The revenge of the Company clerk.

DEEPAK DELIGHTED US with his quiet humour: “I've worked for a government set-up for the past 29 years, and now I’m more ‘the undersigned’ than Deepak Bellur.”

“That reminds me of a Chennai businessman’s letter,” said Anjum. “In 12 lines, he used ‘the undersigned’ seven times: ‘Two weeks ago, when the undersigned had met you, the undersigned had told you . . .’ He seemed to abhor the personal pronoun.”

“That’s sarkari tradition,” Deepak said. “Cloud information in verbosity. The personal pronoun’s too lean.”

“And that sarkari tradition,” said Anjum, “goes back to the East India Company clerk.” “Wonder why Indians love to sound pompous.”

“And sanctimonious,” said Deepak. “It’s our national character.”

“Every time I hear pompous talk,” Anjum mused, “I’m reminded of what Rudolph Flesch said: ‘Typically, formal language is the language of minor clerks, secondary officials, cogs in some social machine. It’s their . . . psychological substitute for personal importance. The farther toward the bottom, the thicker the coat of assumed dignity’.”

“Quite,” Deepak said. “Wonder if Indians mouth bits of angrezi also for ‘personal importance’?”

“But it’ll be angrezi of the Company clerk variety;” said Anjum, “never everyday language. You see it in those letters government officers and clerks write to this day, spattered with 18th century commercialese and Raj-day officialese---the stupid formulaic expressions like as per and inter alia, the noted and duly filled in and the grotesque same/the same instead of a pronoun like he/she, him/her, they/them/it, and those awful ‘impersonal passives’, such as it is regretted/it is advised---and what have you.”

“That’s hardly limited to sarkari letters,” said Chhanda. “All Indian organizations use nothing but such hideous formulae---from industry and business houses to colleges and universities. People use as per even in conversation.”

“Exactly. Indians know only commercialese and officialese ,” Anjum said. “A friend got a letter from his bank the other day. It used the same this way:

‘We have inadvertently provided a credit for Rs. 4,500 to your credit card account 4477 XXXX XXXX 6008 and thank you for bringing the same to our notice. We have made the necessary changes and the same will feature in your subsequent billing statement.’

“That,” said Deepak, “goes back to 18th century British baniyas. Only 23 plain words would’ve done for those 40: ‘Thank you for telling us we inadvertently credited Rs. 4,500 to your credit card account. Your next billing statement will carry a correction’.”

Anjum sounded disgusted: “Isn’t it a shame that even highly literate Indians use the formulaic phrases of semi-literate clerks? Why can’t they use plain, everyday English?”

“Perhaps only when you’re at home with a language,” said Deepak, “can you use its plain version. Uneasy wags the tongue when one lacks language skill.”

“But educated Indians use their mother tongues grotesquely too,” said Anjum. “They’ll always come up with ugly Sanskrit formulae instead of the easy colloquial.”

“Yes,” said Deb. “I wonder if Indians’ pomposity doesn’t go back to the curse of Sanskrit trickling down to the hoi polloi.”

Chhanda, the academic, didn’t like that: “Why a ‘curse’? Sanskrit gave us great literature.”

“Yes,” Deb snorted, “and smothered beautiful poetry in our dialects. Sanskrit formulae became the language of every zombie. It divided him from the humble Indian who knew no Sanskrit, but spoke spontaneously. But the zombies were viewed as the elite because of Sanskrit. We’ve always clung to wonky values.”

“And English meant a second divide,” added Anjum. “Between those with baniya English formulae, and those without.”

“Quite,” said Deb. “And Sanskrit and baniya English have moulded the Indian whose language is limited to formulaic words and phrases.”

“That means,” said Anjum, “a nation poor in language skill.”

“And that means,” said Deb, “a people impoverished in thought.”

“And people incapable of thought,” echoed Anjum, “will always fall back on formulaic expressions.”

“Or maybe it’s the Company clerk’s revenge,” suggested Deepak.

Anjum thought that was funny. “What revenge?”

Deepak explained: “Once upon a time, every Indian aspired to write like a Company clerk, who’d brought baniya English to Indians. Then, as neo-literate Indians read English in universities, they gradually realized Englishmen looked down on what Company clerks wrote. Soon, the clerk became the butt of ridicule. That’s when clerks turned vengeful and as one, uttered their curse: Indians would never rise above their formulae. Their curse’s stuck.”

We all had a good laugh. “Company clerks’ lingo lives on,” said Anjum. “Teachers write baniya English: they call it writing formal letters. Look at this ICSE Council’s prescribed composition guide. It bristles with absurd translations of Indian idioms. Here’s a ‘model letter’---a boy pleading with a neighbour who throws noisy parties that disrupt his ‘studies’. It asks the neighbour to ‘do what you think is proper, putting your son in my place’ instead of asking what the neighbour would have done had his son been in the boy’s place.”

