Category: trump

Part 1: The Laws of Trumptropy

Scientists have a word for disorder that keeps growing no matter what you do: entropy. Indians have a word for the bill that always arrives: karma. The world in 2026 needs a new word for disorder that grows every time one man picks up his phone, and whose bill never seems to reach him. I propose Trumptropy. And yes, it reached my kitchen first.

A little science first
In science, entropy is, roughly, a measure of disorder. The second law of thermodynamics says that in an isolated system, one that exchanges nothing with the world outside, entropy never decreases. Things fall apart; they never tidy themselves up. Every Indian mother already knows this law. She has seen a teenager’s room.
Note the word isolated. A refrigerator can keep its interior cold and orderly, but only by pushing heat into the kitchen. Order needs exchange. Cut a system off from the world, and nothing can tidy it. Remember that the next time a country slaps tariffs on its friends.
The physicist Ludwig Boltzmann wrote a formula for it, and it is carved on his tombstone in Vienna: S = k log W. Put simply, the more possible states a system can be in, the greater its disorder.
Which brings me to a man whose every sentence can be in a great many possible states. I propose a new unit of measurement: Trumptropy, the amount of disorder that one statement from the President of the United States adds to the world. By Boltzmann’s logic, it grows with the number of things he could mean. On a good day, that number is very large indeed.
And a little karma
In India, we are raised on a second law of our own: whatever you sow, you shall reap. It works reliably for ordinary people. Skip the gym, and your knees will remind you. Be rude to the maid, and she will not come on Monday.
But for some people, karma appears to have opted for EMIs.  Trump has lost an election, been impeached twice and been convicted on 34 counts. He survived an assassin’s bullet and turned it into a fist-pump photograph. And yet here he is at 80, richer than ever, sulking over a theatre’s nameplate.
Perhaps he simply read the Gita upside down. Lord Krishna told Arjuna that we have a right to our actions, never to their fruits.  Trump seems to believe he has a right only to the fruits, preferably a Nobel Prize with his name engraved on it.
So here is the puzzle of 2026. Entropy is working overtime. Karma seems to be on leave.
Where Trumptropy lands
This year I discovered that world politics happens in the kitchen.
On 28 February, America and Israel attacked Iran. Iran shut the Strait of Hormuz, a strip of sea only about 35 kilometres wide at its narrowest, roughly the distance from Jaipur to Chomu. Nearly 90 per cent of the cooking gas India imports sails through it. When the ships stopped, the gas agencies filled with queues and the gap between bookings went up from 21 days to 25. Hostels served lemon water instead of chai. For a nation that runs on chai, that is a national emergency.
In the seventies, Shashi Kapoor silenced Amitabh Bachchan with ‘Mere paas maa hai’ (I have mother). In March 2026, the proudest line in any Indian home was ‘Mere paas gas hai’ (I have gas).
I did what Indian women have always done in a crisis. I found a ‘jugaad’ (a workaround) and bought an induction cooker. It was meant to be a stand-by. Months later, I use it more than the gas. My cylinder depends on a ship crossing a sea at war. My induction cooker depends on electricity made mostly at home. Without meaning to, I had done in my kitchen what whole nations are now scrambling to do. I had stopped depending on one road.
In 1973, after another war involving Israel, Arab producers cut oil supplies and prices quadrupled. Papa tells me that in those days they simply went everywhere on cycles. I have always believed history moves in cycles. In 1973, so did my father.
So where does all this disorder come from? After careful study, I have identified its laws.
The Zeroth Law: friends of friends are not friends
In physics, if A is in balance with C, and B is in balance with C, then A and B are in balance with each other.
In Trumptropy, India is Trump’s friend. Pakistan is Trump’s friend. India and Pakistan are still not friends.
Trump has claimed, countless times, that he stopped last year’s war between India and Pakistan. India has replied, just as many times, that he did not. Pakistan nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize, and this April it hosted his peace talks with Iran in Islamabad. The talks failed. The next day, America announced a naval blockade of Iran. But the photographs were lovely.

