Full-page ads fade from memory, but punchlines stick: “Ye dil maange more”, “Do shoes breathe too?”, “Jeet hai dar ke aage”, “Thanda matlab Coca-Cola”.

Silence can sometimes become the greatest crime. And that moment has arrived. The civilised world's mute response defies logic; it's not mere indifference; it reeks of a cold, calculated conspiracy. One burning question keeps us awake at night. One deep unease chokes the throat. One unbearable wait that can no longer be endured.

“Congress-free India”; the slogan thunders through today's political arenas, but who truly owns it? Its first murmur stirred in the defiant mind of Dr Ram Manohar Lohia, a restless soul whose birth we mark today, not with mere flowers, but with the grit to face uncomfortable truths. Small in stature, colossal in impact, Lohia reshaped India's rebellion from within.

Power changed its grammar. Quietly. Almost politely. For a decade, Narendra Modi ran a tight ship. One captain. One command. No coalition chaos. No midnight bargaining. The old circus of the 1990s and 2000s was pushed off stage. Between 2014 and 2024, the Bharatiya Janata Party did not just win elections. It bulldozed fragmentation. It ruled with muscle.

Recent events have proved that India’s democratic structure, despite its messiness, can be more responsive and representative than the more rigid American system, which largely serves a smaller population, less heterogeneous and more prosperous than India.

The sky has changed its colour. Blue has given way to a bruised purple. Smoke hangs like a curse over the Persian Gulf. War has paused, but its shadow has not. The guns may fall silent, but the air does not.