“That’s how the Company clerk arrived at pidgin,” said Deepak. “He merely translated Indian words into what he thought was English.”

“For instance?”asked Chhanda.

“Company clerks coined double mother for ‘maternal uncle’, said Deepak. “They split mama into ma uttered twice. That’s the kind of Indlish you’ll see in school textbooks. Students fear they’ll lose grades unless they write their teachers’ pidgin.”

“No wonder the Indian adult keeps to Company clerks’ lingo,” said Anjum. “He might read contemporary English, or hear it in movies. But the moment he’s got to write in English, back he creeps to his school-day models. And those models from inept teachers can only retard young minds, for they negate language skill---in English or the vernaculars.”

Keeping the Queen’s English ticking

Christine, the Canadian plain language campaigner, said she’d read it on the web:
‘On August 24, the 309th anniversary of the founding of the Indian city of Calcutta, the city will cast aside its colonial moniker and change its name to Kolkata.’

“So if India can cast aside that colonial moniker,” she asked Chhanda, “why not the colonial moniker of Victorian English?”

“You’re asking the wrong person,” Anjum quipped. “She spent her entire career teaching Victorian English.”

Chhanda resented that: “Not funny. The university decides the syllabus.”

“I guess,” Anjum said, “it’s because bloated Victorian English is the only kind Indians learnt when they began formally to learn English. The first universities in India opened doors when Queen Victoria was on the throne. Neo-literate Indians learnt to revere that windbag variant.”

“But you’re speaking of 1858 or so, aren’t you?” Christine said. “English’s changed so much in the 150 years since. Don’t Indians read contemporary English?”

“Not in Indian universities, they don’t,” Anjum quipped again.

Chhanda refused to take notice: “It’s the inertia in our universities. The syllabus committees merely renew the old order.”

“Or perhaps the syllabus committees are pressured by old-fogey teachers,” Anjum said. “They dump the same ‘notes’ on their students decade after decade. They’d be at sea if the syllabus were revised.”

“But isn’t it high time they changed their orientation?” asked Christine.

“Perhaps there’s a linguistic reason why all Asians cling to Victorian English,” said Deb. “Chinese universities keep to Victorian authors too, you know.”

“Yes, they do,” Christine agreed. “What’s the mystery?”

“I guess literary Victorian English is closer to Asian languages,” said Deb.

Christine welcomed this new strand of thought: “Really? In what way?”

Deb explained his theory: “Modern English differs from literary Victorian English most in shunning nominalization. Victorian English was replete with it. Nominalization’s inherent in all Indian languages. Perhaps that’s why Indians feel comfortable with Victorian English.”

Christine was delighted: “How interesting! How do Indian languages use nominalization?”

“How’d you define nominalization,” said Deb, “except as the tendency to use a noun instead of the verb? Now, our nouns don’t easily change into verbs the way they do in English. We tag ‘action words’ to get them to act. You derive sing as the verb from the noun song. Also, ever so often, you have the same word for the noun and the verb: lock, for instance.”

Christine was rapt. “And in Indian languages?”

Chhanda took over: “We wouldn’t modify song into a verb like sing. We’d retain it as a noun, and merely tag a ‘do’ to it. So, we’d say the equivalent of ‘song do’. In Hindi, the common ‘action words’ are karna/karo/kijiye. Every Indian language likewise has a set of do/doing words that we keep tagging on to nouns.”

“Gosh!” said Christine. “Doesn’t any noun in Indian languages change into a verb?”

“Only a few colloquial words do,” said Deb. “But if we were to take the formal written forms of those very words, they’d become inflexible nouns.”

“For instance?” asked Christine.

“Take the colloquial word for ‘food’,” Deb said. “In Hindi, that’d be khana. That yields the verbs khao/ khaiye. But if we were to use the formal Sanskrit word bhojan, or aahaar, we’d be stuck with an inflexible noun. We couldn’t modify it into bhojono/bhojoniye or into aahaariye. And then we’d have to tag on the do/doing word, and say the equivalent of ‘food do’.”

“Anjum added: “And just as we end up with inflexible Sanskrit nouns, the Victorians ended up with Latinate nouns that they used instead of verbs. Some Latinate nouns don’t yield a verb. I could change smell into a verb and say ‘Christine’s perfume smells good’. But what if I used the Latinate fragrance. I couldn’t say it fragrances good, could I?”

Christine was delighted: “Could you explain a bit more?”

“I think in your country,” Anjum said, “you’d call them ‘smothered’ verbs---like when you use inspection, instead of the verb inspect?”

