The Weekly Vine Edition 45: DRONE-ACHARYA, Royal Challenge Completed, and Manufacturing Consent

Time of India

2 days ago

Nirmalya Dutta's political and economic views vacillate from woke Leninist to Rand-Marxist to Keynesian-Friedmanite. He doesn't know what any of those terms mean.
Hello and welcome to this week's edition of The Weekly Vine. In this week's edition, we look at Ukraine's Drone-acharya–inspired tactical move, celebrate Virat Kohli finally breaking his IPL duck, discuss the art of manufacturing consent, explain why Magnus Carlsen lost his cool against Gukesh, and finally take a look at Trump's 'mad philosopher'.
DRONE-ACHARYA 2.0
In Keerthik Sasidharan's The Dharma Forest, a fabulously loquacious retelling of the Mahabharata, Drona tells Bhisma: 'It's only the grammar of violence that allows for the pretence that this is war for the sake of a civilisation. Without it, war would be just mass murder.' When Bhisma chides him for laughing about it, Drona replies: 'Grandfather, as a penniless Brahmin who built his own life thanks to arms, war and violence—and after a lifetime of doing this, I can only laugh at the world.'
For those who missed out on the greatest story ever told, Drona – a true Master of War – was a penniless Brahmin who sought revenge by training the Kuru princes against an old friend who had belittled him. Over the years, the Master of War – one who hides in his mansion after building the death planes (to borrow a line from Bob Dylan) – has taken many avatars. The last was Barack Obama, whose deep baritone made you forget his drone-strike rate. And now we have the former stand-up comic who refuses to say, 'thank you.'
The new Drone-Acharya in town is Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Reports – hopefully real and not another Ghost of Kyiv propaganda piece – claim that Ukraine launched an audacious drone attack involving 117 drones, each costing less than $500. These drones struck Russian war machines across five regions, spanning 6,000 kilometres and three time zones (or roughly the time it takes to get from Noida to Gurugram after 6 PM).
In sheer breadth and depth, it even outdoes the audacious pager attack on Hezbollah launched by Israel's Mossad. This low-budget, independent assault didn't use any NATO weapons or Western intelligence. The drones were ostensibly launched from modified shipping containers, smuggled into Russia aboard civilian trucks, bypassing multi-billion-dollar air defence systems entirely.
The attack was also carried out remotely – much like the Sovereign's fleet of drones in Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2 – with no Ukrainian personnel captured.
What makes this a game changer is its replicability and scalability at minimal cost. It heralds the age of drones as the new instrument of warfare. As analysts like Mike Ryan argue, supremacy in modern war is no longer about airfields, but Wi-Fi.
Time will tell how Russia responds to this 'Pearl Harbor–style attack.'
But the world must now live with the knowledge that $500 drones can disable billion-dollar fleets. Where we go from here, even the bard – Dylan or Valmiki – doesn't know.
Royal Challenge Completed
(With apologies to legendary football commentator Peter Drury, but read in his voice)
It is done.
After 18 years of endless sprints, narrow misses and heartbreak… Virat Kohli is the IPL Champion.
He arrived a round-faced, wide-eyed youth, fresh off the Under-19 crown,
arriving with swagger and intent: the next big thing in Indian cricket.
And over the years, the boy became myth,
the prototype of the modern Indian cricketer.
Arrogant, confident, bearded,
and with a love for sororal greetings.
He shed his baby fat, he carved sinew from sacrifice.
He took every challenge head-on,
becoming a modern cricketing great—
leading the Indian team to new frontiers as he unleashed the dogs of war.
He made fitness a faith, and his beard a banner—
emulated on every gully, every Instagram post,
every generation that saw in him not just a cricketer,
but a creed.
He fought with fire.
He bared his soul at deep midwicket, at Lord's, at the Wanderers, at the MCG.
He took on SENA giants not with politeness, but with pupils dilated in combat,
his rage not a flaw but a fuel—dragging India and RCB
through trenches and tempests.
But for all the fables, all the hundreds,
this trophy—this wretched, elusive, shiny little grail—
mocked him every April and May.
And still, he stayed.
He stayed with RCB.
No glamour transfers. No shortcuts.
He chose heartbreak on home soil over triumph elsewhere.
He gave them his youth, his prime,
his decline—and his resurrection.
And so tonight, when the sky cracked open and the last ball disappeared,
