Volume 5 · The Great Indian Bazaar · Essay 218
Shitification
Shitification is a small handle on a large fact. Grip it, and the fact becomes easier to carry.
What this concept offers is a pause — one extra beat between what happens and what you do about it. Civilisation, someone said, is measured in that beat.
It is worth keeping in your pocket not because it is always right, but because it is always available. A tool you carry beats a perfect tool you left at home.
The village panchayat and the housing society meeting are the same animal in different clothes: five people deciding, fifty people complaining, and everyone leaving wiser than the minutes suggest.
Society is a long conversation; the only question is whether you are listening or merely waiting to speak. The idea has done its job if, the next time it happens to you, you smile before you react.