“You’re right,” Christine beamed. “Our schoolteachers did call them ‘smothered’ verbs; told us to avoid them, and use active verbs instead.”

“Quite,” Deb said. “Modern English would shun a construction like ‘The auditor made an inspection of the accounts’. You’d prefer ‘The auditor inspected the accounts’. Right?”

“But of course,” Christine beamed. “Made an inspection sounds so off-putting, wouldn’t you say?”

“Off-putting to you,” Deb said. But the Victorians were quite comfortable with it. And that’s how we’d say it.”

“Think of all those ~ion nouns,” Anjum added: “The Victorians would’ve been comfortable with ‘I have an objection’ instead of ‘I object’. In courts, a lawyer still says ‘Objection, my lord’, rather than ‘I object’.”

“In our country, they’d say ‘lord’,” Christine said, “but in the USA---never.”

“Perhaps,” Deb added, “formal language tends to nominalization. Literary Victorian English became a formal affair, replete with Latinate nouns. And literary Victorian English preferred such nominalizations as ‘make a distinction’ instead of distinguish, or ‘make a recommendation’ instead of recommend, or ‘I have reservations about . . .’ instead of ‘I doubt’. But post-War English rejected formalism, and veered from nominalization.”

“You said Asians are comfortable with Victorian English,” said Christine. “For a similar reason?”

“I suppose so,” said Deb. “The verb behaves the same way in all Asian languages. That’s partly why the English Asians use sounds quaint to you.”

Christine seemed lost in thought. “Does that mean Asians’ll never give up Victorian English?”
“Not in a hurry,” said Anjum. “Queen Victoria may be dead. But with us, it’s ‘long live the old Queen’s English!”

Making hay with buzzwords

Rohit WAS DEPRESSED: “I signed up for a bank loan; don’t know what I signed.”

“You mean you went to a private-sector bank, and signed on the dotted line,” Anjum said half-teasingly. “But that’s the whole idea---to word it all in language that makes no sense to anyone. It’s meant to hoodwink you into believing the bank’s doing you a great favour, when it’s doing just what any money-lender does. Which clauses do you find difficult?”

”Almost everything,” said Rohit. “It’s all in tiny letters, and begins by telling me the bank can do anything ‘at its absolute discretion, notwithstanding any of the provisions of the Indian Contract Act, 1872’. But aren’t all contracts bound by the Act?”

“Of course they are,” Anjum said. “Any court would annul that stupid clause.”

“What in hell’s a bank’s ‘absolute discretion’? Does law recognize various degrees of discretion? And why the sly, tiny letters?”

“Because,” said Anjum, “people don’t drag them to courts. If they did, courts would force banks to mend their ways---pronto. The banks plonk all kinds of invalid clauses. They trick you into signing them, then tell you your signature means you’ve accepted them.”

“The entire tone of the document is insulting,” Rohit continued. “Almost every clause in tiny letters says the borrower has no rights, and that the bank has ‘absolute authority’ to do everything ‘at the borrower’s risk and cost’. But I thought the Reserve Bank of India governs all banks. Who or what arms a bank with ‘absolute authority’ over anything?”

Anjum tried to soothe Rohit: “I just told you: it’s to trick you into signing what’s invalid. These private-sector banks puff up through lending money and guzzling interest, but hire goons to beat up or intimidate borrowers. The papers reported that goons confiscated at gun-point the scooter a borrower had bought with a loan from a big bank. The report said the borrower had paid all but the last of his EMI.”

“What happened then?” asked Rohit.

“The man went to court,” said Anjum. “The court ordered the bank to return the scooter to the borrower.”

Rohit was disgusted: “What if an ordinary money-lender threatened a borrower at gun-point? Would he be let off as lightly? Police’d confiscate the revolver; he’d have to prove he’d a gun licence; then he’d have to prove in court he’d drawn his revolver in self-defence. There’d have been no end to it. But corporate money-lenders’ goons whip out revolvers at the drop of a hat, and we hear only a mild rebuke.”

“True,” Anjum said. “That’s why Indians need to gang up on these corporate money-lenders.”

Rohit went on: “Then the document defines default in paying my dues. It winds up a long list of clauses with ‘The decision of . . . the Bank as to whether or not an Event of Default has occurred shall be final and binding’. But if a bank’s only got to cry ‘default’ and presto---it becomes default, why bother to define it? Beats the triple ‘talaq’!”

“Quite,” said Anjum.

“Nor is that all,” said Rohit. “It also says the bank ‘has the absolute discretion to amend or supplement any of the Loan Terms at any time.’ But how can the bank change any term unilaterally after drawing up a bilateral agreement?”

“They’ll next say they have the power of life or death over the borrower,” said Anjum. “What d’you say, Deb?”

