Best Of Letters 2001

(Rhythm, Interrupted, February 12,2001)
I’ve seen the review (Rhythm, Interrupted, February 12) by Sohail Hashmi of mytranslation of the selected poems of Kaifi Azmi. I’m not unfamiliar with the sense ofresentment in certain quarters that a non-Urdu-speaking person, who did not belong to theshrinking and incestuous circle of those who claim to be the custodians of Urdu and ofGhalib’s poetry and legacy, has ventured to write the great poet’s biography.Iwon’t react to (all of) Mr Hashmi’s intemperate comments, but want to put onrecord my response to one specific comment he’s made. He refers to Kaifi Saheb’sfamous song from Haqeeqat, which has the line "Baandh lo sar se kafansaathiyon". Naturally, I’ve translated the word ‘kafan’ as‘shroud’. I don’t need Mr Hashmi to tell me that. My original manuscriptand the typeset version Penguin India has translates it so. However, in the final print,‘kafan’ appears as ‘coffin’. This, my publishers inform me, is due toprinter’s devil. Penguin accepts full responsibility for this inadvertent error andwill make the correction in the reprint.


Pavan Varma’s reaction to my review of his translation (Letters, February 19) can atbest be called ‘political’.Instead of replying to the criticism, he presents meas part of some conspiring coterie, created with the sole aim of belittling his efforts.He’s welcome to his own illusions of grandeur. But should he not for a momentconsider the possibility that even he could’ve made a mistake, actually several? Hisexplanation that ‘shroud’ got transformed into ‘coffin’ due to theprinter’s devil is difficult to digest. Shroud could be typeset as proud, even loud,but coffin? The coffin has either been provided by the translator or by an overzealoussub-editor! My worry is, why was it allowed to pass? Those who read Kaifi saheb in this‘translation’ will get strange ideas about his poetry and about Urdu. Mr Varma,either remove the mistakes or write your own reviews.


I’m curious to meet the printer’s devil in Penguin India who with some morphingwizardry made a coffin out of a simple shroud. Look what he did to that simpleword—shroud, shared, shaved, chaff, chiffon, caffeine, coughing, coffin!

The latest Internet joke on the assembly polls: Mamata, Sonia and Jaya are on a plane, talking among themselves when Mamata says: "I have this 100-rupee note. If I drop this, and one Indian picks it up, I’ll make one Indian happy." So Sonia pulls out two 50-rupee notes and says: "If I drop these, I’ll make two Indians happy." Not to be left behind, JJ pulls out 100 one rupee notes and says: "If I drop these, I’ll make 100 Indians happy." At this point, the pilot can’t resist himself and pipes up: "If I threw all three of you out, I’ll make a billion Indians happy."

Apropos JJ & Her Technicolor Cape, (May 28.2001)
Apropos JJ & Her Technicolor Cape, May 28. If the Old Testament is to be believed, God made three-fourths of the earth in five days and rested. He made India on the sixth day and rested. On the seventh day he made Jayalalitha, and ever since neither God nor India have rested!

In Polscape (July 20), we’ve inadvertently said that minister of state for personnel, pensions and small-scale industries Vasundhararaje Scindia was the first customer of the Sonata, a luxury car manufactured by Hyundai Motors. We’ve since been informed that it was the honourable minister’s sister, H.H. Maharajkumari Yashodhararaje Scindia, who made the purchase. The similarity in names led to our confusion. We regret any inconvenience we may inadvertently have caused the hon’ble minister and her sister.

Naming Game (July30,2001)
H.Y. Sharada Prasad’s review (Naming Game, July 30) of Dictionary of Indian Namesamused me. I’ve been called ‘Toad’ since I played the protagonist in A.A.Milne’s Toad of Toad Hall, a play put on by Welham Preparatory School in Dehradun 60years ago. Friends and cousins called me Toady. I’m not exactly Todi Khan, but closedon’t you think Mr Prasad?

Jhinjhoti Saxena is ghastly. For a twist, try Piloo Mishra.

(Madhu Jain’s Delhi Diary, December 18,2000)
For those well aware of Delhi’s Nizamuddin dargah and its qawwalis, the ThursdayNight (Madhu Jain’s Delhi Diary, December 18) here isn’t really anythingspecial, with its mercenary sajjada nashins (keepers), beggars and ritualisticperformances. Or maybe it doesn’t matter if you’re coming from the Oberoi’sbar and heading for the famous Karim’s for dinner.

Like it Or Not

There are references galore to Calcutta in your magazine, even on Contents and Letters.Try as you might, but sooner or later, you’ll have to graduate to Kolkata.

Incidentally, the word ‘poli’ in Latin means ‘many’ and‘tics’ are ‘blood-sucking creatures’.

No Full Stops

(Kumbh Diary, February 5,2001)
Congratulations to Sandipan Deb for penning a 303-word-long sentence to describe the KumbhMela (Kumbh Diary, February 5), that gigantic congregation of humans. The mega sentencecan also be a good example of a complex/compound sentence in the English grammar.

