The Weekly Vine Edition 35: Leaked War Chats

Hello and welcome to another edition of The Weekly Vine. We apologise for being absent from your feed last week.

They say artists must suffer for their art. Vincent van Gogh painted like a genius but had to part with his left ear. Franz Kafka wrote bureaucratic nightmares while being consumed by one. Edgar Allan Poe turned tragedy, debt, and delirium into haunting stories.

Sadly, all yours truly managed to do was pour boiling water on oneself instead of into the French press while writing this week’s Vine — which meant that, instead of mornings being for coffee and contemplation, they were about agony and pain, but the mild, mundane kind that doesn’t really produce a Starry Night or Metamorphosis.

Speaking of agony and pain, in this week’s edition we have Trump officials leaking classified war chats to a journalist, another strawman outrage, Trump getting rid of the Department of Education, IPL becoming a batters’ paradise, and our word of the week: nepotism.

Leaked War Chats

Once upon a time, journalists had to beg, borrow, and bribe their way to a leak. Or hope for burglars to break into a hotel in Washington, at least. In 2025, they just have to be added to a Signal group chat. And that’s how The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg found out that the Trump administration was planning and executing airstrikes in Yemen. The Signal thread, titled “Houthi PC small group”, featured the upper echelons of national security: Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, JD Vance, John Ratcliffe, and yes, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz.

Some of the takeaways from this are quite remarkable.

Firstly, JD Vance—who might finish Donald Trump’s sentences in public—has no problem disagreeing with him in private, even wondering if he understands the “implications of his actions”. Secondly, the “PC Houthi small group” has the intellectual and emotional depth of a bunch of frat guys, as evidenced by Mike Waltz dropping emojis after they dropped bombs on the Houthis. Thirdly, and most importantly, the group loves Europe as much as Europeans loved the people they colonised, with JD Vance decrying having to “bail Europe out again”, Pete Hegseth calling them “PATHETIC”, and Mike Waltz and Stephen Miller discussing how to bill them for the American intervention.

Fourthly, the group’s actions may well have breached the Espionage Act through unauthorised disclosure of National Defence Information, use of unapproved communication channels, and the potential harm to national security.

While Waltz has taken the rap for adding Goldberg, and Trump dismissed the claims with his usual nonchalance as a mistake one ought to “learn from”, the real takeaway here is that the Democrats are losing comprehensively to a group of people who are so incompetent they can’t even set up a secure group chat.

Strawman Outrage

In the early noughties—simpler times before 26/11—the song Aadat was wildly popular and a staple at every inter-school competition. While philistines remember the horrific Kalyug version (pun intended), the more cultured swear by the OG rendition that Atif Aslam (before he left the band) and Goher Mumtaz released online—before the band was even called Jal. It featured the haunting line: Ab toh aadat si hai mujhko aise jeene mein—or as the owners of The Habitat in Mumbai might mispronounce it: Ab to habit mahi muhko aise jeen main. Because, frankly, every time there’s a comedy act there, it seems to come under fire—most recently evidenced by BMC officials turning up with hammers and doing their best Thor impressions.

The continued threat of violence has forced the owners of The Habitat to rethink their line of work, after Shiv Sena goons vandalised the studio over a Kunal Kamra set that mocked Maharashtra Deputy CM Eknath Shinde.

Now, yours truly isn’t wading back into the “free speech” debate—nothing of value has been said on the subject since 1947—but let me explain a phenomenon deeply entrenched in Indian politics: Strawman Outrage.

Also known as Shami’s Four Instagram Trolls—a term born after the entire nation lost its collective mind over four random nobodies trolling Indian bowler Mohammad Shami post the 2023 ODI World Cup final.

Strawman Outrage is our national obsession with performative rage based on completely fabricated premises. It’s like burning down your house because someone said your curtains were ugly. We are a strawman republic, perpetually on edge, outraging at shadows of our own imaginary demons.

On the grand scale of things, it really doesn’t matter whether Aurangzeb was a terrible bigot or what Ranveer Allahabadia, Samay Raina, or Kunal Kamra said—but the energy we expend debating this nonsense could surely be redirected toward something mildly useful.