Deb had obviously been listening: “That’s drafted by lawyers who know neither the law, nor English. The bank’s lawyers probably rehashed a loan document some semi-literate gooks drafted for a zamindar or money-lender during the British Raj, and merely substituted the word ‘Bank’ where the original had the zamindar’s name.”

“Or maybe,” Anjum said, “those lawyers went to one of those ramshackle law colleges we have in India, or perhaps bought bogus degrees, or bribed their way into getting recruited by the bank.”

“The problem is, we stick to our feudal ways,” Deb said. “Had democratic ideas prevailed, such documents would’ve had to be transparent. And they’d have to be printed in readable type, not tiny letters. The entire western world is changing over to plain English in law.”

Rohit was enthused: “Why isn’t India, then?”

“Because,” said Deb, “to translate the complexities of law into plain language, you’ve first got to understand it thoroughly. Remember what Albert Einstein said: ‘If you can't explain something simply, you do not understand it well’.

“Also, lawyers have a vested interest: if a draft’s incomprehensible, you’ll need lawyers to interpret it. That, our lawyers think, keeps them in business. And so they keep repeating stupid buzzwords and phrases like mantras: whereas, hereinbefore, absolute authority, whatsoever, unless there is anything repugnant to the subject or context thereof, and what have you.

“Lawyers in countries where customer contracts are worded in plain English understand that the simpler the language, the less likely a document will invite litigation. They believe it’s unethical to draft a document a client can’t understand. They believe in offering client service.

“To achieve that in India, you’d need sincere lawyers with good grasp of the law, and the skill of clarity in rendering law into simple language. But how many Indian lawyers are better than semi-literate charlatans? Only a few.
“All those draconian terms in your loan document are bad in law. They’d be struck down in any court of law. But the higher-ups in the bank prod their lawyers to word it that way to trap borrowers. These private sector banks hoodwink and fleece clients; the average borrower doesn’t know his rights, and so, third-rate lawyers and bank officers make hay.”

Leading lambs to the slaughter.

ROHIT YIPPEED OVER the U P election results: “Forget your pessimism over criminal MLAs and MPs,” he told Deb. “Look: U P’s voters’ve sacked 60% of sitting MLAs. And not just Mulayam’s men; they sacked sitting MLAs from all parties. In as many as 242 places.”

“A vote against criminal MLAs,” said Chhanda with satisfaction. “The people were fed up with the goonda Raj. And then there was Nithari . . . all those little children strangled and roasted into kebabs by a cannibal. Oh my god!”

Deb wasn’t enthusiastic: “But if they voted against criminal MLAs, how come the mafia dons won? All except one hardened gangster won again.”

“But they won on a much reduced margin this time, y’know,” said Rohit.

“Only because Election Commission vigilance made rigging and booth capturing difficult this time,” said Deb. “In the past, that’s how they got their huge majority. They’ve umpteen murder, rape and kidnap charges against them. They thumb their noses at the law because their lawyers manipulate legal loopholes. Their voters’ve seen ’em kill and loot. If they went out to punish criminals, how come the worst criminals got elected again?”

Chhanda was exasperated: “D’you mean our voters are mindless people?”

Deb stressed each word: “Look at the results again. Only one veteran mafia don didn’t make it---obviously because his goons couldn’t capture booths this time. Our voters never unite to punish crime; only on mindless issues such as nasbandhi.”

“But nasbandhi did lead to a lot of crime,” Chhanda said.

“But that didn’t fetch the nasbandhi votes against Indira Gandhi,” Deb retorted. “Muslims queued up as never before because they viewed nasbandhi as an affront to their religion. So it was a religion thing, not a vote against crime. Indians’re comfortable with crime; they wallow in crime.”

Chhanda resented that: “That’s very harsh. Care to explain?”

Deb kept his calm: “Every party fields goondas and criminals. D’you think they’d dare to, if voters blackballed criminals each time? If a mafia don can assure a party he’s got muscle power to coerce voters, the parties’ll want to field him. Character or integrity is the last thing that counts with the parties---or with the voters. If there was a goonda Raj in UP, it’s because voters elected goondas. Isn’t that logical?”

“That’s very unkind,” Chhanda persisted. “Some voters are uneducated; they don’t understand the power of their vote; we can’t blame them if the parties are bands of thugs.”

Anjum didn’t like that. “I thought it’d become the fashion to say it’s an affront to voters to say they don’t use their heads. But you want to believe the parties just lead so many lambs to the slaughter; the voters haven’t a clue what they’re doing.”

“These gangsters contest as Independent candidates,” Deb went on. “They’re always confident of victory because they’ve the muscle power to capture booths, and arrange false votes. Once elected, they recover their election expenses when the horse-trading begins. And then as MLAs, they make their pile from contractors’ kickbacks, and deals they engineer.”

