Best of BS Opinion: Of roses, monsters, and everything in between

Here are the best of Business Standard's opinion pieces for today

Dreams are tricksters. They sometimes borrow the masks of monsters, creating dark pathways before turning gentle. And nightmares, slyer still, often steal the scent of roses, luring us in before they bite. Think of Icarus, wings shining bright in sunlight as he soared too close to brilliance, or the Trojan Horse, a gift of beauty concealing ruin. Today’s writeups are a reminder of that similar deceptive twilight where growth disguises risk, rebellion mimics renewal of the old, and love pretends to defy even as it obeys. Let’s dive in. 

Take the world’s largest economy, where Bill Dudley warns that the US Federal Reserve’s dream of a gentle landing might just be a monster in disguise. The Fed’s faith that policy is restrictive enough to tame inflation masks a more complicated reality. As stock tickers flash green, Jerome Powell’s soft-spoken assurances begin to sound like lullabies to an overexcited child: soothing, but perhaps too soon. The monster beneath the rose smells suspiciously like complacency. 

 

Meanwhile, across the borders of India and Nepal, Aditi Phadnis finds two neighbouring mirrors, one fogged with quiet surrender, the other cracked with revolt. In Darbhanga, Bihar, where loyalty to Modi and Nitish has outlived prosperity itself, resignation passes for peace. 80 kms away in Janakpur, Gen Z’s fury has set politics ablaze, toppling old titans like Prachanda and Bhattarai, and demanding a new architecture of power. Yet even rebellion carries the fragrance of déjà vu. Nepal’s youth dream of change, but history keeps its mask close at hand. 

And then there’s Sandeep Goyal’s reflection on Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, that 30-year-old ode to love’s impossible balance, a rebellion that bows, modernity that touches elders’ feet. Raj and Simran still dance between Europe’s freedom and Punjab’s traditions, reminding us that sometimes the most romantic revolutions happen on slow-moving trains. DDLJ endures because it understands what life rarely admits, that even our most revolting dreams must flirt with obedience. 

Then comes Shekhar Gupta, with a dispatch from a new kind of frontline, one where truth itself is under siege. Investigating gallantry citations for Operation Sindoor, he stumbled into an AI-generated hallucination. “Grok,” his digital aide, conjured entire war stories, none of which existed. A dream of heroism spun by an algorithm, persuasive and patriotic, until the seams showed. It was not misinformation but myth, stitched from code. In this “sixth generation” of warfare, the battlefield is belief itself. The monsters now write in syntax, and their lies smell disarmingly like roses. 

Finally, in Shreekant Sambrani’s review of Homebound, India’s Oscar entry, the road home becomes both a pilgrimage and a purgatory. Co-written by Basharat Peer and Neeraj Ghaywan, its tale of two migrant workers trudging through lockdown darkness glows with humanity, yet never quite bursts into myth. It’s a rose growing out of concrete — fragile, fragrant, and painfully real. 

Stay tuned!