In satire, a more noble prize

The opposite of high-minded hypocrisy isn't always sincerity. At times, it is just some honest satire. Take the Nobel Prize, arguably the most coveted honour across disciplines. A CSR exercise for a Swedish arms manufacturer, despite its infamous acts of omission (Mahatma Gandhi), commission (Henry Kissinger, Bob Dylan) and blindness (Eurocentrism), the prize continues to carry a halo. The Ig Nobel Prize does not carry the pretensions of the famous counterpart it lampoons. And it's better for it. The awardees for 2026 include psychologists who have shown that rich people are indeed more obnoxious and entitled; physicists who may not help further AI or quantum computing but have designed a 'splashless' urinal; the peace prize for a scholar who has shown that friendships based on the pettiness of mutual enmity can be enduring and, for chemistry, an international team that included Indian researchers for discovering that the 'milk' from a species of cockroach contains three times as much energy as cow's milk. There is a quiet nobility to the Ig Nobel Prize, the pun in the name notwithstanding. Perhaps at more than any time since its inception in 1991, the quotidian research it rewards strikes a chord. In an era of war, of boorish leaders and growing inequality, of threats from the Machine and an uncertain climate, a splashless urinal, the evil rich and the productive promise of cockroaches provide a brief chuckle. When inspiration is in short supply, that might just be what people truly prize.