Volume 5 · The Great Indian Bazaar · Essay 203
Redshirting
Some ideas arrive wearing uniforms. Redshirting arrives in a kurta — plain, comfortable, and ready for work.
The idea is simple, and like most simple ideas it is easy to nod at and hard to use. The nod is free. The use costs attention, every day, in small change.
Watch how a rumour travels in a hostel: it gains one detail per room and loses one truth per floor. By the fourth floor it is unrecognisable, and by dinner it is fact.
Society is a long conversation; the only question is whether you are listening or merely waiting to speak. Keep the name. Use the pause it gives you. That is the entire homework.