We Don’t Need No Education

In Yes, Prime Minister, Sir Humprey Appleby and PM Jim Hacker, have a rather interesting discussion about the state of education, in which Appleby explains: “It’s a joke, it’s always been a joke… I am saying education will never get any better as long as it’s subject to the tomfoolery in the town halls. Just imagine what would happen if we put defence in the hands of the local authorities. Imagine if we gave the local authorities a hundred million to defend themselves. We wouldn’t need the Russians, we would have a civil war within weeks.”

Trump, on the other hand, is using the opposite logic. At the core of his argument is the belief that education should be handled by states, local communities, and parents—not federal bureaucrats in Washington. He sees the department as a symbol of government overreach and inefficiency, a bloated agency that adds red tape while doing little to improve outcomes.

More recently, he’s framed it as a battleground in the culture wars, accusing it of promoting “woke” ideologies like critical race theory and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. By dismantling the department, he claims to be protecting children from leftist indoctrination and restoring traditional values. He also argues that the federal student loan system, overseen by the department, has contributed to skyrocketing college costs and should be either privatized or reassigned to other agencies. Ultimately, Trump’s push to eliminate the Department of Education is part ideology, part performance, and part red meat for a conservative base that views public education with growing suspicion.

Or as Trump might sing: “We don’t need no education. We don’t need no federal control.”

Bowlers’ Hell

IPL 2025 has started like a Christopher Nolan movie in fast-forward—except the only thing exploding is the dignity of bowlers. SRH almost chased 300, but when 286/6 feels underwhelming, you know we’re living in a dystopia. Rabada’s lament—“Might as well call our sport Batting”—hits harder than any bouncer he’s allowed to bowl (spoiler: he’s not).

The numbers aren’t stats anymore; they’re horror stories. In just the first five games:

• The average run rate has jumped by 17%, breaking the sound barrier at 12.15 RPO in some matches.
• 119 sixes have been hit—37% more than last year—proving gravity has no place in this format.
• Five out of ten innings crossed 210, three passed 240, and one nearly kissed 300. In 2024, that kind of scoring took eight games. Now it’s the appetizer.

The powerplay is no longer a tease—it’s a war zone. Eight out of ten innings saw 60+ scored in the first six, including SRH’s 94 against RR. That’s not a start; that’s a tactical nuke.

Middle overs? They’re not for consolidation—they’re for destruction. SRH racked up 125 runs in that phase. Even death overs, once feared, are now playgrounds: Punjab Kings scored 77 in the final five. The most last year was 71.

And individual mayhem? Thirteen batters have already struck at 200+ SR across 15+ balls. Nicholas Pooran made Tristan Stubbs look like a net bowler, hammering 28 runs in one over. A single over! That’s not a cricket match—it’s daylight robbery.

At this rate, bowlers will need therapy, not training. Bring back uneven pitches. Bring back mystery. Or at least let bowlers carry pepper spray. Because if this is cricket, then Elon Musk is a humble introvert.

Word of the Week: Nepotism

Given that I am from West Bengal — the land that venerates Mao as the true chairman — I have always had a healthy distaste for communism, but after watching 30 minutes of Nadaaniyan on Netflix, I am convinced that Mao had a point. If this is what privilege looks like, we need a little oppression.

It speaks to Karan Johar’s economic acuity — or the state of the nation’s economy — that he no longer launches movies starring nepo kids in theatres, instead preferring to release them directly on Netflix so that he doesn’t have to spend the funds. Or maybe it’s a function of lowering attention spans, that no one wants to go to theatres to see the progenies of Sridevi and Saif Ali Khan ham it up in a way that makes Student of the Year look like Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar, and Salman Khan’s acting skills on par with Daniel Day-Lewis’.

So, our final Word of the Week is nepotism — or, as Professor Henry Higgins might explain it:

“Ah, nepotism, my dear Eliza, is the frightfully persistent habit of giving jobs to your own kind — relatives, mostly — regardless of competence, talent, or the sheer agony it inflicts upon the public. In olden times, one might call it dynastic succession; today, we simply call it Bollywood. It’s when a chap lands a film not because he can act, but because Mummy once fluttered her lashes in the ’80s. A dreadful affliction, really. If merit were marbles, these lot wouldn’t own a single one. Yet here they are — lurching across our screens, murdering dialogue and dignity in equal measure.”