Breaking news. A well-known personality of our times has committed suicide. The deceased was found hanging by the roof of his room. Police have recovered a couple of scribbled notes, believed to be written by the deceased just before his death. The news has come as a complete surprise, for Mr Culture was found in high spirits the previous evening when he attended a culture programme in the Convention Hall. Some, however, allege that after the cultural program, he was found brooding which soon developed into a severe attack of melancholia.
We here reproduce relevant extracts from the written notes he left behind as his will. We pray that his disturbed soul may find peace in heaven, or hell, as the case may be.
Extract 1:
The end is near. Time is short. I have no escape. I know I have been a refugee all my life. From being hunted by Popes in Italy to getting bamboozled by the Nazis, I made out for the East. From Occident to Orient, I eloped for an errand of mercy till I landed here.
In wounded paradise, I was leading a gentleman’s life when my friends took it to their heads to kill me by an overdose of their precious attention. Woe the day when Cultural Committee was created and woe the day when Cultural Cold and Cough infected everyone over here.
My friends didn’t bother to define me. They rather dissected me on a post-mortem table and then broached my anatomy. Thus the entire ‘glitterati’ was turned into culture-mongers and culture-vultures.
To be a culturist, one need not be cultured at all, for that might fatally dampen his enthusiasm for cultural activity as perpetrated in this part of the world. One should just think of culture, wallow in culture, sleep in culture, arise in culture, and then just talk of culture. Rest culture will itself grow like apples on trees.
Extract 2:
I can’t stand it any longer. Every other day, a group of half-baked singers entertain me to out-of-tune Chakri and Roaf, sung along with dancing girls in high boots. About half an hour more and I’ll be dead. But I don’t dread death. I am afraid of elegies that might be sung on my corpse. Then the party might disperse and help themselves to an ‘at home’ for their brilliant singing of elegies set in the tunes of the world-famous bath-room melody.
Extract 3:
The cultural-mongering, I am told, has its advantages. You are sure to emerge as a chota- mota expert in some field or other without losing your absolute innocence (read ignorance) about it. At every show of your spurious performance, you’ll be gazed and gaped by a bewildered audience who know equally precious little about everything you do. And finally, you stand a chance to get the dubious benefit of joining the ranks of Cultural Kohnamashk who usually sleep and snore at noisy Adabi Mehfils.
O Heavens, my friends have mummified me as if I am only a set of musical instruments, a pair of microphones, a flash of stage footlights, a stanza of throttled ghazals, or those outlandish gymnastics performed by ornate females and transvestite males, and which goes by the name of folk dance here. I’m smothered!
Extract 4:
I am told that cultural-mongering has helped put before bigwigs your ‘progress report’ for earning a big pat (not a kick) on your back. Because cultural- mongering gives you a reputation of being ‘loyal’ which might also result in getting a fair quantity of loaves and fishes whatever they might mean. It pays extra dividends in the shape of a ready harvest of ads, posters, banners, slogans, exhibitions, naataks and mushairaas. And what is more, it provides a pretext to gain contact with the ‘high-up’ in the power corridors. Virtually, you have Panchou Ghee Main! This perhaps is the bliss that comes out of hearing no false, seeing no false and speaking all false. Rather propagating all false with the help of cultural bullyragging.
Extract 5:
Before I go, I apologize to my silent opponents. I admire their piercing sight and ready sensitiveness. They have the eyes of a hawk to read meanings even in the meaningless. They are annoyed by the Cultural Hoax that is badly produced and poorly acted. However, they simply chill out as I am not Socrates. Otherwise, they might have tried me in an open court. And honestly speaking, I would have drunk the cup of their poison to the last drain. I salute their conspiracy of silence!
Extract 6:
So, I’m sorry. I was anathema to you all. Forgive me; forgive yourselves, for I have been a martyr to opportunism, political maneuvering and amateur dabbling. I am told I was born to lead men. Here I have been led by the nose by uncultured culturists, untutored experts and unchallenged gurus. Still, you were nice enough not to sympathize with me but to take offence for I breathed the air of ‘peace’. Now I go forever. Please shun your dread about Culture and cultivate the taste of agriculture, horticulture, sericulture or any other culture you might be interested in.
God save our souls, particularly yours.
Adieu, Adieu forever!