As I crawl (read: dramatically stagger) through the emotional rollercoaster that is my Ph.D., John Steinbeck has become less of a thesis subject and more of an honorary roommate, minus the rent but with a lot of existential baggage. He now lives rent-free in my head, takes long brooding walks across my daily thoughts, and occasionally makes disapproving faces at my midnight cheese toast experiments.

Sometimes I find myself wondering, when I’m staring blankly into the middle distance or fighting with footnotes, what would dear John do if faced with “this�?carnage? And by “this,�?I mean the glorious mess that followed the fireworks and announcements of the ‘Liberation Day Tariffs�? in the land of bald eagles and imported iPhones: the “tariff tornado�?unleashed by Donald J. Trump, a man whose economic strategy often feels like a cocktail of Monopoly money and blindfolded darts.

So let’s imagine a version where Steinbeck, the chronicler of dustbowls and disillusionment, decides to descend from his cloud in Literary Heaven (possibly shared with Orwell, Hemingway, and the ghost of Tolstoy who is eternally grumbling about Instagram). He floats down for a visit, and promptly regrets it.

The man who once walked with migrant farmers now finds himself in aisle seven of a Midwestern Walmart, squinting at a can of beans priced like it was marinated in moonlight and optimism. A precocious child munching cereal (that now costs more than probably the silver earrings that I just bought) explains, “It’s a trade war, Grandpa John. China taxed us back.�?/p>

Steinbeck blinks. Wars used to be about survival, sacrifice, and Shakespearean-level speeches. This one? It’s about dishwashers, soybeans, and a whole lot of tweeting. The casualties? Farmers, factory workers, and anyone trying to buy a toaster without consulting their bank manager or selling a kidney on the side.

And then there’s Trump, The Working Class Whisperer, declaring tariffs the economic equivalent of sliced bread. He says it’s to “protect American jobs,�?all while possibly lounging on a golden golf cart that looks like it belongs in a Mughal durbar. Our friend Steinbeck, never one to be seduced by shiny things, mutters, “Which jobs? The ones that just boarded a flight to Vietnam with a suitcase full of unpaid wages?�?/p>

Now, let’s take a moment for the humble soybean farmers. One day they’re global tofu tycoons, and the next they’re standing beside warehouses bursting with unsellable legumes, blinking like shocked aunties at a no-onion policy in a curry. China, ever the practical ‘ex�? simply swipes right on Brazil.

Meanwhile, the CEO’s, those modern-day Okie landlords, now with MBA’s and minimalist offices, continue their Shakespearean tragedy in reverse: make money doing nothing. “Raise prices, blame China, declare a win!�?says one, probably while sipping overpriced matcha and checking his stock portfolio on three screens.

Our everyman, the wide-eyed citizen who tries to “Buy American�? soon learns that everything American is either twice the price or made from pieces that visited more countries than my Gurgaon-neighbour’s daughter’s honeymoon itinerary. To shop smartly in this scenario, one needs either a Ph.D. in global supply chains or the divine intervention of Goddess Lakshmi herself.

So if Steinbeck were around today, he wouldn’t be out waving placards. He’d be found sitting in a Walmart parking lot, scribbling notes for ‘The Tariffs of Wrath�? His characters? A hardware shop uncle trying to sell a Made-in-USA screwdriver that costs more than a second-hand scooter, a soybean farmer Googling “how to start a YouTube cooking channel,�?and a former reality TV star who thinks GDP stands for “Great Donald’s Popularity.�?/p>

And me? I’m here struggling with the different formats required to write research papers, as I munch on peanuts, thinking of replacing the Californian nuts in my mixed-nuts platter with some other affordable one. Sometimes, just sometimes, I long for the good old days, when the biggest trade dispute in life was arguing with the ‘sabziwala�?over the price of ‘bhindi�?

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Views expressed above are the author's own.

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