((Glitterati, May 14,2001)
Nicole Kidman dancing to Chamma, Chamma (Glitterati, May 14)? Hrrumph! Who are youkidding? How can anyone measure up to our Urmila?

Caught Ya!

(Paleface, Forked Tongue (October 22) ,2001)
V. Sudarshan in Paleface, Forked Tongue (October 22) confirms that the Chitsinghpuramassacre was perpetrated by the Lashkar-e-Toiba, contrary to what Vinod Mehta, Outlook andPankaj Mishra so painstakingly tried to establish by putting blame on Indian securityforces. So, shall we order your favourite dish—fried crows?
 

Piece Pipes

Pakistan wants peace, a piece of Kashmir, a piece of Punjab, Rajasthan, Himachal... (withapologies to a graffito on Israel in a London toilet)!

What Next?

Wow! First the 10 best business schools in India and now India’s best restaurants.What’s next? 10 best courier companies? 10 best third umpires? 10 best parkingattendants? 10 best ration shops?

I commend Maneka Gandhi’s banning of conventional whips in horse-racing. Can werequest her to further extend the ban to the poor racehorse carrying the jockey!

(Paper Tigers, January 15,2001)
The splendid review of the book on the history of The Hindustan Times by N.J. Nanporia(Paper Tigers, January 15) made me recall the early days of the paper when my fatherPothan Joseph was editing it. However, there is an error in the book. In more than oneplace in the narrative, it mentions that among the innumerable papers my father edited wasThe Dawn in Karachi. This is incorrect. After leaving HT, my father went to Europe for abreak. On his return, he took up the editorship of The Indian Express. He left in 1941,and after editing Calcutta’s Star of India for a while, he joined the Dawn, afortnightly in Delhi, which under the urging of Jinnah, he converted into a daily. But henever worked in the Karachi edition, which was revived after Partition under theeditorship of Altaf Hussain. The original office in Delhi’s Daryaganj was burnt downin 1947 during the Partition riots.

Borderline Case

(MUMA’s the Word, (December 4,2000)
As a Tibetan refugee, I was intrigued to find a whole article on India’s currentborder problems with China without even a mention of Tibet (MUMA’s the Word, December4). In fact, India’s border problems with China began with China’s invasion andoccupation of Tibet. Never before did India share a common border with China.

Peace be with US

I have the perfect solution. Bush should marry off his daughter to Osama’s son andthe rest of us can live happily ever after. And as a tribute to their illustrious parents,the couple could call their son George bin Laden.

Ferry Tale End

(Downtown, September 10,2001)
Punjabis have earned notoriety for their ability to murder Urdu but had hitherto sparedUrdu’s birthplace, Delhi. Satish Gujral has gone a step further by committing mayhemon the city’s most celebrated mohulla, Lajpat Nagar (Downtown, September 10). Thename of the street is not Billy Maran (cat-killers) but Bally Maran—pliers of boats,because it was here that boatmen who ferried boats across the Yamuna lived. Amongst itsother residents were Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib, the most eminent name in Urduliterature, and later Delhi’s famous hakeems, Nabeena and Ajmal Khan and theirdescendants.

Erratibility Factor

Afterlife’s Rock-n-Roll, (January 15,2001)
Either replace your correspondent’s calculator or send him to a crash course in math(Afterlife’s Rock-n-Roll, January 15). Tagore wrote over 2,000 poems, not "over1,000"; 60 plays, not "some two dozen"; 12 novels, not eight. And it’snot because they have no scores that some 2,300 of Tagore’s songs remain unsung.It’s because singers rarely deviate from the conventional repertoire of 500-oddRabindrasangeet pieces. Finally, French composer Arnold Blake did not write music for 26Tagore songs, he merely transcribed them into western notation.

Rhetoric Renunciation

Defence Of Dissent
Arundhati files her latest affidavit "as a citizen of India". But if I remembercorrectly, she was ready to renounce her citizenship in The End of Imagination. Did sheforget what she had said in the essay that had launched her as a polemicist? Or was thatrenunciation just a rhetorical flourish?

The Sholay Gang

The Scene Stealers (April 9,2001)
Apropos The Scene Stealers (April 9), I’m surprised that the i&b ministry shouldhave chosen Macmohan to judge the National Film Awards. His sole claim to fame is his roleas Gabbar’s underling Sambha in Sholay. In that case, Sushma Swaraj would be doinggreat injustice to Kalia—the other underling—if she doesn’t appoint him onthe jury in the coming year.

The Puff Daddies

It was interesting to thumb through the latest issue of Outlook (February 19) and find afour-page centrespread of a Wills cigarette ad. I wonder if the recent ban on tobacco adsby the government had anything to do with its fortuitous printing or you just sold out tothe highest bidder? Or have we misunderstood you and you’re sending the proceeds fromthe ad to quake victims.

A Sardarji in Phoren, (October 1,2001)
On this Tuesday late evening I’d just finished browsing through my first Outlook (ASardarji in Phoren, October 1) and though I enjoyed Khushwant Singh’s phorenperegrinations, I thought

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