reality as it is.

Bondage itself is not moral or emotional in nature but mechanical, arising from false identification with the body and mind through ahankara across innumerable births. Conditioning persists due to ignorance, not because of divine neglect. Ignorance cannot be dissolved by grace alone, but it must be undone by knowledge. This is why Krishna declares in Bhagavad Geetha 7.2 that once this knowledge is realized, nothing further remains to be known. Knowledge is final, complete, and liberating. If mercy were the determining factor, such emphasis on knowledge would be redundant.

What is traditionally referred to as “mercy” is better understood as alignment with dharma, the eternal order governing existence. When action is performed without attachment, with equanimity, and guided by right understanding, liberation follows inevitably. There is no need for emotional appeal or expectation of intervention. The Geetha presents a rigorous spiritual science, not a theology of reward. Krishna does not save Arjuna instead He educates him. Arjuna is transformed not by grace but by insight and disciplined action.

Thus, the Bhagavad Geetha consistently teaches that freedom arises through inward mastery, sustained inquiry, and unwavering discipline. Grace, if the term is to be retained at all, is not something to be awaited or granted selectively, it is already embedded in the very structure of reality. The task of the seeker is not to seek mercy, but to become fit to recognize and live in accordance with truth as it eternally is.

AUM TAT SAT

Cheers.

ravivarmmankkanniappan@1331131220253.0567° N, 101.5851° E

Uncertainty: Catalyst or Obstacle? A Dialogue Between Science, Existentialism, and the Mahabharata

 

Geetha Upadesam

(Mysore Rosewood inlay Painting)

*Richard Feynman’s observation that “If you know that you are not sure, you have a chance to improve the situation” frames uncertainty as a productive starting point, a form of scientific humility that opens the door to deeper understanding. Within the domain of scientific inquiry, this attitude is invaluable. It signals openness to revision, a willingness to question assumptions, and the intellectual flexibility that drives discovery. In science, acknowledging uncertainty about the world is not weakness but strength, for it creates the conditions for progress.

However, when examined through other philosophical lenses, particularly existentialism and the Mahabharata, uncertainty does not always appear as a virtue. Instead, it can represent a weakening of will and an obstacle to authentic action. Here, the distinction between “not knowing” and “being unsure” becomes crucial. To admit ignorance is an act of intellectual honesty that can ignite deliberate seeking. But to confess that one is “not sure” about oneself or one’s commitments reflects a deeper existential instability, a reluctance to claim responsibility and a failure to stand firmly in freedom.

Existentialist thinkers such as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Sartre argue that human freedom demands a fierce clarity of self-awareness. Authenticity, in this tradition, depends on the individual’s willingness to confront their condition directly, without hiding behind ambiguity. Sartre warns against bad faith, the tendency to evade responsibility by clinging to vague or uncertain attitudes. From this perspective, being “not sure” is not a virtue, but it is a refusal to fully own one’s freedom. It signals hesitation to embrace either knowledge or ignorance decisively. Ignorance can propel inquiry, but uncertainty about oneself leads only to paralysis. Clarity, even the clarity of one’s ignorance, is essential for courage and meaningful action.

This distinction emerges vividly in the Mahabharata, particularly in Arjuna’s crisis on the battlefield. Arjuna does not falter because he lacks information, but he falters because he becomes unsure of himself. His doubt is not mere ignorance but an emotional and existential confusion that robs him of the will to act. Krishna does not praise Arjuna for acknowledging uncertainty. Instead, he challenges him to rise above this fog of doubt. For Krishna, uncertainty is a **tamasic state, where one that obscures dharma, corrupts resolve, and clouds judgment. True growth comes not from lingering in hesitation but from disciplined inquiry followed by decisive action. It is the transformation of Arjuna’s uncertainty into clarity and not the uncertainty itself, that enables moral and spiritual progress.

Both existentialism and the Mahabharata converge on a critical insight, whereby the real danger lies not in ignorance but in self-doubt. Ignorance can awaken the desire to learn but self-doubt weakens the will to seek. History and modern life offer striking illustrations of this principle.

Marie Curie ventured into the invisible world of radioactivity not because she doubted herself, but because she trusted the steadiness of her purpose. Nelson Mandela faced the vast uncertainty of a nation in transition not from existential wavering, but from an unshakeable sense of identity and mission.

Similarly, Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, often celebrated for their audacity, did not act from existential confusion. Jobs reshaped personal computing from a near-monastic clarity about design and purpose. Musk pursued electric mobility and interplanetary ambition from a resolute conviction that these were the problems he was meant to confront. Their bold ventures were not products of self-doubt but of self-knowledge. The unknown invited them only because they already knew where they stood.

Rajendra Chola’s reign (1014–1044) offers a vivid historical parallel. His audacious naval expeditions, from Southeast Asia to the banks of the Ganges, did not arise from confusion about identity. They flowed from an unwavering sense of duty, lineage, and destiny. His conquests were not acts of a man trying to find himself, but they were expressions of one who already knew. Anchored in clarity, he extended the Chola realm across oceans, demonstrating that great ventures arise not from existential uncertainty but from inner conviction.

In both science and statecraft, the courage to face the unknown does not arise from confusion about the self but from conviction within it. These lives remind us that exploration, whether of matter or of justice, begins with an inward anchoring.

Whilst Feynman’s statement concerns epistemic uncertainty about the world, the critique here points toward existential uncertainty about the self. Scientific inquiry may benefit from the former, but human action and moral responsibility cannot be built upon the latter.

On the other hand, both existentialism and the Mahabharata insist that one must know where one stands before stepping into the unknown. The impetus to discover does not arise from being unsure but from the confidence that one can confront what one does not yet know.

Feynman is right when he says that the mind must remain uncertain about the world, for scientific discovery thrives on questioning, revision, and doubt. Yet the self must not remain uncertain about itself, for meaningful action demands inner clarity.

Science advances through doubt, the self-advances through clarity. Feynman’s uncertainty is a tool, not a worldview, while self-knowledge is the foundation upon which responsibility and courage rest. Both are necessary, and when seen in their proper place, they do not contradict but complete one another, allowing us to face the unknown with both intellectual humility and existential steadiness.

Cheers.

ravivarmmankkanniappan@0946171120253.0567° N, 101.5851° E

*Richard Feynman (1918–1988) was a brilliant, unconventional physicist whose work transformed quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics. A Nobel laureate, charismatic teacher, wartime researcher, and early visionary in nanotechnology and quantum computing, he charmed the world with curiosity, humour, and a knack for making physics come alive. Somehow, almost by accident, he also lived like an existentialist and a Gita-style Karma yogi, facing life’s uncertainties with playfulness and purpose, proving that one can achieve philosophical enlightenment without ever reading a single sacred text.

**tamasic refers to one of the three gunas (qualities of nature) in Hindu philosophy and this guna is associated with qualities such as darkness, ignorance, delusion, inertia, stupidity and indifference