“I have been misunderstood!”
The above is the (ill)considered response from politicians, of every hue, and also from some so-called public intellectuals, say, Ashis Nandy, after they have put their foot in their mouths. It is typically followed by a non-apologetic apology – “I am sorry if I have offended” – that truly does not even read well, much less carry conviction. To foreclose the possibility of the foot-in-the-mouth disease becoming a pandemic, I have come up with a solution.
If you see, even if only at a distance and through a thick mist, that there is a possibility of you being afflicted, you must immediately claim that you are a poet. Then, automatically, anything you pronounce gets tagged a poem. And, that is the master key to the kingdom of non-offence.
As a poet, it is not that you have or do not have the right to offend; it is more that you cannot offend, you are incapable of offending. I have been told, repeatedly and by many people, poems exist only to be interpreted, not only by poets, I may add. It is only your interpretation of a poem that can offend you and you cannot hold the poet responsible for that.
A poem carries only subjective and ephemeral meanings, for any individual to seek the inner meaning of her or his life, or of society from one’s own perspective, or muse on the human condition, again from one’s own perch. I am sure I have misunderstood what I have been told but that is OK, because these advice must have come in the form of poems and I am poesy-illiterate. Yet, as it is a poem, I can interpret and this is how I have done. I am blame-free.
But, more important is the fact that our former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had published some poems (must be a selection from many) and that makes him a poet. It is for this reason and this reason alone, he went through 4 years + of his term as prime minister without ever having to tender apology, no matter what happened under his watch. He was a poet, hence a pet. That is that. Poems were his Teflon coating.
The apologists for Nandy referred to his corpus of work to show how sensitive he is to the plight of the deprived in India and as such he could not have offended the disadvantaged communities. This did not cut much ice with his detractors. If only the supporters had claimed that Nandy was a poet …
This piece is being posted with an explicit apology to those who may have been offended. However, the mea culpa does not carry the implicit disclaimer, “I have been understood”.
Raghuram Ekambaram
The above is the (ill)considered response from politicians, of every hue, and also from some so-called public intellectuals, say, Ashis Nandy, after they have put their foot in their mouths. It is typically followed by a non-apologetic apology – “I am sorry if I have offended” – that truly does not even read well, much less carry conviction. To foreclose the possibility of the foot-in-the-mouth disease becoming a pandemic, I have come up with a solution.
If you see, even if only at a distance and through a thick mist, that there is a possibility of you being afflicted, you must immediately claim that you are a poet. Then, automatically, anything you pronounce gets tagged a poem. And, that is the master key to the kingdom of non-offence.
As a poet, it is not that you have or do not have the right to offend; it is more that you cannot offend, you are incapable of offending. I have been told, repeatedly and by many people, poems exist only to be interpreted, not only by poets, I may add. It is only your interpretation of a poem that can offend you and you cannot hold the poet responsible for that.
A poem carries only subjective and ephemeral meanings, for any individual to seek the inner meaning of her or his life, or of society from one’s own perspective, or muse on the human condition, again from one’s own perch. I am sure I have misunderstood what I have been told but that is OK, because these advice must have come in the form of poems and I am poesy-illiterate. Yet, as it is a poem, I can interpret and this is how I have done. I am blame-free.
But, more important is the fact that our former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had published some poems (must be a selection from many) and that makes him a poet. It is for this reason and this reason alone, he went through 4 years + of his term as prime minister without ever having to tender apology, no matter what happened under his watch. He was a poet, hence a pet. That is that. Poems were his Teflon coating.
The apologists for Nandy referred to his corpus of work to show how sensitive he is to the plight of the deprived in India and as such he could not have offended the disadvantaged communities. This did not cut much ice with his detractors. If only the supporters had claimed that Nandy was a poet …
This piece is being posted with an explicit apology to those who may have been offended. However, the mea culpa does not carry the implicit disclaimer, “I have been understood”.
Raghuram Ekambaram
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