“But why do you say Indians wallow in crime?” Chhanda demanded.

“You talked of Nithari and cannibalism. Is cannibalism something unknown to Indians? Haven’t you heard of the Aghori Baba tantriks? Cannibalism is their rite. But most familiar to us all is Sati.”

Chhanda shot indignantly: “Suggesting Indians ate the women they burnt?”

Deb ignored her anger: “There is some evidence to suggest that during warfare, some primitive tribes tried to drive fear into their enemies: they cut open a captive in full view, and made a show of eating the liver or heart. That’s how the legend of cannibal tribes began. But there’s no evidence to suggest that any ‘cannibal tribe’ ever killed and ate their kin. Indians, especially the Bengalis, made no bones of roasting their bahus alive. Whether they also ate their roasted flesh is a mere technicality. Fact is, all cannibal rites pale before what Indians practised.”

Chhanda was incensed: “You love to say outrageous things, don’t you? And why do you single out Bengalis? Sati happened all over India.”

“No, not so much in the South,” Deb retorted calmly. “The highest number of Satis was recorded in Hooghly district of West Bengal. And that was no accident, as you might wish to believe. It was deliberate; done for filthy paise.”

“How so?” Chhanda challenged.

“Our law of inheritance,” Deb said. “The rest of north India followed the Dayabhag system of inheritance; Bengal alone followed Mitakshara. Dayabhag apportioned the grandfather’s property into equal shares among his sons and grandsons. If one co-sharer died, his parcel would revert to the grandfather and be divided equally again among all survivors. Grabbing a share wasn’t all that lucrative.

“But Mitakshara made the father the sole proprietor, who could apportion his property among his sons as he liked. If one son died, his widow inherited the property. And so, if they bumped off the widow, the surviving sons could grab and share the property, and pretend to look after their orphaned nephews and nieces.

“And so, bump off the widow they did---with a gala Sati dhamaka. And they got the orphaned children for free child labour---all in the name of being their protectors and benefactors. All so innocent-looking, you know.---Just as innocent-looking as our sheepish voters electing murderers and rapists to power everywhere.”

“But all that was a long time ago,” Chhanda protested. “Why bring it up now? India’s a forward-marching nation.”

“Only, we turn about any moment. As when Gujarat goons threw pregnant Muslim women into fires. Just as they once did with Hindu women. How many Godhras do we need to face our criminality?”

Clutching secret hopes in thuggee haven

IT TOOK A WHILE to get Deb’s meaning: “Our MPs’ll be all camaraderie now.”

Rohit guffawed: “Hah! They’re at each other’s throats half the time.”

“Ah,” said Deb, “don’t they always unite to vote perks and pay hikes for themselves? But now the gangs’ll be as thick as thieves.”

“Over what?” Rohit demanded.

Deb spoke softly: “Over an ‘MPs Immunity Bill’.”

“Huh?” Rohit guffawed again. “Who’ll table this Bill?”

“It’ll slither in,” said Deb, “as a Private Member’s Bill.”

Rohit smirked: “Something you just invented?”

“No invention needed here,” said Deb. “Tehelka exposed the BJP Defence kickback, and the ‘cash-for-query’ scams. And now we know BJP MPs are also into human trafficking, and desi-Viagrascapades. Thrice bit’s six shy. And so a Private Member’s Bill on ‘MP Parivar’s Right to Secret Activities, and Immunity from Prosecution for Thuggery’. The BJP’ll wheedle all MPs into voting on it, so we never get to know what else those thugs’re into.

“Why’d all parties support it?” Rohit sneered, “The Left?”

“Oh, the Left’ll rant its holy cant outside Parliament,” said Deb. “But once the other thugs pledge support, the Left’ll want the Bill through double quick. A bonanza for the ruling CPI-M in Bengal: the Act’d cover up all acts to cling to power for three full decades: ever-concealed rackets; everlasting rule.”

Anjum had been fidgety, and prodding only produced hypothetical questions: “Can we dub our country a democracy? Wouldn’t thuggocracy be more accurate?”

“To mean ‘rule by thugs’?” Deb smiled. “Well, India WAS thuggee haven, remember? Only, today’s thugs buy votes, not the silk bandana, and loot brazenly. They’ve turned the tables so a thug’s certificate now proves an honest citizen’s bona fides. And no citizen protests such gross insult. Why d’you think dacoits quit the Chambal ravines even though police snoozed?”

Rohit smelt an innuendo: “Suggesting the dacoits all became MPs? You’ll be hauled up for sedition, y’know.”

“Oh no,” Deb said, “give ’em their due: those baghis believe in loot maar; most wouldn’t stoop to cash for questions. But the MPs’ve shown ’em the way, the truth, and life---dakoo ban gaya gentulmun.”

