Politics is just a series of bad updates. We’re currently watching the Tamil Nadu branch of the legacy system crash in real-time, and honestly, the error logs are the only interesting part left.

V.K. Sasikala, the woman who’s spent more time in the "Coming Soon" phase than a Silicon Valley vaporware startup, finally tried to push her latest build to production. She launched a new political bloc. She called it a move for unity. Her nephew, T.T.V. Dhinakaran, called it a snack. Specifically, he called it "instant idli-sambar."

It’s a brutal line. It’s the kind of quote that cuts through the usual PR fluff because it hits on the one thing every modern "disruptor" fears: the accusation that they’re just selling dehydrated junk in a fancy box.

Dhinakaran isn’t just being a petty relative here, though the family WhatsApp group must be a literal war zone. He’s pointing out the commodification of the democratic process. In his view, Sasikala isn’t building a movement. She’s microwaving a brand. "Anyone can start a party," he told reporters, dripping with the kind of condescension usually reserved for a senior engineer looking at a junior’s first pull request. He’s right, in a way. The barrier to entry for starting a political party has never been lower, but the cost of actually making it run—the "server costs" of grassroots organizing—is astronomical.

We’ve seen this movie before. A legacy player gets ousted, spends some time in the wilderness (or, in this case, a jail cell and a few years of "retirement"), and then decides they can just "pivot" back to the top. They think the old code will still run on the new hardware. They forget that the electorate has updated its OS a dozen times since they were last relevant.

Sasikala’s "unity" rhetoric is the political equivalent of a "Stability Improvements" patch note that doesn't actually fix the crashing. She wants to bring the fractured pieces of the AIADMK back together, but the fragments have already formed their own ecosystems. Dhinakaran’s AMMK is one of those fragments. He’s got his own servers, his own users, and his own bugs. He doesn't want to merge back into the main branch, especially not if Sasikala is the one holding the admin keys.

The "instant idli-sambar" metaphor is perfect for the 2024 attention economy. Real idli-sambar takes time. You have to soak the rice. You have to ferment the batter. It’s a process. It’s messy. It requires patience. Modern politics—the kind Sasikala is trying to play—skips the fermentation. It’s all about the announcement. The press release. The photo op with the portrait of a deceased leader. You add hot water, stir, and hope the voters don't notice the grainy texture.

But here’s the friction: the price tag of this "instant" relevance isn't cheap. To even get a seat at the table in Tamil Nadu, you’re looking at a logistical nightmare that would make a logistics CEO weep. You need a symbol. You need a fleet of campaign vans that look like Transformers. You need a social media army that can trend a hashtag in twenty minutes. You’re looking at a burn rate of hundreds of crores just to find out if anyone actually likes the taste of your instant mix.

Sasikala is betting that the "Amma" brand still has enough residual value to carry her. She’s leaning on nostalgia, the ultimate low-effort marketing tool. It’s the "Stranger Things" strategy of politics. If you play the right 80s synth track—or in this case, invoke the right 90s political ghost—maybe people will forget the plot is thin and the acting is wooden.

Dhinakaran’s mockery exposes the fundamental flaw in the plan. You can’t disrupt a market you don't understand anymore. He’s effectively calling her a "tourist" in her own backyard. He’s saying that while she was away, the world moved on to real-time data and granular caste-math, and she’s still trying to win with a dial-up modem.

There’s a specific kind of arrogance in thinking you can just "start" a party like you’re opening a Substack. It ignores the friction of reality. It ignores the fact that the "Two Leaves" symbol—the ultimate piece of political IP—is currently tied up in more legal red tape than a Disney acquisition. Without the IP, you’re just a knock-off brand sitting on the shelf next to the generic cereal.

So, Sasikala is out there stirring the pot, trying to prove that her instant mix has some kick. Dhinakaran is standing back, waiting for the inevitable indigestion to kick in for the voters. It’s a race to the bottom in a market that’s already saturated with "disruptors" who have nothing to offer but a new logo and a slightly different font.

The question isn't whether Sasikala can start a party. Anyone with a checkbook and a loud enough microphone can do that. The question is whether anyone actually wants to eat what she’s serving once they realize there’s no actual substance behind the steam.

In the end, even the hungriest voter eventually gets tired of eating things that come out of a packet.