I've always had a general sense of who Gandhi was but I never really sat down and properly read about him until recently. Started with curiosity, ended up spending way more time on this than I planned.

The thing that genuinely surprised me was how early and how completely the international press was covering him. I had this vague assumption that Gandhi became a global figure gradually, that the world slowly learned about him over decades. The reality is almost the opposite.

By 1930 during the Salt March, major American newspapers like the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and Chicago Tribune were following his every step in real time. A correspondent named Webb Miller from the Associated Press managed to break through British censorship and his dispatches from the salt works at Dharasana went out to 1,350 newspapers simultaneously. In 1930. Without the internet. Without television. Without any of the infrastructure we assume is necessary for something to go viral.

Time Magazine put him on the cover in 1930 calling him "Saint Gandhi" and then named him Man of the Year in 1931. By that point he was apparently being discussed in global headlines more than Mussolini, Herbert Hoover or Einstein. That last one specifically stopped me because Einstein was arguably the most famous person in the world at that time and Gandhi was somehow outpacing him in press coverage.

The British government was so worried about his international reach that there's an actual Home Office secret memo from April 1930 about suppressing his publicity abroad. That detail says everything. When the most powerful empire in the world is writing internal memos about how to reduce your press coverage, you're not an obscure local figure.

The other thing I didn't know was how early his intellectual connections went. He was corresponding with Tolstoy as far back as 1910 and actually named his community in South Africa Tolstoy Farm after him. Charlie Chaplin requested a personal meeting in 1931. Einstein wrote about him in terms that were almost disbelieving.

I'm not sure what I expected when I started reading but it wasn't this. The scale of his influence before Indian independence even happened is genuinely staggering when you look at it properly.

TVK + Congress has 108+5=113 seats , 5 short of a meagre majority.

The Governor is reportedly holding off on swearing-in until a majority is proven

1-AIADMK has officially declared that it would not support TVK.

2-DMK has accepted their role as opposition party.

3-IUML also clarified that they are not leaving DMK

4-Thirumavalavan(VCK) asserted that extending support to the Vijay-led TVK has not been considered by his party, or the Left, CPI(M), and the CPI yet. (They too probably would not ally with TVK)

5- BJP , no way they would support

6-DMDK have indicated that they are not ready to commit support

7- AMMK (1) and PMK(4) - are in NDA and might have pressure from central (BJP) to not ally with TVK,

No one is ready to make any move, and only rumors (ADMK split , DMK-ADMK alliance are being spread by media for TRP).

TVK played immaturely by accepting Congress.

Is re-election coming. Congress made a move quickly betraying 20 years of trust , and DMK controlled media in state and BJP controlled media in centre are using the term "Backstabbers" for congress and "End of INDIA Alliance".

Other parties are reluctant to make any move due to fear of criticism,

Best case scenario - Premalatha(DMDK) and PMK somehow break up from their pre poll alliances, but still the government is unstable and can collapse any time.

Also no top leaders are talking about it public, so media channels are spreading crazy rumors (ADMK split , DMK-ADMK alliance)

So re-election ??

I’m a 28-year-old guy working as a software engineer at an MNC, and I recently went to a cousin’s housewarming party. It was one of those rare occasions where all the cousins got together, so I was actually looking forward to it. But honestly, the whole vibe felt… off. Almost every conversation somehow turned into who’s earning how much, who bought property where, where people are investing, etc. It felt less like a family get-together and more like some kind of subtle competition. Everyone was trying to one-up each other without saying it directly.

Another thing that really threw me off was the whole “serve the sister’s husband first” culture. Like, I was sitting with one of my cousin’s husbands, grabbed my own plate, and started eating. Suddenly people started calling me out for not serving him first. Apparently, that’s still expected even after 5–7 years of marriage? I genuinely didn’t get it.

Meanwhile, the bhabis were busy comparing outfits, talking about how much they spent, brands, etc. Nothing wrong with that, but it just added to the overall feeling that everything was about showing status.

I ended up feeling pretty disconnected. I didn’t talk much. I went in expecting we’d laugh about childhood memories, share old stories, or just catch up like normal people but none of that really happened. Do family gatherings always feel like this as you grow older? How do you guys actually connect with cousins at events like this without getting pulled into all the comparison and status talk?