“But some dakoos did become MPs,” Anjum interrupted. “Was the fashion for dacoit leaders to surrender, and then plant election candidates. Some made it as MLAs. Those that didn’t, funded scarecrows, turned proxy MLAs. A few, like Veerappan, paid ministers to ensure they’d never be snared; only, the circus over nabbing ’em would go on---just as the thuggees paid Rajahs and Maharajahs.”

“But the circus did end;” said Rohit, “Veerappan did get shot.”

“After several decades, yes,” said Deb, “but do we know who by, and how? That’s under wraps. As for sedition: a third of Lok Sabha seats been taken over by thugs---murder, rape, kidnap-for-ransom---you name it. The next Lok Sabha election’ll see criminals capture at least half the seats. Yet another election, and thugs’ll bag the entire Lok Sabha.

“The lid blowing off minor rackets was a bit of a nuisance, of course---just as the occasional discovery of disembowelled corpses used to be for the thuggees. The BJP, then at the Centre, went out to destroy Tehelka because it bust the Defence kickback, remember? Tarun Tejpal and his man were hounded and tortured. Now the Thuggery Act’ll gag exposure of all swindles to come.”

“But can we brand those MPs ‘criminals’ yet?” Rohit wondered aloud. “They haven’t been convicted, have they?”

“And will never be,” retorted Anjum. “Their lawyers’ll arrange procedural delays, pay investigating officers for ‘procedural lapses’---to either keep courts delay-bound, or have the cases screwed for ‘procedural errors’ by prosecution.

“True,” Deb added. “How d’you think a Dhanbad coal mafia don loafed free despite his score of 36 murders? His lawyers INSPIRED ‘procedural lapses’ by police officers recording the crime. They then briefed paid judges about those. Then, at each trial, presto---the don’s lawyer picked a ‘procedural error’; the judge pulled up the ‘tutored’ officer; he bleated the rehearsed apology---and that zipped up the case. Finally, a rival don’s bullet ended the lawyers’ game. Get how our thug MPs sit tight in the Lok Sabha?”

“Thug-lawyer symbiosis,” said Anjum. “India has a million lawyers. Only 100,000 of ’em are advocates; 500,000 ‘badvocates’, and the rest, ‘noughtvocates’. If it weren’t for thugs, how’d lawyers make a living?”

“My god!” said Rohit. “But haven’t citizens a way out of this thuggery?”

“Sure,” said Anjum, “but who bells the cat? Honest citizens outnumber thugs ten thousand to one. But don’t four armed goons get away with looting a trainload of passengers?”

“Or perhaps there is no way,” said Deb calmly. “We act out our destinies. Pandit Nehru dreamt of India’s tryst with destiny. He didn’t foresee that destiny’d only drive India’s millions into the talons of a horde of predator-parasites---our politicians.

“You can kill predators, such as snakes and hyenas. You can kill parasites, like lice and bed-bugs. But the predator-parasite is far more dangerous. They’re within us. They are us. Aren’t our feudal customs, such as dowry, parasitical? Isn’t the Hindu groom’s father a predator-parasite? Aren’t our Brahmins a parasite breed?

“We never band together to exterminate the predator-parasite. Truth is, today’s victim hopes to turn predator tomorrow. Indians’ll kill a million girl fetuses a year because of dowry, but will NOT chuck dowry---because every Indian hopes to turn predator-parasite once he gets a boy. We say we’ll each go to a teerth or haj in our lifetime. We never say we’ll do our duty by India: we’ll each lynch at least one politician in our lifetime. What secret hopes do we clutch?”

Dead Men Talking

DEB WATCHED Anjum twirl his cigarette between his thumb and index finger. “Mulling anything specific?”

“Actually, yes,” Anjum grinned. “Been reading about Indian English . . . wondering how to put into a nutshell exactly what’s wrong with it. Any ideas?”

“What you can put into a nutshell,” said Deb, “deserves to stay there, wouldn’t you say?”

“Hmm . . . alright, a cliché. But would you say the real problem with Indian English is, we get it all from books, and so we end up sounding bookish all the time?”

Chhanda, just-retired professor of English, felt this was up her street: “Depends on which books, surely?”

She hadn’t anticipated Anjum’s pot-shot: “The kind of books you teachers dump on your students, for instance. Those Victorian authors . . . the long-winded roundabout prose . . . the silly euphemisms . . . ever tell your students that wasn’t English?”

“Why ‘wasn’t English’?” said Chhanda indignantly. “That was Victorian English.”

“No,” Anjum shot back. “only literary Victorian English. No one, not even the Victorians, ever spoke that kind of language. You didn’t tell your students that, did you?”

