ERRATICA Put up with put-downs Bachi Karkaria `If you cant live without me, why arent you dead already? Last month gave us the biggest put-down in electoral history. Unlike the classical model of this one-liner genre here bluster hasnt been deflated by the subtle pinprick. The put-down has been deafening, and its hailers have been LOL-ing and ROFL-ing, the laughter ringing through the force multiplier of the Net. The victims are genetically tongue-tied/mute. A gleefully forwarded e-joke was about two new additions to the urban dictionary: `rahulgandhied to mean `giving repetitive, irrelevant answers to questions and `manmohanned to mean `responding with silence. The origin of the first lay in the Arnab interview, while variants of the second have existed ever since its root-word came to the PMs chair in a seat-sharing arrangement. A pity that the economist is now remembered only for the lesser half of his `quiet brilliance. This week brought news of the more conventional put-down: the results of a global poll for the most famous snub in literature. The winner was Rhett Butlers verbal rapier, ``My dear, I dont give a damn from Gone With The Wind. Arguably , it owes its greater popularity to the 1939 film adaptation rather than to Margaret Mitchells 1936 Pulitzer-winning book. Most people quote Clark Gables more wounding version, ``Frankly my dear, I dont give a damn. In second place came Lady Bracknells haughty line from Oscar Wildes Importance of Being Earnest, “To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune, Mr Worthing; to lose both looks like carelessness.“ Its a put-down all the more unwittingly funny because Jack has just told his hoped-to-be motherin-law that he was found in a handbag in the cloakroom of a railway station. The third most popular literary put-down was from Small Gods, part of Terry Pratchetts comic-fantasy Discworld series. Its the `malediction of the tortoise God Om, `May your genitals sprout wings and fly away. While Hindu extremists might threaten to do worse to the author of such blasphemy , theres no denying the quotes secular audacity; if you had an imagination, it would be undeniably boggled. Its also so much more refined than the usual versions of this much deployed category of cusses. What struck me was the remarkable connection between these put-downs from past American/Irish/English literature and Indias recent electoral come-uppance. Take No. 1. In less than a fortnight, our own Rhettoric Butler has clearly established a working style and has told old rules as clearly as he told off old rulers, ``Frankly my dear, I dont give a damn.“ As for put-down No. 2, even if Bal Narendra wasnt found in a handbag, his association with railway stations is well documented; in fact its been mythologised in story, song and strategy. Moreover, even the most diehard cynic, or erstwhile visa-denier, now has to accept The Importance of Being Modi. And, its been clear for a long while that Modi intends to keep himself important in right earnest. Coming to the third prize winner, our own Om has never been a `Small God, is now more omnipotent than ever, burnished further by Modis ballsy electoral gamble. Our new PMs business-like first fortnight in contrast to past paralysis could bring to mind the master put-downer, Winston Churchill. Replace his successor with `Rahul in the bulldog Brit PMs jibe, “An empty taxi stopped at 10 Downing Street, and Attlee got out.“ Or the Congresss performance could well have been what Prince had in mind when he said, “Michael Jacksons album was called `Bad because there wasnt enough room on the sleeve for `Pathetic.“ *** Alec Smart said: “Hangmans fracture; a noose on dreams.“
Posted on: Thu, 05 Jun 2014 09:33:37 +0000
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