he didn't leap.
He sank.
To his knees, hands to face, fingers trembling.
Not in shock—but in stillness.
The silence of a man who gave everything…
and finally received.
And how fitting—Bengaluru, his karmabhoomi.
The city of lakes, of monsoon evenings and overflowing dreams.
The Silicon Valley of India, where code meets coffee, and cricket conquers all.
Where strangers speak ten tongues but cheer in one voice.
Where IT parks and idli stalls erupt in chorus when RCB walks out.
A city that gave him a home,
and tonight, he gave it a reason to roar.
Eighteen years.
One franchise.
One man.
And now the elusive title.
At long last…
it is challenge completed.
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The following excerpt is from my fellow cartoonist Prasad Sanyal's excellent blog.
There's something perversely elegant about a society that can manufacture both iPhones and ideologies with the same ruthless efficiency. Yanis Varoufakis [a Greek politician and economist], riffing off Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent, tosses us a neat little paradox wrapped in economic angst: that the more financialised our lives become, the more agreeable we get—and the more spectacular our breakdowns.
Consent, it seems, isn't what it used to be. Once upon a time, it had to be extracted—with religion, kings, or gulags. These days, it's delivered via push notification and monetised outrage. Capitalism doesn't just want your labour; it wants your belief system bundled in prime-time infotainment and Facebook Lives. Read more.
Losing His Cool
On a chilly Stavanger evening, the unthinkable happened. The great Magnus Carlsen—the Viking overlord of modern chess—slammed his fist on the board as his pieces scattered like confetti. Across the table, D Gukesh, all of 19, calmly watched history unfold. He'd just become the first reigning world champion to beat the world No. 1 in classical chess since Kasparov terrorised the board.
This wasn't just a win—it was a psychological decapitation. Carlsen had dominated for 50-odd moves. The engine showed +4 in his favour. But chess doesn't award runs for style. One blunder under time pressure (52…Ne2+) and the predator turned prey. Gukesh, who had already sensed blood, picked up his queen with the swagger of a man who knew the match was over.
The Norwegian, suddenly mortal, banged the table, sending pawns flying and egos bruised. He extended a sheepish hand, then patted the teen on the back, half in apology, half in awe. Gukesh had done what Anand, Kramnik, and Karpov never could—beat the reigning world No. 1 while holding the crown.
This wasn't just about the win. It was about grit, patience, and playing the long con in a brutal 62-move Ruy Lopez Berlin slugfest. Carlsen, ironically, played with his king like a warrior—marching him to the first rank. But Gukesh wasn't buying the intimidation. He met fire with ice.
Trump's Mad Philosopher
Before Trump made democracy optional and Elon turned government into a venture-backed LARP, there was Curtis Yarvin—part-time monarchist, full-time troll, and Silicon Valley's in-house necromancer.
Back in 2008, while liberals were still drunk on hope and change, Yarvin—then known as Mencius Moldbug—was quietly uploading 120,000-word blogposts that read like a cross between Machiavelli and a Reddit meltdown.
His central thesis? Democracy is a bug, not a feature. Harvard is the Vatican of Woke. And America would be better run by a startup CEO with nukes and Marc Andreessen on speed dial. You may scoff—but Peter Thiel didn't. J.D. Vance didn't. Trump definitely didn't.
Yarvin is not your usual right-wing grunt. He's the Dark Elf of the dissident right, whispering digital manifestos in faux-Elizabethan prose. He cries during lunch and dreams of putting San Francisco's homeless in VR exile. He builds political theology disguised as software. Urbit, his failed feudal internet project, raised millions—proof that in America, bad ideas just need a charismatic front-end.
But what makes Yarvin dangerous isn't his ideology. It's his aesthetic. He doesn't write policy; he performs it. His blog is cosplay for crypto kings. His politics? Brutalism meets biodynamic wine. And while liberals hold book clubs about authoritarianism, Yarvin's drinking biodiesel with the guy rewriting immigration law.
In 2025, the joke's over. The man who called elections a mistake is now shaping what comes after them. He's not storming the castle. He's redecorating it. And if you squint, you'll see the future peeking out from under his high-collared Substack. It's not democratic. It's draped in velvet and lit by vibes.
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