Rahul Gandhi is having the last laugh. And some journalists, long acculturated to the Delhi Darbar of the Shahenshah, can’t handle it. It happens. The BJP is obviously sulking. A friend forwarded me a wonderfully grumpy tweet from an establishment journalist, scandalised that Rahul Gandhi dared to spoof He Who Cannot Be Named with a stand-up comedian. Ah, Lady Socrates has spoken. After twelve years in which large sections of India’s Fourth Estate discovered that the spine was apparently an optional organ, we are now being given masterclasses in political propriety. Please. You helped turn journalism into something resembling the promotional trailer of an Aditya Dhar potboiler: booming background score, heroic lighting, breathless nationalism and remarkably few awkward questions. And now a joke is a constitutional crisis? The sanctity of a PM’s position is being muddied etc etc. Seriously? Smell the Starbucks: 2026 has changed the political conversation. The drawing room has changed. The street has changed. The digital universe has changed. Humour is in. Roasting is in. Politicians getting spoofed is in: it is a good thing. We take these guys more seriously than we should. Democracy could use a laugh. It is certainly healthier than abuse, intimidation, and the dreary name-calling that passed for political discourse for years. And your daily hate-filled asperity which passed off as primetime news. The difficulty, of course, is anatomical. Twelve years of bending over backwards can produce a nasty curvature of the spine. Straightening up suddenly causes cracking, creaking, and apparently, furious tweets. So laugh, Lady Socrates. Try it. Money can buy access. Power can buy applause. But neither can buy moral authority. And while you contemplate that philosophical puzzle, have a crispy Delhi samosa. It could be a chilly winter.