The First Law: conservation of name
In physics, energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It only changes form.
In Trumptropy, Trump’s name can neither be created nor destroyed. It only moves from one building to another.
In July, Palm Beach International Airport in Florida became President Donald J. Trump International Airport. In August, even its three-letter code changed, to DJT. In December, the US Institute of Peace became the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace. Within three months, America was bombing Iran. Nobody can say the man lacks range.
Then came the Kennedy Center, America’s national theatre, renamed the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center. Please note the order. Kennedy was assassinated in office, and he still had to take the second seat. A court ordered the name removed, and in June the letters came down. On 15 September, after a judge refused to let them go back up, Trump said the building would stay shut, unrepaired, unless his name returned. The law holds. The name did not disappear. It simply moved into a sulk.
I live in Jaipur, a city named after its founder, Sawai Jai Singh, so I am in no position to lecture anyone about names. I will only point out that Jai Singh built the Jantar Mantar to study the stars.  Trump is building a ballroom.
The Second Law: disorder always increases
In Trumptropy, disorder increases with every post on Truth Social. Take the great Russian oil serial, which I have followed more faithfully than any saas-bahu show.
Episode 1 (last August): America is furious that India buys Russian oil. Half of the 50 per cent tariff on our goods is marked ‘for Russian oil’. The saas has spoken: ‘Beta, you will not go to your mother’s house.’
Episode 2 (February): A deal. Tariffs come down, and India, we are told, will stop buying Russian oil. The bahu touches the saas’s feet. The background music swells.
Episode 3 (6 March): The Gulf catches fire, and the saas has a new idea. America grants India 30 days to buy the Russian cargoes already stuck at sea. ‘Beta, why don’t you ask your mother to send some achaar (pickle)?’
Episode 4 (the next day): The bahu politely reminds everyone that she never needed permission to visit her mother’s house in the first place. Dramatic zoom. Three reaction shots. Commercial break.
Ekta Kapoor could not have written it better. Her serials, at least, follow a script.
If you are confused, congratulations.  You have understood foreign policy.
The Third Law: the deadline that never arrives
In physics, absolute zero can never be reached. In Trumptropy, neither can a deadline. As it approaches zero, it is extended.
Trump’s favourite unit of time is ‘two weeks’. He promised to end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours; those hours have now lasted more than six hundred days. And in June last year, when he said he would decide on striking Iran within two weeks, he struck in two days. The only thing more dangerous than a Trump deadline is a Trump deadline that arrives early.
Every Indian knows this law. It is the plumber who says ‘kal aa jaunga’ (I will come tomorrow).
The Fourth Law: the conservation of flattery
Atoms cannot be flattered. World leaders, it turns out, can. In Trumptropy, praise is inversely proportional to tariffs.
NATO’s chief called him “Daddy”. Qatar offered him a luxury jumbo jet. Pakistan nominated him for the Nobel. And in June, Hyderabad named a road near the US Consulate ‘Donald Trump Avenue’, and Trump thanked India for it. Flattery is the cheapest insurance policy ever sold. The premium is one compliment a month.
The exception is China. It did not flatter. It hit back with tariffs and squeezed the rare earths America’s factories need. It got a truce anyway, and this month Xi Jinping ended his White House visit with tea. Some call this pattern TACO: ‘Trump Always Chickens Out’. Not always. But often enough to make the rest of the world wonder why it bothered with the compliments.
Measuring the unmeasurable
So how much Trumptropy is there in the world today? At the United Nations on 22 September, Trump said: “I have a big decision to make: Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild … or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic, and do it quickly?” In the same speech, he complained that Iran was stalling “to see how I do in the midterm election”, explained at some length that he was not running, and then said the election “doesn’t even enter my mind.” One speech, two realities. Boltzmann would need a bigger tombstone.
That night, Papa was watching an old Mahabharat rerun, and I dozed off beside him somewhere between the dice game and the war. I dreamt that a man with a mace, a crown and a very long grievance woke up in 2026, switched on the news, and recognised a brother.
The last time a family business refused to share even five villages, it ended in a war that swallowed almost every kingdom from Gandhar in today’s Afghanistan to Pragjyotisha in today’s Assam. Is another Mahabharat due? Tomorrow, I will let Duryodhana meet Trump, and we will find out.

To be continued…