I Am Counted, Therefore I Am: What the Census Says About You in a Country of Billions

In a country where population is often described in crores and people sometimes feel like dots on a spreadsheet, it’s easy to wonder—Do I even matter?

But once every decade, something quietly radical happens. A government official knocks (or soon, taps) at your metaphorical door and asks: Who are you? Where are you? What do you do?

It’s called the Census. And no, it’s not just a bureaucratic formality or a throwback to your grandparents’ era of paperwork and pen ink stains. It’s the Indian state’s way of saying to each of its 1.4 billion citizens: You are seen. You are counted. You matter.

Our Census is “us” being seen in the world’s largest crowd. India is the world’s largest democracy and also one of its most complex experiments in coexistence. Languages, faiths, castes, incomes, dreams—all packed into a single subcontinent. It’s beautiful. It’s overwhelming.

And in that sea of humanity, the Census is the one moment where every person is equal in importance. Whether you’re a coding intern in Bengaluru, a tea seller in Guwahati, or a grandmother in Kutch who doesn’t quite trust that tablet the enumerator brings—you count.

In fact, the 2027 Census will be India’s first digital one. No more towering stacks of forms. Instead: tablets, tech, and (regretfully) still no emojis.

Here’s something the new generation might not always pause to consider: being counted has always been the goal, and over the decades, the Census has done its best to reach everyone—across crowded cities, remote villages, winding mountain paths, and quiet coastal hamlets. Enumerators have walked, ridden, and knocked their way through all of India’s complexity.

But here’s the shift we now need to make: while the system has tried to count us, we haven’t always known how to own being counted. Think of it this way—if India were a vast mural, the Census is the moment you pick up a brush and say, “This is where I go. This is my colour. This is my space on the wall.” It’s not just data collection. It’s self-declaration. Being counted isn’t a passive act—it’s a statement: I am here. I exist. I matter.

The narrative of the Census can evolve from one of documentation to one of dignity. And that shift begins with us.

Why Should You Care? Let’s put it this way. You might never visit Parliament, but Parliament is shaped by the Census. You may never draft a government budget, but what your town or village gets depends on the Census. You might think policies are written in Delhi boardrooms—but the data they’re built on? That starts with your name on a census list.

More schools in your neighbourhood? More jobs in your town? More buses, more doctors, more funding? The Census decides.

It’s not just counting heads. It’s creating a map of where India is and where it needs to go.

If Aadhaar is your ID, the Census is your Voice. Yes, you already have an Aadhaar number. You’re on WhatsApp, Instagram, and probably a dozen government portals. So why another “registration”?

Because Aadhaar tells the government that you exist. The Census tells the country who you are, in context—with your family, your community, your language, your history. It’s not just your fingerprint. It’s your footprint.

And while the Census doesn’t give you a blue tick, it gives something far more valuable: civic recognition.

For the Gen Z TL; DR crowd, let’s be real—when it comes to government forms and data collection, your first instinct might be: “Ugh, it’s not giving relevance.” But the Census? That’s different.

It’s giving: Visibility

It’s giving: legit representation 

It’s giving: “I see you, I hear you, I fund your district accordingly.” 

So no, it’s not just another official chore. It’s your IRL blue tick from the world’s largest democracy.

Next time the Census comes knocking—digitally or otherwise—don’t ghost. Say your name. Mark your space. Claim your mural spot.

Because being counted? That’s giving identity. That’s giving power. That’s giving “I matter.”

Next time someone whips out a tablet for the Census, don’t side-eye it. That’s your ‘I’m here’ moment. Own it.

There’s something quietly revolutionary about saying, “I’m here.” Not metaphorically—literally. And knowing that your presence changes how the country thinks, spends, builds, heals.

That’s what the Census does. It says: We don’t just govern the people. We know the people. And every single one of them matters.

So in 2027, when a government official (or a tablet screen) comes your way, don’t brush it off like junk mail. Take a breath, answer the questions, and stand your ground. You are not just a number. You are a number that changes everything.

Because in this democracy, being counted is not just a right—it is a declaration: I am here. I belong. I matter.

 

 

Of Deadlifts and Enterprise: The Heavyweights of Progress

The gym is, bar none, the most ironic classroom I’ve ever enrolled myself in. You join it dreaming of chiseled glory, biceps like boulders, perhaps a shorts-worthy pair of thighs—and yet what you end up with, month after month, is a series of uninvited life lessons wrapped in sweat and soreness. It turns out that lifting weights isn’t just a workout; it’s a philosophical inquiry into the nature of progress, pain, and the peculiar ways we sabotage ourselves.

As I reflect on my 1.5-year relationship with weight training, I can’t help but laugh at the naivety of my early ambitions. Year one was glorious—deadlifting 100 kilograms, dropping six off my own bodyweight, and basking in the kind of post-workout confidence that makes you fancy yourself as a superpower. Naturally, I assumed year two would follow the same curve. Except, it didn’t.

Progress slowed. My original goal of lifting 120 kilograms and hitting 60 kilograms on the scale remained stubbornly out of reach. I found myself stuck—pushing and pulling in a literal and figurative sense—like I do when staring at the same spreadsheet for hours with no real results. And this is where my trainer enters the scene, his enthusiasm boundless and his patience maddeningly relentless.

