Nishant Bhagat

Indigo sold tickets to flights for which they had no scheduled pilots. This itself should be grounds for criminal prosecution.

Now that a Chinese startup Deepseek has produced a large language model that has cut the legs from under the hype factory of openAI and NVIDIA, lopping off 500 billion off in its market cap in one day, people are asking that old chestnut asked through centuries by underperforming parents to underperforming children: that if Sharmaji ka beta can do it, why can’t you? Why can’t India build AI? First of all, India does build AI. We call our mothers AI, as Modiji said, and we are Aspirational India, again as Modiji said, and Air India has been our contribution to the world’s sky. NVIDIA has India in it and it’s well known that is why China has attacked it. But if your point is why no DeepSeek in Delhi, let’s say we choose not to prioritize these things as a nation. We are more concerned about reclaiming temples, decolonization, triple talaaq, waqf land, de-Brahminization, un-patriarchy, correlation between abadi and haq, social equity, whose behena is more ladli, handling tax payer money to people who will vote for money, whether Kohli is better or Rohit, when is Bhai’s next picture coming out and saving the “Kacha Badam” girl’s new dance videos on our Chinese phones. This is what the essence of democracy is: free will. On the other hand China promotes and finances inculcation of such liberal ideas in other countries while maintaining a very autocratic-capitalist regime in their own lands: financing to the billions investments in AI, cybersecurity and quantum computing. Deep Seek ki aisi ki taisi, we have Deep Foods, deep khao toh jano. Our private investment, we choose to put in consumer goods, fast food delivery and IPL, and our idea of digital is the provision of low-end tech services to billable customers: 90 hour workweeks, not watching our wives on Sundays, and a bunch of unclejis in their 60s who are our tech captains pontificating on “aajkal ke launde…no work culture” China instead chooses to invest in technologies that will automate low-end tech services, doing to India what they did to NVIDIA, so that we in India will be left with only Murthy’s simplicity and America’s Perplexity. And then all software engineers will be working for MNREGA and some will be getting free bus rides. But hey we have our choice to say “kagaz naheen dikhayenge” while China has the tyranny of control. As they say in secular Bengal “khela hobe”.

"Wise men say, only fools work seventy hours a week But I, I can't help burning out for you Like a prisoner of profit, I toil and sigh While you reap the benefits, and I wonder why Take my paycheck, take my sanity too I'd give them all to you, if only I could break through This endless cycle of exploitation and stress But I'm trapped in this grind, oh, what a mess Some may say, it's just business, it's just greed But I, I can't help feeling like I'm in chains indeed Like a slave to the bottom line, I labor and strive While you enjoy the fruits of my labor, and I barely survive Take my weekends, take my nights I'd give them all to you, if only I could see the light That there's more to life than just this endless grind But until then, I'm stuck in this rut, losing my mind” (The song he sings was also the theme song for Conjuring 2)