Wordplay

Why do the words attraction and attractive have action and active in them! Inactive persons beware!!

***

Ever notice that the letter 'o' accurs with monotonous regularity in the word monotonous?

***

Doesn't the word succinct express the idea of succinctness succinctly?

***

I am sure you never looked up 'self explanatory' in a dictionary. It was self explanatory. Wasn't it?

***

Any Comments?

Newspaper Report: Waseem Jaffer selected to the Indian cricket team.
Comment the next day, in the same paper: This is appeasement of the minorities.

Newspaper Report: Kaif dropped.

Comment from the same source: . . . . . . .

. . . . . .

Ah! The silence is deafening!

Breeding Ground for Violence?

My son was admitted to a hospital and needed treatment for a long time. I stayed with him and looked after him.

While there, I observed many other patients and their families. I also experienced their trials and tribulations.

There was this forest officer who had undergone neurosurgery and was recovering. His wife and son went to all kinds of trouble to bring him back to life and normalcy. Their hope, concern for the patient and the hardship they underwent smilingly were touching.

One of the problems they had was of course money, as the surgery and the months long stay in the hospital had taken their toll on their resources. They had spent a lot of money and were trying to get it reimbursed from the government, as they were eligible to. With the help of friends and the colleagues of the patient they moved the papers and finally it reached a stage where the district surgeon had to sign it so that the money could be reimbursed.

What happened next is unimaginable. The wife of the sick man travelled overnight by bus and met the district surgeon. The district surgeon demanded 20,000 rupees to sign the papers. When the lady pleaded with him not to demand that money his reaction was “when you are getting so much money from the government, can’t you part with even this much?” What sort of a sick mind can do that is beyond me.

Years ago, at the height of the Naxal movement in Kerala, during the seventies, there was the following incident. A woman was in labour and her relatives approached the local government doctor in the middle of the night for help. The doctor refused to budge till he was given a huge sum of money. My memory says 5,000 Rupees but I am not ready to bet on it. In any case, the relatives went around trying to collect some money and in the mean time the lady died and the baby was stillborn.

The next day, the Naxals walked into the village, caught hold of the doctor, tried him in public, found him guilty, hanged him to a tree and disappeared into the forests.

Now, was the doctor murdered or was he executed? Was what the Naxals did right or wrong? If there is a Naxal movement today in various parts of the country, is that a disease or is it the symptom of the disease society at large is suffering from. What punishment does the district surgeon of the present case deserve?

Now, let me make it clear. I abhor violence. All violence. No ifs and buts. I also believe that violence does not cure violence. “An eye for an eye…..” and all that. See the results of the “peaceful” war in Iraq that was supposed to bring democracy and peace to the whole region?

That said, whose is a greater violence - the doctor’s or that of the Naxals who killed him? The Naxals may truly believe, however wrongly, that they are ridding society of a pest that will eventually reduce violence in the world. Is it not the same reason that governments proffer when they assume the right to execute convicted murderers?

The admonition of the Supreme Court of India that the death penalty be used only in the “rarest of rare cases” does nothing to the fact that the state reserves its right to kill. But that stipulation is thrown to the winds when the Naxals are hunted in encounters, fake or otherwise.

The government, that does nothing about the doctor or even actively protects him and his misdeeds, is out to hunt the Naxals. Eliminate the symptom and not the disease?

How many people who saw the Tamil movie ‘Indian’ subconsciously sympathised with the protagonist who kills (executing?) the corrupt officials?

The answer my friend……………

Murder Most Foul

There is a poem by Kuvempu(*1). The poet dreams that he is dead. He is looking around to find his final resting place. He finds many boards in all languages pointing towards heaven. Suddenly he comes across a board in Kannada(*2), pointing towards hell.

Being a great lover of Kannada, he decides that if a board in Kannada points towards hell, it cannot be a bad place to be in, after all. Whatever the poet’s intentions were, I tried to figure out a reason for the board only in Kannada pointing towards hell. It finally occurred to me. Nobody murders his or her own mother tongue like we Kannadigas do. That is matricide of sorts. So we deserve to be in hell. Don’t we?

There was this Kannadiga gentleman in Bangalore, who had a guest from England. He had arranged to take this guest around and show him the sights. The day before the proposed trip, his boss called up and said that there was an emergency and he had to be at the factory the next day. The host decided to ask a friend to take his place and escort the guest. When he explained the situation to the friend, the visitor commented that he understood all that he had said and that there seemed to be a lot of English in Kannada!

The explanation must have run something like this, with the words in Italics being in English and the rest in Kannada. Hey, I had told you last week that I have a guest from England. I had planned to take him and show him Bangalore. I had made all arrangements. I have booked a taxi. But, Just now, my boss phoned me and said that there is an emergency at the factory and I should go there immediately and that my leave is cancelled. So could you please accompany my guest and show him Bangalore.

