“You must respect the language… I am opposed to this distasteful, ‘wasssup’, ‘yo’ ,‘hey’ and ‘sup’, so unscholarly.”
Illustration/Uday Mohite
The other day I met Dr Shashi Tharoor.
“Wassup”, I enquired cheerily.
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“Sir, I don’t usually respond to single words that are so casual!”
“Apologies if you find ‘wassup’ disrespectful?”
“You must respect the language… I am opposed to this distasteful, ‘wasssup’, ‘yo’ ,‘hey’ and ‘sup’, so unscholarly.”
“Hey slow down, man Shashi… there’s something perverse in your intent, don’t you want to be the agent of reform for young people, their poster boy, you say want to address 60 per cent of the population of India, but you reject how they speak, what’s that about!”
“Slang is slander.”
“Oh boy, you need to go on all—India walk, a linguistic saunter through our country and meet the youth, you could call it ‘Shabdh Jodo’.”
“Yes that is a good idea… a true grass root suggestion!”
“Anyway, howyoudoinghailfellowwellmetandallthat?”, I corrected myself .
“That’s better. To answer your question, I am feeling ‘supercalifrajelisticexpalidocious unequivocally unpedestrian’.”
“Uhm ok… whatever that means… but are you feeling chipper, are you excited, you could well be the engine of change for a cobwebbed political party, the fillip of sort to your filibuster instinct, the magic potion to the INC (I Need Crutches), I think of you adding a Ferrari engine to an Ambassador.”
Dr Tharoor smiled incandescently.
“Ahh your vocabulary is getting erudite by the second”, Tharoor beamed.
“Dude… may I ask, is this a gimmick, this standing for Cong Presidentship. You’re a wild card, a cat among the pigeons, the dark horse, the black sheep, do you know why you’ve thrown your hat in to make some metaphysical statement?”
“I believe in change, the only constant is change?”, he said.
“You believe in change, for a party who sees you as a party animal… change is a huge paradigm shift for them. They want continuity, the only change for them is constancy. Cong-stancy. Frankly you can’t shift a fullstop.”
“Yes”, he said, “but you have to begin somewhere.”
“Dude, your rival, Shri Kharge, he’s 80 years old, frankly, I don’t think we as Indians really support youth..old people are suspicious of young people, old is gold. In any case, are you ready to lead all those ‘uncleoclasts’?”
‘What an ‘uncleoclast’?”
“A fuddy duddy who thinks he’s a big daddy, someone who’s way past his prime but doesn’t know it, which is 82.3% of our netas.”
“Ah”, he said.
“And why are you in any case a ‘Dynastaur’?”
“What’s a ‘dynastaur’?”
“Oh man Shashi, try and keep up bro! A dynastaur is someone who aligns himself to an outdated familial political party.”
“Ah most thesaurusarian of you, combining dynasty and dinosaur… clever.”
“You should focus on your TedTalks, book launches, occasional stand ups, and aspire to lead the UN not the INC.”
“You should be my advisor,” he said.
“Speaking of advice, may I ask what your slogan #ThinkTomorrowThinkTharoor means?”
“Don’t you like it… isn’t it catchy?”
“Not particularly, first of all, why is it in English.. the whole Hindi belt, the Heartland, will put you down as an Angrez, and if the young are your target audience, then no one’s gonna wait for tomorrow, carpe diem, I’d say be “Ab ki baar, Tharoor yes saar”. Or how about ‘TharoorZaroorJiHuzoor?”
“Hmm it’s a bit Umraao Jaan for me, but I see your point.”
“Look, now I know why you chose ‘Thiruvantapuram’ to be your constituency.”
“Pray tell?”
“Because is it the second longest city name after Venkatanarasimharajuvaripita.”
Dr Tharoor looked at me and said, ”Sire, you do know that I have Hippopotomonstrosesquipodaliophobia?”
“Uhm, is that a mortal fear of hippos?”
“Oh stop it, everyone knows what Hippopotomonstrousesquipodaliphobia is…”, Dr Tharoor opined.
“Okay lemme think… monstrous quips in there leads me to believe that maybe it is a fear of bad jokes?”
“Listen listen, stop I’ll tell you what it is.”
“What what ?” I asked spellbound.
“It’s the fear of long words,” Dr Tharoor concluded.
Rahul daCunha is an adman, theatre director/playwright, photographer and traveller. Reach him at rahul.dacunha@mid-day.com
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