This year at the Christmas fairs, was it my imagination that made me notice something unusual? Instead of drifting lazily from stall to stall, shoppers were huddled around the cake counters with the seriousness of detectives examining evidence.

"Does this cake have enough nuts?" one auntie asked, tapping the box as if she expected the almonds to knock back.

"It looks stingy on raisins," another complained, her tone suggesting a personal betrayal.

A third declared with certainty that the cherries looked smaller than last year, as though cherries, too, had joined inflation.

And so began the Great Christmas Cake Inquisition of the season.
Nuts inspected. Raisins suspected. Cherries judged.

You would think the future of the nation depended on whether the plum cake had the correct ratio of dry fruits.

But as I listened to the arguments rise higher than the choir's carols in the background, a troubling thought settled in. Maybe we have started examining the cake so closely because everything else around us has begun crumbling.

What reminded me of this was the headlines today that the silk dupatta many bought at Tirupati with devotion and faith, believing it to be pure silk blessed by divinity, turns out not to be silk at all but a cheap polymer masquerading as holiness.

Earlier, we had heard about issues with the famous Tirupati ladoos.
And today this.

A fake dupatta in a sacred space.

When fraud and cheating enter religion, suspicion begins spreading like icing sugar in the wind. And once suspicion takes root, it does not stay confined to one shrine or one faith. It leaps across boundaries and creates doubt everywhere.

One temple scandal, and suddenly, people wonder about churches, mosques, and gurudwaras.

If deception can walk into the holiest places, what hope remains for the rest of society?

I thought again of the cake shoppers poking innocent plum cakes.
Maybe they are not looking for nuts.

Maybe they are looking for reassurance in a world where trust has become fragile.

If even a religious house can sell a polymer dupatta, who can blame them for doubting whether the cake has real cashews or cleverly coloured peanuts pretending to be something more?

This year has shown us that dishonesty walks confidently through the front doors of our institutions. Chanakya's cleverness is praised. Cheating is normalised. Those who take shortcuts are applauded for their smartness, while those who choose integrity are called fools.

And yet Christmas comes quietly, refusing to shout over the noise.
A child in a manger reminds us that truth still matters.

He never pretended.
He never deceived.
He never sold a fake product to a believer.
His life was pure, his message transparent, his purpose honest.

So, when you shop for a cake this season, and find some nuts missing, think about that same Babe in the manger, then promise yourself to put them back where they belong.

Nuts of integrity and honesty.

Through your words. In your actions, and in values. Into a nation to make her whole again ...