That should give you an idea of the number of English words used.

Let us take a look at some advertisements. “simpallaagi cellular aagiri” (Go cellular – simply) exhorts one. “Simply talk maadi” (Just talk) exhorts another. “Simply hellige hogi”(Just go to hell!), I feel like telling them.

There was one that beat them all. "Drishtiyonde saaladu, beleyoo bennu bidadu"! I had to struggle for hours to decipher that one. Translated literally, it means, “Sight alone is not enough. The price too, does not stop following you”. I like puzzles. So I persevered and it dawned on me, eventually. It is a translation, atrocious translation needless to say, of something like “Looks alone are not enough. The price won’t let go too.”

Transplanting English words like time, urgent, rice and salt into Kannada sentences is unpardonable. There is no need to look for Kannada words for car and bus. But asking for a spoonu (*3) of saltu is unpardonable.

As far as I know, we are the only people among whom you find many who are proud to say that they do not know Kannada. Tell a Kannadiga that his English is bad and he will be terribly insulted. Tell him his Kannada is bad, you will find a man achieving the impossible. Looking embarrassed and proud at the same time!

Ah! If you do not like this post, don’t bother asking me to go to hell. As a Kannadiga I perhaps will, eventually.

Notes for non-kannadigas:

1. Kuvempu: Poet laureate of Kannada, a Jnanapeeth award winner. Full name is K V Puttappa, and the Initials, written in Kannada would be Ku. Vem. Pu. Which became his pen name.

2. Kannada – the language of the state of Karnataka, and a person who hails from this state is called a Kannadiga

3. To Kannadise an English word, just add a u at the end. (To Telugufy it, add oo ;--) That is a different story and is perhaps grist for another post.)

Your Unbiased Opinion Please!

I am sure someone has asked you for your unbiased opinion, at some time or the other. Whenever someone asks me for my opinion, with this proviso, I have feel amused but go right ahead and give my best, biased opinion on the matter.

Can anyone really give an unbiased opinion at all? Is it not an oxymoron? If one can really have an unbiased opinion, then the one asking for it may himself or herself generate that opinion.

All of us would like to believe that we are capable of thinking rationally and come to an unbiased opinion on a subject. In fact, we all have different biases. We prefer to call it a different viewpoint. As the cliché goes, our opinions are based on “where we come from” – not the geographical location, of course, but our “backgrounds”. An unbiased opinion is thus an oxymoron.

Now, is it really good to have an unbiased opinion, if it was possible at all? Gandhi exhorted us to ask the question “what does this do to the poorest of the poor of this country?” and then decide whether we should do a certain thing or not. In other words, he has exhorted us to have a bias towards the “poorest of the poor”. As is our wont, we have put Gandhi (or his image) on a pedestal and trashed his “rule of thumb” for taking decisions.

If we did apply his rule of thumb, would all those projects (always towards progress and development, mind you!) that displace thousands of poor people ever take off? Narmada Damn…… Oooooops, dam for instance. Have you ever heard of thousands of people from the upper echelons of society being displaced in the name of development? Something smells fishy. It actually stinks, does it not?

So if we can’t have an unbiased opinion, what do we do? The trick is to have the right bias. What does it mean to the poorest of the poor of the country is a right bias.

Or does it sound like a left bias?

A Better Superstition?

There is this column in a national newspaper where you can seek advice on your personal problems. There was this businessman who had recently built a house. Soon after moving in to his new home, he started having problems. His son fell ill. He himself started having financial difficulties in his business.

Apart from seeking medical help for his son, he sought the help of a Tantrik (a black magician, a voodoo man). The Tantrik gave him an amulet to be tied to the son's arm. It did not help. Now he had sought the help of this advice column.

Advice was forthcoming, but with a preamble. It berated the man in no uncertain terms. How could a an educated man fall prey to superstitions and seek the help of a Tantrik? He should have known better! This was the general vein of the preamble.

Then the advice was dished out generously. Block the present door of the kitchen in your new house and provide a new door facing a different direction. Close that window off, open up another elsewhere. Many more such alterations to the house were suggested. All this was to make the new house conform to the "Ancient Indian science" of Vaastu. These alterations are supposed to ward off tevileil eye, not allow the ill winds to enter the house, dissuade Yama, the god of death from entering the house and many other benefits.

Apparently the person who gave all the advice believes that his brand of superstition is superior to that of the Tantrik.

Also, the poor advice seeker will be considerably poorer, making all the alterations suggested.

To make matters more interesting, the advice seeker had the same name as a famous Malayalam matinee idol!

Torture Banned

"Bush signs US law banning torture" - news item.

Does it mean Bush has to step down now?