Present Tense is The Swaddle Team's stream of consciousness response to the world's madness.

Remember when Kareena Kapoor told Simi Garewal way back in the 2000s that she'd like to go on a date with Rahul Gandhi? There were a few years of "Pappu"-trolling both he and we had to endure afterwards. Now, like most other things in culture, Rahul Gandhi thirst is back in style. After one too many RG yearn-core reels on the Internet, the time feels ripe to discuss the recurring phenomenon of political dreamboats.

If Rahul Gandhi, and previously Chandrasekhar Azad, seem to be any indication, the ingredients required are: a charismatic, rebellious streak, good looks, a passion to change things in the country, good looks, speaking truth to power, good looks, fearless political crusading, and – you guessed it – good looks. It is a great time to be a progressive politician, especially if you've hit the jackpot in the physical appeal department.

It's understandable, but allow us to bring you up to speed on the state of our republic for a moment (it's what RG would want). There are 249 MPs in the Lok Sabha who belong to the Opposition right now – which means there are 247 other people who could use enthusiastic, supportive hype reels if anybody cares to boost their morale. Especially considering that there is a new bill on the table, which proposes kicking out Prime, Union, and Chief Ministers if they have serious criminal charges. Which is essentially future-proofing for a scenario where our hot and happening faves cannot be appointed as leaders of states or countries. And as it so happens with most things, it's the people from caste or religious oppressed backgrounds who bear the brunt of unfair criminal charges slapped against them, like in the case of Chandrasekhar Azad Ravan.

Which begs the question: will thirst save our democracy? That's a rhetorical question, please focus, we've got work to do.

In other news, a close competitor to the thirst reels taking over the internet are Taylor Swift's many vinyl cover announcements for her upcoming album, The Life of a Showgirl. She announced the album on Travis and Jason Kelce's podcast, New Heights, where she appeared as a guest and also explained her strategy of planting Easter eggs for fans -- a famously cryptic game she engages her audience in to keep us guessing about her next album, her next single, her re-releases, her concerts, her stage outfits, her track lists, the person she's dissing in a song, the person she's serenading in another, etc etc. And this is fine, right? We can let Taylor Swift be Taylor Swift and enjoy her music when she makes it? Sure we can.

However. The thing about accepting that entertainers are only meant to entertain or artists are only meant to make art is that, in this case, the art and the entertainment have all vanished into the singularity that is the Taylor Swift persona. The announcements and the carefully calibrated public appearances use up a sizeable amount of the world's attention – you could call it oxygen – toward a person over the art they're creating. Because we don't even have an album to listen to yet. We just have the news and now are once again in the position of toggling between genocide and a popstar's one-sided conversation in Morse with her country-sized fan-base.

We may look like we're siding with a man over a woman this week, but we just happen to prefer the person who cares about the world more than the person who cares about themselves at the moment. And as a wise woman once said, "Kim, there's people that are dying."

Lastly, we leave you with a brand new postscript to this column. Here are things we remember with fondness or disdain or both; and things we predict/hope for/dread for the coming week, or as we like to call it:

Past Tense: #HotGirls4Bernie, or the campaign where Emily Ratajkowski and people who look equally impossible endorsed Bernie Sanders on behalf of all hot girls. The inverse of where we are currently at with Rahul Gandhi, you might say, except as Andrea Long Chu put it: "Sanders argued that health care was a universal human right. But did anyone have the right to be hot?"

Future Tense: The AI bubble will hopefully burst, judging by the fact that Meta has just imposed a hiring freeze on its AI division. Are we at the tail-end of ChatGPT texts from the ex and people spiralling into psychosis over AI boyfriends and girlfriends? Please, god, we hope so – but this may be a distant future at best.