In a disorderly world of current events populated by a citizen journalist with a smart phone and the Web as tools of the trade, it’s unlikely journalism will ever be the same for me. Mind you, I am not judging this newfangled journalism but it does provoke nostalgia as a throwback on the days when editors would admonish, castigate and scold a reporter if facts were not verifiable. Or, if reporter didn’t use ‘as it were’ when not definite or sure about a fact, when in doubt about it. Tempted as I am to name some names that are usually up on the marquee I will give these colleagues the benefit of the doubt because the bar for literacy now is lowered to the Netspeak. LOL substitutes well for appreciation or applause. Look at BRB. If in the middle of a poker/bridge game you have to excuse yourself for a trip to boys room all you need to say to everyone to let them know you will be right back is BRB or Be Right Back. Modern colloquy is handy, isn’t it? So why whine about emojis, netspeak and editors caught between damned if I do, damned if I don’t?
Given these musings my Pulwama outrage over Srinagar carnage would have to wait and see if an opinion is forthcoming from yours truly. In my heyday Pulwama would be spread over newspaper columns for weeks, as screed, opinion, analysis or observation. But now, there isn’t one thing I could say that hasn’t been said by someone, in videographic detail, warts and all. News and current events are in overdrive and likely to explode from information overload. Facebook is the likeliest of all Web entities to lead the way in some new direction given it has the pulse of its 2.5 billion subscribers with their personal identification numbers under its thumb. Mercifully, Indian print media is flourishing despite contrary trends elsewhere in the world. Until next major surprise comes along let’s enjoy Greater Kashmir and its unassuming presence as emblematic of what used to be normal.
So with apologies to GK readers let me indulge myself with some words I have used, misused, and abused at different times in my career as a journalist.
Ah, those words, words, words
One of them was cock a snook. I realized its impact when a senior colleague asked me for its meaning. He also asked if I would incorporate the idiom into a book of his I was helping copyedit. Usually, cock a snook means to thumb one’s nose at somebody. A pejorative, it usually conveys disrespect. Of course it could take various meanings depending on its usage and context. Remember, the ultimate arbiter of usage is the user. I used it enough to deliver it in my columns with an easy facility that was efficient both figuratively and literally. Given a particular context same word could have nuanced meanings and the phrase will adapt to nuance. I realized the impact of the word when, months later, my colleague, a senior editor, no less, at the time of his book launch.
And then, there of course is ‘warts and all’ that you already heard, and, which, to my mind means including defects!
But two words indelibly etched in my head are gaunt and gangly… both used in my introduction to Maqbool Fida Hussain (M F Hussain) in a two-page feature on this preeminent artist of India in the Statesman, mother of all English language newspapers in India.. at that time. My introduction to Hussain went something like this: Gaunt and gangly, he slouched over his bicycle with a long step ladder strapped to its side…pedalling away to draw likeness of some celluloid goddess on a building wall or a billboard, referencing his early career in Mumbai as a painter. Gaunt and gangly stayed with me forever since I first saw Picasso’s Old Man With His Guitar (circa 1904) in Chicago Museum of Art years later. A decrepit old man looking at his guitar was truly gangly and gaunt with pain of centuries in his bones ready to creak. Picasso lived in Paris around 1904 and the only dye an artist in his condition could afford was cheap blue dye. Hence, Picasso’s blue period, a derivation.
One of the side effects of that Hussain feature was: an astronomical boost in my personal networth when Hussain earned Indian art its first million dollar price tag for a painting at an auction by the fabled Southby’s / Christie’s. During a year long conversation with this maverick about art, sculpture and murals I had to take six months of art classes myself. A few months into this interview he did reward my recently acquired critical appreciation of art with horse sketches, illustrations and paintings. His earliest addiction was horses. Ou could call it a horse fetish. I wish I knew their value as wall hangings on display in my living room where they hang alongside artworks of Pakistan’s preeminent artist, late Bashir Mirza. If peace ever breaks out between India and Pakistan Bashir’s paintings would be bigger than Iqbal’s Lahore Resolution / Declaration both in value and price. But that’s neither here nor there. Let me get back to the business of my favourite words.
Deja vu is something I couldn’t handle. During my days in the US as part of a fellowship program on leadership in Journalism déjà vu was part of everyday colloquy, but I could never wrap my head around it. I had to think before using it. It just didn’t roll off the tongue nice and easy. Even some native English speakers, albeit Americans, were not prolific in its use. Others in fellowship team were from Indonesia, Korea, Japan, Cambodia, Vietnam and the US hosts. Remember, déjà vu is the French equivalent of a ‘here we meet again’ in the US and it’s not a part of everyday speech. Some of them would use it self consciously; Others, un-self-consciously. I couldn’t, either, but then I did until it became a foreign word to my personal lexicon again. And it has been that way for a long time.. Oh, I had another self-induced mental block against the use of the ‘however.’ I couldn’t hate that word more, if I tried. But that’s another story.
Leitmotif: A tongue twister, that. If it weren’t for leitmotif’s association with western classical music I wouldn’t dare draw attention to its use in Rock n Roll as Riff and Hook. Simply put, riff and hook are combinations of popular notes repeated frequently in a melody. If I ask myself how did I get addicted to leitmotif or riff and hook I have to thank Woodstock, the biggest Rock n Roll music fest. One time, I was glued for three days in the 60s to TV watching this music marathon. It had an audience of a half million upstate New Yorkers. Immortals like Bob Dylan, Joe Cocker, Santana, Ravi Shankar, Jimi Hendrix and host of other mega stars played at Woodstock. Ah, those riffs on Santana’s guitar were just magical. That was my introduction to Rock and Roll when I first overheard Jimi Hendrix’s riffs flying off his guitar strings and my TV. Hope you now understand leitmotif. I don’t think I do but, hey, who cares.
It was fun and liberating to write this. Hope you had half as much fun at least reading it. If not, I will go back to Pulwama, CRPF, Ladakh, Jammu, Srinagar, in my next outing. But reminiscing this way is a paradigm shift…like the ‘valley girls’ would say… ‘like, from classical computer to quantum computer.’
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