“We taught literature, not spoken English,” Chhanda said firmly. “There was no scope for such discussion.”

“That’s just it,” said Anjum. “The literature you taught had all to do with the Victorians, who garbled English out of shape and size. Add to that the bunkum students get at school---teachers stuffing them with 19th century commercial English---the ‘Respected Sir, I most humbly beg to state’ and ‘yours most obediently’, and all that servile colonial-time shit. No wonder the only English they know is the sort of thing the East India Company baboos wrote”.

Chhanda saw an opening for scoring a point: “Literary Victorian English came to India through the universities that opened in 1859. Some generations of Company baboos would’ve retired by then.”

“Sure,” Anjum shot back. “and passed on to ‘Gen Next’ the early baboo mantras. Baboo slavespeak was the first layer. Then the baboos and teachers plonked into the act together, and laid on layer upon layer of this blunderbuss English that goes on in India to this day – as fuddy-duddy as that gun.”

That riled Chhanda: “When did teachers get into your hair? And what English is the blunderbuss kind?”

“The bookish, vague, and roundabout kind,” Anjum shot back. “Haven’t you noticed? No Indian is just born; he’s brought into the world. He studies at an institution, he will not go to a school. And he’ll peruse his books, not read them. Nor will he ever eat, but consume what he does.

“The average Indian goes marketing instead of shopping, and will always purchase groceries, never buy foodstuff.

“The baboo never goes somewhere specific; he proceeds to its vicinity.

“No one ever tells the baboo anything; they’re for ever advised. But the baboo will not advise you; he’ll say ‘it is advised that you proceed in this matter’.

“No one can tell a baboo his name; he’s gotta identify himself. Nor does the baboo say something; he only indicates it.

“The officer baboo goes a step further: he doesn’t listen to what you say over the phone; he monitors conversation; if he speaks to a fellow baboo officer, he never says hello; he exchanges greetings with his ilk.

“The baboo officer never says what something is; he indicates what it purports to be. And he’ll always preface his ponderous answers to simple questions with ‘to my knowledge’.

“The baboo officer never marries; he’s united in matrimony, and before he is, takes on prefixes like chi. and sou.

“And finally, after he’s done his round of blunderbussing, he refuses to die, but may agree to depart for his heavenly abode.”

Here Deb interrupted with his calm, Virgo reasoning: “You’re right about the symptoms of the disease, Anjum, not with your diagnosis. You can’t single out baboos and teachers as the contagion.

“Those expressions aren’t just wordy, they’re automatic expressions, made by people long dead. Don’t you think we Indians are given to using ready-made, automatic expressions all the time---even with our mother tongues?”

“Hmm . . . you have a point there,” Anjum said. “But that’s more to do with the urban educated Indian, wouldn’t you say?”

“No, it goes way back to our Sanskrit pathashalas,” said Deb. “Brahmin pupils were made to memorise Panini’s grammar, and quotable quotes. That left no room for spontaneous expressions; nor originality.

“Then, after English education came, Indians began to memorise English phrases for occasions. And so speech became a pick-and-dump affair: you picked formulaic expressions and strung them into sentences. No thinking; no spontaneity. Somewhat like copy-paste journalism in India’s English-language papers.

“The Indian gets no training in speech or writing at school. Few teachers have speech or writing skill. They mouth ready-made expressions, and students pick these up. And thus goes the whirligig of automatic expressions.”

“Gosh!” Anjum butted in. “We’re a nation of a billion dead men talking! Ain’t we got fun!”

The mystique of Managementspeak

IT ALL BEGAN with Sathya’s e-mail.

“In our company,” Sathya mailed Deb, “when someone seeks a superior’s help with a problem, they call it escalate”.

Sathya’d quoted a sentence:
’In the event the Senior Support Executive is unable to resolve the problem, the issue is escalated to the Support, QA, Product Managers---in that order.’
“It doesn't sound right,” Sathya’d written, “but my manager says the term’s used in our organization.”

“And what did you tell her?” Chhanda asked.

“I told her”, said Deb: “ ‘If your manager sucks his foot into his mouth and insists on keeping it there, don’t suggest he quit eating toes---he'll only victimize you’. . . Spirited little Tamil girl; training to be a technical writer; mails queries now and then.”

“You should’ve told her most Indian males talk patent NONSENSE,” Anjum said. “They rant automatic expressions. In the highly unlikely event you can get ’em to understand it’s rant, they’ll still say ‘But it is used’.

Deb agreed: “I guess his mug-and-vomit education makes the Indian a zombie. He gets no soft skill training in school---speaking or writing. Gets so used NEVER to using his head that he refuses to weigh what he blurts. He utters---or mutters it---only because ‘it’s used’.

