Sometimes you come in the way of others. I think the sinister Hindi phrase does poetic justice to express the implications of coming in the way of others. “Aap kise ke raaste ka kaata ban gaye hai” in English would translate to “You are a thorn in someone’s path.”
Let me give you an analogy. Imagine you are Afghanistan or Iraq, and an American President needs a scapegoat. Well, you would be damned, right? Ask Saddam or the women the Taliban spank when they don’t follow the rules.
If you are Afghanistan or Iraq, you can fight, but you know it is futile. For every 1 million countrymen who are killed, maimed, or destitute, there are like 10 American soldiers who lose their lives. This causes more outrage with the Americans, and they ask for more blood. The politicians get more funding for the war, and the military-industrial complex thrives.
The real power is trade and commerce. Anyone who can trade has power. If the person loses the power to trade in a free market, if an embargo or sanctions are applied on him, he needs to have the wherewithal to find a new market. But if America is the one who makes the international trade laws, you as a country are a basket case like North Korea, where you have to call a fat chubby boy a king.
Surrender
They say there is power in surrender. In a war, it is always when the loser throws up his hands that the war stops. For example, it was Japan who said they had enough after they got atomic bombed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It always perplexes me why they didn’t surrender knowing that the Americans had the nuclear option. Was their intelligence so weak?
Moving to a new life
I am surrendering. I am giving up the way I have done things. I am giving up the way I ran things. I want to discover more ways to live. I don’t want to become Hiroshima or Nagasaki. I feel life has thrown an America in front of me, and I am Afghanistan.
Mahakumbh Calling
I have never been devout, but I have decided to move to Mahakumbh just to see if there is a life that can be lived differently than the toxic time I spend in front of my MacBook, which I am selling off. I am planning to go less digital. So maybe you won’t hear from me more often. Maybe if Mahakumbh inspires me to write, I will write this newsletter.