Think of my trainer as the Sisyphus of logic—every time I come up with an excuse, he relentlessly rolls it back down the hill. “Flexibility,” he insists. “Mobility. Address your weaknesses!” And when I roll my eyes at the wisdom (and occasionally wish for him to get one exercise wrong so that I can cry out in victory), he does something infuriating: he turns out to be absolutely right.

His logic isn’t just unavoidable; it’s bulletproof. Training, he informs me, is less about raw strength and more about eliminating the inefficiencies preventing me from using my strength effectively. Where I see slowness, he sees opportunity, a chance to identify what’s holding me back. “Your hamstrings are like steel cables,” he grins; it’s unclear if he means this as a compliment or criticism, but the foam roller calls, and I leg curl bitterly.

By now, I’ve realized my problem isn’t just about physical slack—it’s also mental. I expected my body to accelerate as it did in year one when the real secret is that the foundation wasn’t even finished. Sure, I could lift—badly—but my rigid hips, neglected glutes, and stiff ankles had joined forces to play defence against progress. Success wasn’t in adding weight; it was in tearing down the bad habits that wouldn’t let me use my potential.

Of Squat Racks and Startups -  this essay was partly inspired by a conversation with a friend who runs an IT company. Hearing him talk, I couldn’t help but notice how the trajectory of his business mirrored my own fitness journey, albeit on a grander scale.

When he founded the company in 2007, it was as if he, too, had walked into a gym for the first time. The early years were all about enthusiasm and grit. With a team of just twenty, they pushed through sheer effort, growing slowly and steadily to a modest twenty-five employees over a decade. But then came the tipping point. In the last four years, they exploded to a hundred staff members, their work gaining recognition and clients flocking to their brand.

From the outside, the success story looks seamless. But as he spoke, he said something that resonated deeply with my own struggles: the real challenge wasn’t growth. It was dealing with what had been ignored during the early years. As the spotlight shone brighter and the workload piled higher, inefficiencies in internal processes—the company’s “slack” in communication, data management, and operations—became glaringly obvious. Without strong systems, it was a herculean task to keep track of the “body” of the organization. Decisions lagged, resources weren’t fully optimized, and talented employees were overburdened.

Sound familiar? Just like in my training, the building stage was exciting. You rush toward visible progress: numbers lifting up (or, in my case, pounds going down). But scaling the next mountain requires something else entirely—it’s about fine-tuning the machine itself. You’re not just building muscle; you’re fixing how the muscle works.

In both gyms and offices, addressing the slack is tedious, sometimes demoralizing. Nobody writes a motivational book about ankle mobility or an employee performance review template. There’s no applause for spending two months focused solely on breathing patterns, nor does anyone celebrate the ten minutes you add to your dynamic warm-up to fix your lopsided squat. But those quiet, painstaking adjustments determine whether you’ll move to the next level—or collapse under the shiny new weight you so desperately wanted to carry.

The Truth About Strength - there’s a saying you hear a lot in gyms: “Leg day is mandatory.” When I first encountered it, I dismissed it as yet another stupid slogan, right up there with “No pain, no gain.” But the irony of this particular cliché is how deeply it cuts, especially when you consider the reality of where strength actually resides.

Somewhere along the way, my trainer shared an eye-opening statistic: 75% of the muscle in your body lives in your lower half. And yet, ask anyone to define “strength,” and chances are they’ll start flexing their biceps or puffing out their chest. It’s the upper body that captures the imagination; the legs are treated like an afterthought, as though their sole purpose is to hoist the upper body from place to place.

Those misconceptions echoed in my own training—and, again, in the way my friend described his business. Just like gyms glorify bench presses and biceps curls, companies chase the visible, headline-worthy aspects of success: signing clients, scaling teams, launching products. But if the legs of the operation—back-end systems, mobility (pun intended), and processes—aren’t strengthened, eventually the whole enterprise starts to wobble.

For me, acknowledging this has meant embracing leg day (grumbling all the while). Squats, front and back, have become a ritual—they’re unsexy but transformative. The legs are the engine, the foundation builders of everything else, and investing in their development feels like unlearning the glamor and relearning the essence.

My focus today is in removing the Slack, in Life and Lifting. As I inch closer to my goals—120 kilograms on the barbell, the elusive 60 kilograms on the scale—I’ve come to realize that progress isn’t linear, nor is it grand and dramatic. It’s stopping mid-lift to reevaluate where your feet should be. It’s listening to an annoying and frustrating, BUT highly accurate trainer. It’s recognizing when your body (or your business) is stuck not because you aren’t trying hard enough, but because invisible weaknesses need attention.

If I’ve gained anything in these 1.5 years of training, it isn’t just muscle or even wisdom—it’s an appreciation for the work we don’t see in progress photos or performance reviews. Fixing slack—those inefficiencies holding you back—isn’t glamorous, but it’s essential.

