If the 20th century was the Information Age, the 21st is unmistakably the Narrative Age—an era not of data, but of dishes. We no longer just consume facts; we taste them, question their seasoning, and pass them around like heirloom recipes. In this age, stories are the masala—aromatic, emotional, unforgettable. Facts? They’re the rice in a biryani. Necessary, yes. But it’s the spice that makes you close your eyes and hum.

From WhatsApp rumours to rewritten history books, we now live in an era where stories shape belief faster than facts can clarify them.

From Data to Dishes

In an ideal world, facts would suffice. But we don’t live in a spreadsheet—we live in kitchens of emotion, where the tadka of a tale often overpowers the dal of data. Garlic sizzling in ghee will always draw more attention than a bullet point on efficacy rates.

Take COVID-19 in India. Scientists stood behind neat podiums, explaining the science of vaccines—protein structures, antibodies, efficacy percentages. Meanwhile, WhatsApp kitchens were buzzing with rumours about microchips in syringes and “foreign agendas” simmering in shadowy pots. The spice overwhelmed the rice.

This is post-truth in action—an age where emotion trumps evidence, and narratives become the dominant flavour. The facts are still there, but few bother to taste them plain.

Zohnerism: Manipulation by Design

There’s even a term for this—Zohnerism—coined after a 14-year-old student once convinced his classmates to ban “dihydrogen monoxide,” without telling them it was just water. It’s the art of presenting facts selectively to mislead, proof that truth can be twisted with a clever garnish.

Zohnerism thrives in our narrative age. It’s not about lying—it’s about framing. About cooking truth just long enough to make it taste different. About omitting a spice, adding a dash of fear, and serving it as conviction.

Climate Change, Politics, & the Kitchens of Belief

Climate change is another buffet where this plays out daily. You can speak in millimetres of sea-level rise until your throat runs dry—but tell me about a farmer in Assam, watching his paddy field drown one monsoon too many… or a fisherman in Kerala returning with an empty net and an emptier heart—and suddenly, the taste of urgency is sharp, salty, unforgettable.

Politics? That’s a thali. Two people can sit at the same table, eat from the same plate, yet taste entirely different meals depending on where they place their attention.

The farmers’ protests were a case in point. For the government, it was a “reform platter” promising efficiency. For the farmers, a “bitter gourd curry” threatening their very survival. And it was the farmers’ earthy, generational narrative—told through fields, langars, and tractor rallies—that spread across India like the aroma of freshly baked rotis.

We live in an age where information is abundant, but consensus is scarce. Because while the facts may be shared, the narratives around them are cooked in entirely different kitchens.

Social media has become India’s grandest kitchen. On X (formerly Twitter), you get bite-sized political snacks; on Instagram, the sizzling reels of forgotten recipes; on WhatsApp, the full-course meal of rumour and belief. The algorithms are our invisible head chefs—serving more of what we already crave, keeping us in flavour silos. Sweet for the sweet tooth, chilli for the spice lover—never letting one taste the other’s plate.

Rewriting the Recipe Book

Education? That’s a whole other recipe book. In India’s classrooms, history isn’t a fixed menu—it’s rewritten, re-seasoned, and sometimes entire dishes are removed. Whether it’s the Mughal era, the freedom struggle, or post-independence policies, what’s served depends on the chef in charge. These edits aren’t just about taste—they shape the appetite of a nation.

Science, too, often struggles to present itself appetisingly. A research paper can be like a badly written menu—every ingredient listed, yet nothing that makes you hungry. When the ozone hole story broke in the 1980s, the recipe was simple: problem spotted, action possible. People ordered change immediately. Climate change, however, is a buffet of complexity, and most diners wander without filling their plates—unless you serve it as a human story, garnished with emotion.

When Stories Nourish—and When They Poison

And here’s the truth: narratives can nourish or poison.

One winter evening, standing before India Gate, I felt the silent aroma of sacrifice rise from those engraved names—no captions, no hashtags, just the lingering flavour of memory.

In Erbil, over tea, a friend told me about leaving Kirkuk. He spoke not of geopolitics or casualty figures, but of his mother’s bread, his father’s laughter, the fig tree in the courtyard he never saw again. And in that moment, his loss became a taste I could never forget.

The Moral of the Meal

The most powerful stories are like heirloom recipes. They’re carried not in cookbooks, but in the memory of hands kneading dough, in the sound of a ladle scraping the bottom of a pot, in the smell that drifts down a street at dusk.

Narratives have transcended their traditional role as cultural artefacts. Today, they are a force capable of shaping economies, swaying elections, and redefining truth itself. In India, as in much of the world, the contest over “who tells the story” is as significant as the facts within the story.

In this Narrative Age, our job is not to abandon stories, but to reclaim them. To season truth with empathy, not manipulation. To taste before swallowing. To ask:

• Is this spice meant to bring out flavour—or to mask something stale?
• Who cooked this story?
• What ingredients are missing?

Because the India—and the world—we pass on will not be shaped only by the meals we eat, but by the stories we taste, share, and remember.