Thik Kina? The Art of the Unanswered Question

In Hirak Rajar Deshe, the king has a machine.

It is called the Jantarmantar. You put a person in. They come out agreeable. They come out nodding. They come out saying yes to things that are clearly no. Satyajit Ray made this film in 1980 and everyone said: what a sharp allegory for authoritarian politics.

Nobody said: what a sharp allegory for the next forty-five years of institutional life.

The Hirak Raja runs his kingdom on a single rhetorical move. He makes a pronouncement — something obviously self-serving, something logically suspect, something that benefits him and nobody else — and then turns to whoever is in the room and asks: Thik kina?

Is that right?

And everyone says: thik. Yes. Correct. Absolutely.

The question is not a question. It is a formality with teeth. The wrong answer does not go well for anyone. So the kingdom runs on a permanent yes, delivered with increasing enthusiasm to mask increasing anxiety.

Now: look around.

The Jantarmantar is everywhere. It is the meeting that ends with any questions? but the energy in the room says: please no questions. It is the group announcement that gets seventeen thumbs-up emojis from people who have private doubts. It is the quarterly review where the numbers do not add up and everyone nods anyway.

Thik kina? Yes. Thik. Always thik.

The T-shirt is for the person who paused before nodding. Who has thik kina? permanently installed in their head as both a political memory and a daily experience. Who finds Ray's 1980 film funnier and sadder every year that passes.

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