And when you finally feel the clean, taut tension of a well-executed lift or an organization firing on all cylinders, you’ll know that success isn’t built on glamour. It’s built on patience, humility, and a little stubborn persistence. Just ask my trainer. Or better yet, don’t. He’ll keep talking about it and irritating me again and again, and yet again!!

JAT: A Cinematic Head Injury I Willingly Inflicted Upon Myself!!!

Every once in a while, life gives you a test. Some people climb mountains. Others run marathons. I watched Jat.

After a long day of grown-up things—emails, calls, and pretending I knew what I was doing in a spreadsheet—I craved something brainless. Something loud, silly, disposable. So I hit play on Jat. This was a catastrophic mistake.

Believe you me it is a plate of Idli that launched a thousand punches. The film begins innocently. Sunny Deol, now a Brigadier, is sitting in a small Andhra town in Prakasam District, peacefully eating an idli.

Enter a random thug. He bumps into Sunny. The idli falls. Sunny stares. Calmly says:

“Apologise.”

The thug laughs and says the most dangerous words in cinema: “Do you know who I am?”

From there, things escalate with military precision:

• Goon ➝ gets punched

• Goon’s boss, Suba Reddy ➝ refuses to say sorry ➝ gets punched

• Suba’s boss, Somulu ➝ also refuses ➝ punched

• Finally, the problem is escalated to… Ranatunga

Yes. Over a fallen idli. I will never look at South Indian breakfast the same way again.

With this Sunny ka “2.5 Kilo Ka Haath” has entered the building. The Brigadier is in full roar mode. At one point, he bellows—louder than a jet engine—

“Yeh dhai kilo ka haath North nein ne dekha hain… ab South dekhega!

Jab yeh haath uthta hai, desh jhoomta hai!”

Sir, please we are in the south! We want some simple breakfast, not seismic events.

Now, meet Ranatunga - the Villain, a narcissist and most importantly a meteorological authority. Ranatunga appears in all his glory—moustache, sunglasses, and a voice like barbed wire. He delivers the single most unhinged line of the decade:

“Jahaan tu khadaa hai, zameen meri hai. Aasmaan mera hai.

Sooraj mujhse poochh ke ugta hai.

Tu kaun hai?

Main? MAIN HOON JAT!!”

At this point, I wanted to open my window just to check the sun was still rising independently. It was night time!!! So, cannot confirm that yet.  I would like to hope that the sun perhaps barely survived. I also believe that the censor board wanted to cut short the film and hence there were some deleted Ranatunga quotes:

• “Mausam mujhse NOC leke badalta hai.”
• “Main hi satellite hoon. Baaki sab antenna hai.”
• “Main sochta hoon… aur earth rotate karta hai.”
• “Google mujhe confirm karke answer deta hai.”

If he’d claimed to own the ozone layer, I wouldn’t have blinked.

Meanwhile, a Thorium conspiracy is also happening. Just when you think the idli-fueled brawls are enough, the film zooms out. We learn that Davos-level global terrorists have their eyes on Prakasam District… because it’s secretly rich in thorium. Naturally! Clearly, when you want to destabilize global power, you skip Geneva and go straight to semi-rural Andhra Pradesh.

 The villagers – That’s a different story. I started wondering if were in 2025 or 1962? The villagers in this film are noble, shawled, and permanently confused. They appear to be:

• Time travelers from a Doordarshan drama
• Bewildered by electricity
• Waiting for a miracle or a memo from Nehru

Do they have WhatsApp? Do they vote? Has Jio reached them?

Honestly, the whole film feels like it’s set in the Neanderthal Era, with Sunny Deol as the first man to discover fire (and yell at it).

 Then Came My Real Mistake: I announced that I was watching  Jat. At some point—God help me—I posted on WhatsApp:

“Watching Jat. Lol.”

The responses were swift and unforgiving:

• “Are you drunk?”
• “Do you need medical help?”
• “This is self-inflicted pain, Radhe.”
• “Even Race 3 is a more coherent choice.”
• “Delete this message before future generations find it.”

Friends disowned me. Cousin started sending voice notes ridiculing my choice. As if words weren't enough, I had to listen to them too. One person sent me a photo of a coffin with “Your taste in cinema” written on it. The final twist was me being nominated for a bravery award. Yes! This morning I woke up to a message that I’m being nominated for a National Bravery Award.

Apparently, I’ll be receiving it on January 26, 2026, from none other than the President of India. It all tracks.

After all, the movie opens with a little village girl writing a letter to the President, asking for help. Sunny Deol is deployed. The nation is jhoomed into motion.

And now, I, the woman who sat through this cinematic thunderstorm, am being honoured too. The President is the common thread—between her story and mine.

Jat Is Not a Film. It’s a Weapon.

Let’s be clear: Jat is not entertainment. It’s a national endurance test.

There are: No songs, No heroine and No peace

Just Sunny Deol yelling into the wind, and a villain who thinks the atmosphere belongs to him.

And yes, all of it starts with an idli. So if you ever find yourself holding a soft, innocent South Indian breakfast, please show respect. Apologise pre-emptively. Don’t challenge the chain of command. You never know when Sunny Deol might rise… and make the desh jhoom again.