I was reversing my car up the slope in the parking lot at South Campus when a friend who graduated with top honours from an elite women's college called on my cell phone and asked me to explain the meaning of the word "dichotomous." Conditioned by years of explicatory teaching and numbed by being the at-home- thesaurus, I stepped on the reverse gear and proceeded to explain wondering why she didn't consult the dictionary, because people asked on the off-chance tend to be woolly? Her chuckle made me realize that this was a trick question and with a little prodding, the paisa eventually dropped.
In karmic evolution the anxieties one is visited by remain the sum total of one's misdeeds, both in this life and in previous ones. Of course, we also need to propitiate our blood ancestors, but in secular life, we are called to account for each and every gaffe and social misdemeanor that our seniors in academic institutions effortlessly execute.I shifted to first gear and drove the car back into the trough that I had been struggling to lift myself out of. We had a long exchange, this friend and I, over Mani Shankar's repartee that was not merely out of place, but also completely off the point.
The truth be told, Mani Shankar has always been articulate enough, in all manner of forums, that India could not afford the extravagance of the commonwealth games and he was absolutely correct on that point, never mind the fact that nobody in his party cared very much about his views on the subject.Yet what is intriguing about this whole exchange is that the entire debate has hinged around whether Mani Shankar Aiyar's elite arrogance is misplaced and out of date. In fact Swapan Dasgupta continues the debate in this vein in his 30 September article where he launches forth on wit and understatement as the privileged space occupied by the inheritors of the Nehruvian tradition, wherein he places both Mani Shankar Iyer and himself, a bit too quickly, methinks.
Swapan Dasgupta, authoritatively pokes fun at "puerile" undergraduate Stephanian clubs such as the no longer extant Wodehouse Society. Maybe they should hand wrestle over the fine points of Narendra Modi's hostility to the upper cadres of the Gujarat RSS under Dasgupta's super-'vision'? This would go well with the cultural pundit aura Dasgupta has appropriated ever since his strident declaration a few years ago (in the wake of the controversy over the film Fire,) that lesbianism was a foreign import, brought to India's hallowed shores by a whole lot of disreputable people, presumably elite anglicized women?
Rather than reiterate that Mani Shankar is maliciously witty and speaks better English than most people, it is time to ask why Mani Shankar never considered stepping down or resigning from official positions and continued to be "obstructionist." The schism between his words and subsequent action could definitely be termed "dichotomous" in this instance. Could we communicate to him that there is a consensus on Maken's appropriate and advised use of both words and he should now labour to provide a detailed explanation?
I recall Mani Shankar's effusive oratory in Parliament, asking for Connaught Place and Connaught Circle to be renamed as Indira Chowk and Rajiv Chowk, immortalizing through architectural symbol the cradling of the son in the arms of his mother. That chowk indicates a square shape while the circle represents a different geometrical figure altogether, was merely inconsequential detail. His suggestion was implemented by those who should have known better in order to ensure that everyone who knows their Hindi could cringe whenever they saw these signboards in time and times to come.
Language effectively records the gulf between speech and action and thrusts the underlying thought into our faces. It did so powerfully in Narendra Modi's recent fast purportedly for communal harmony. Yet this man, the proverbial cat at Haj, refused to wear a cap proffered by a visiting maulvi. That one gesture effectively dismantled the horrendous charade of fellow feeling he tried to construct and left him completely exposed. Thankfully language retains the power to do that most of the time, be it the case of superannuated Stephanians or regional satraps running amok.
In karmic evolution the anxieties one is visited by remain the sum total of one's misdeeds, both in this life and in previous ones. Of course, we also need to propitiate our blood ancestors, but in secular life, we are called to account for each and every gaffe and social misdemeanor that our seniors in academic institutions effortlessly execute.I shifted to first gear and drove the car back into the trough that I had been struggling to lift myself out of. We had a long exchange, this friend and I, over Mani Shankar's repartee that was not merely out of place, but also completely off the point.
The truth be told, Mani Shankar has always been articulate enough, in all manner of forums, that India could not afford the extravagance of the commonwealth games and he was absolutely correct on that point, never mind the fact that nobody in his party cared very much about his views on the subject.Yet what is intriguing about this whole exchange is that the entire debate has hinged around whether Mani Shankar Aiyar's elite arrogance is misplaced and out of date. In fact Swapan Dasgupta continues the debate in this vein in his 30 September article where he launches forth on wit and understatement as the privileged space occupied by the inheritors of the Nehruvian tradition, wherein he places both Mani Shankar Iyer and himself, a bit too quickly, methinks.
Swapan Dasgupta, authoritatively pokes fun at "puerile" undergraduate Stephanian clubs such as the no longer extant Wodehouse Society. Maybe they should hand wrestle over the fine points of Narendra Modi's hostility to the upper cadres of the Gujarat RSS under Dasgupta's super-'vision'? This would go well with the cultural pundit aura Dasgupta has appropriated ever since his strident declaration a few years ago (in the wake of the controversy over the film Fire,) that lesbianism was a foreign import, brought to India's hallowed shores by a whole lot of disreputable people, presumably elite anglicized women?
Rather than reiterate that Mani Shankar is maliciously witty and speaks better English than most people, it is time to ask why Mani Shankar never considered stepping down or resigning from official positions and continued to be "obstructionist." The schism between his words and subsequent action could definitely be termed "dichotomous" in this instance. Could we communicate to him that there is a consensus on Maken's appropriate and advised use of both words and he should now labour to provide a detailed explanation?
I recall Mani Shankar's effusive oratory in Parliament, asking for Connaught Place and Connaught Circle to be renamed as Indira Chowk and Rajiv Chowk, immortalizing through architectural symbol the cradling of the son in the arms of his mother. That chowk indicates a square shape while the circle represents a different geometrical figure altogether, was merely inconsequential detail. His suggestion was implemented by those who should have known better in order to ensure that everyone who knows their Hindi could cringe whenever they saw these signboards in time and times to come.
Language effectively records the gulf between speech and action and thrusts the underlying thought into our faces. It did so powerfully in Narendra Modi's recent fast purportedly for communal harmony. Yet this man, the proverbial cat at Haj, refused to wear a cap proffered by a visiting maulvi. That one gesture effectively dismantled the horrendous charade of fellow feeling he tried to construct and left him completely exposed. Thankfully language retains the power to do that most of the time, be it the case of superannuated Stephanians or regional satraps running amok.
The Tamils continue to call Connaught Place, as Kanadi Pallace...something to do with migrant workers' ability to pun about people in glass houses!
ReplyDeleteI dictionaried finally. Besides two halves or pairs, ‘dichotomy’ also implies two mutually exclusive, opposed or contradictory groups as in a dichotomy between thought and action. And as our dichotomous brains would suggest, we have a similar political system that lives up to this definition. The one side is supercilious, calculating and morally inept but clearly foreseeable. The other is naive, conscious and mostly irrational but seemingly welcome. Both halves have to be utterly at odds with their own interests. Finding a middle ground will be damaging to ‘dichotomy’. Reminds me Frost’s ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’. Frost is obligated both to the woods and to a world of "promises". When properly shaken and stirred, English can be mischievous?
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ReplyDeleteI was watching the ndtv debate "Politically incorrect" where Mani and Swapan battle out the ill advised nature of the former's remark. Though Mani (obviously) refused to find fault with the sentiments behind his comment and Swapan laced his digs at Mani with endearing humour, they both seemed to agree upon, even take for granted, the essential hierarchical nature of our education system. Thankfully, the audience at Miranda (where the debate was held)had penetrating observations and their indignance was not so easily mollified.
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