“Why ‘Indians’?” Chhanda sounded cross. “Indians don’t have monopoly over inflated language, surely?”

“No,” said Deb. “I guess Yanks take the cake.”

“Hey, let’s not generalise,” said Anjum. “The Yanks’re always for plain language. It’s their politicians and their masters---those who oil America’s war machine---that cook up Pentagon’s doublespeak and Weapons of Mass Obfuscation.”

Deb mused aloud: “And who’s behind American MBAspeak?”

“The latest fad,” snorted Anjum. “On the Net I saw how a corporate training director described his function:
“ ‘My job,’ he said, “ ‘is to ensure proper process deployment activities take place to support process institutionalization and sustainment. Business process management is the core deliverable of my role, which requires that I identify process competency gaps and fill those gaps’.”

“Sounds hideous,” Chhanda wrinkled her little nose. “What’s it mean?”

“ ‘I'm the training director’,” said Anjum. “That’s all.”

“The MBA pestilence has spread, y’know,” Deb said. “It’s screwed sales talk, ad talk too. How about this:
‘Performance metrics consistently indicate an exceptional consumer-measured response to the proliferation of our creative deliverables.’

“Is that meant to mean something?” Chhanda pouted in disgust.

“That’s sales management lingo,” said Deb. “For: 'Sales are up since we started the new ads.' Get it?”

“No, I don’t get it at all,” Chhanda said sharply.

Deb explained with his Virgo clarity: “It’s a jackass’s con game: take a familiar word like product; and stretch it to an abstraction. A product is delivered to the consumer. So the jackass uses deliverable instead. When you don’t understand his rant, the jackass plays egghead, and tells you condescendingly that’s managementspeak. To bray louder than another, each jackass strings abstract nouns to muddle sense: nouns ending with ~ation, ~ment ~sion, ~tion. Some of their staple: utilization, realization, upgradation, implementation, procurement, engagement, incentivize, facilitate, synergistic, and so on. If the jackass is American, he’ll go for noun strings; if an Indian, he’ll go for abstract nouns and participles.

“Many of them’ll go for terms such as competency---in the belief that’s more high-sounding than competence. A favourite among them is the ‘~able’ tag. NGOs did the same with their adjectives: sustainable development, and what have you shit. Maybe we should coin a word for these consters: asscons, perhaps?

Here Kanchan tweaked the focus: “Chhanda, Anjum didn’t say just ‘Indians’; he said ‘Indian males’.”

“Hey, I know where that’ll lead,” said Deb. “Let’s not start a battle of the sexes.”

“You don’t like the truth how males spew crap, eh?” Kanchan jabbed.

“Testosterone at work,” Anjum muttered mysteriously.

That flabbergasted Chhanda: “Is that Anjumspeak? What’s with the male hormone and gobbledygook?”

Kanchan took over: “The male hormone spurs gobbledygook. Testosterone gives the cock its comb, the peacock its strut, and the vainglorious male his blather . . . y’see Chhanda, Anjum got the bull by the horns. Ever heard a woman spew crap? It’s always men. Men never grow up; they only grow senile. The braggart schoolboy becomes the buncombe, the windbag, the loudmouth . . .”

“Whoa!” Deb stopped her. “I knew this’d lead nowhere. Yes, MBAs spew stupid jargon. They’ve spewed so much of it they’ve achieved a communication black-out. Their business letters, brochures and client presentations are polysyllabic hogwash, spattered with abstract-noun strings. Their mountebank instructors stuff trainees with bullshit way too much for the space inside their skulls, and it spills over as blather. But the shit’s in their brains, not between their legs.”

“You scratch only the surface, man,” Anjum cut in. “Dig deeper, and you’ll see a whole culture of fanfaronnade. The Indian male always jettisons meaning and jumps to drivel--- prefers form to substance; mumbo-jumbo to clarity; buzzwords to specifics. Just read our English-language newspaper editorials.

“Dig deeper yet, and you’ll see how chanting meaningless mantra has screwed our culture.

“Spew a fad mantra, and watch it froth. Take driven. The management-wallahs tell us of market forces being impact-driven; tie-ups relationship-driven; business initiatives mission-driven.

“Their pep talk asks salesmen to become target-driven; communicators content-driven; accountants data-driven, women secretaries engagement-driven, and all executives vision-driven. And for variety, values-driven.

“They’ll advise managers to promote data-driven interaction; introduce data-driven metrics, ensure data-driven deliverables.

“And all that mumbo-jumbo, they’ll tell you, will bring about a new data-driven drive in India’s corporate world.”

“Only,” Deb chimed in, “they’ll first need data-driven data.”

“The truth,” said Anjum, getting at Chhanda, “is that Indians are to gobbledygook born, and Indian males are gobbledygook-driven.”