(21) Zaroor Factor(Z)

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Dear Professor Pun-kaj,

Permit me to begin with what editors are notoriously reluctant to admit.

I enjoyed your letter.

There. I have written the sentence. Kindly do not preserve it as evidence against me.

Indeed, I laughed aloud often enough to alarm the neighbours and to compel my dictionary to open itself in self-defence.

Your proposal that the internationally accepted unit of lexical grandeur be christened one Tharoor (Th) is, I confess, inspired. The Fussy Constant flatters me, the Pun Constant perplexes me, the Panktoon Constant intrigues me, and your Lexicomedic Creativity Multiplier positively deserves publication.

In short, Professor, your imaginary science is becoming alarmingly systematic.

Naturally, I was therefore obliged to search for a flaw.

After all, one must justify one's editorial stipend.

I eventually found one.

Your Fundamental Principle of Lexicomedic Dynamics

Lexical Grandeur = (Th + ℱ + ℘) × φL

is unquestionably elegant.

Alas, elegance is not immunity.

You solemnly define the Zaroor Factor (Z) as the immutable probability that every manuscript entrusted to me shall be returned for revision, confidently assigning it the value Z = 1.

Having elevated it to the rank of a universal constant, you then proceed to exile it from the very equation it was destined to enrich.

Surely this is an injustice.

What becomes of poor Z?

Is it an invisible constant?

A silent partner?

Or has it suffered the melancholy fate of so many footnotes—meticulously defined, respectfully acknowledged, and subsequently forgotten?

Might I therefore suggest the amended formulation,

Lexical Grandeur = (Th + ℱ + ℘) × φL × Z

which, given that Z = 1, changes absolutely nothing while simultaneously allowing every editor the profound satisfaction of having improved the manuscript.

I trust you appreciate the exquisite economy of the revision.

The equation remains numerically identical.

Only the Editor becomes happier.

As you know, I consider that an excellent bargain.

Now, enough of equations.

If we continue proving theorems at this rate, future historians may mistakenly conclude that our correspondence consisted entirely of mathematical combat.

I should much rather discover what curious circumstance first persuaded a perfectly respectable mathematics teacher that words, too, deserved to be counted, measured, weighed and occasionally teased.

Somewhere, I suspect, there lies a story considerably more interesting than any formula.

And stories, unlike constants, rarely require peer review.


Yours—less combatively than before, though only marginally so,


Fussy Zaroor 

BTech ( IIT-M), PGDM (IIM-A)

Secretary — Ministry of Grandiloquance.

Gen Z reprentative, not on TV

A great Fan and a Mentee of Shashi Tharoor Saar.

Aspiring to be an Editor and world Class Author.

Chairperson- The Royal Society for the Prevention of Linguistic Malnutrition (RSPLM).

Reluctant Custodian of the Zaroor Factor

+++++++++++++++++++++++

Legsy Notes

ROACHES HALL OF FAME

Citation No. 002 — The Deity of Jantar Mantar

In Hindu mythology, Rahu is the immortal demon-head who, having tasted the nectar of immortality, survived decapitation and acquired a cosmic pastime: periodically swallowing the Sun and Moon. Clearly, even celestial bodies are not immune to harassment.

The Indian Cockroach could hardly ask for a more suitable mythological role model.

Rahu survives decapitation; the cockroach survives almost everything.

Rahu disappears and returns; the cockroach vanishes behind the refrigerator and reappears at dinner.

Rahu disrupts the heavens; the cockroach disrupts domestic civilisation.

Both regard defeat as a temporary administrative inconvenience.

Enter Shri Saurabh Das, whose name, through the mysterious science of anagrammatics, undergoes a divine transformation:

SAURABH DAS → BADASS RAHU 

Deity of Jantar Mantar


In a media interview that brought his views to a wider audience, Saurabh Das made a spirited case for the Cockroaches’ doctrine of “Protest with Profanity.” After all, what is democracy without free speech, a generous sprinkling of expletives, and the freedom to address our leaders by their delightfully dubious anagrammatic aliases?

We Cockroaches uphold free speech, fearless wordplay and the sacred right to call a spade a spade—even when the spade itself is an anagram! We are so democratic that we don't spare even our Heroes.

This is no ordinary anagram. It is destiny correcting a clerical error.

The mythological Rahu swallows the Sun and Moon. Badass Rahu has chosen Jantar Mantar.

The original Rahu causes eclipses; Badass Rahu causes gatherings. One darkens the heavens; the other illuminates the revolutionary imagination of the Cockroach Community.

While ordinary mortals visit Jantar Mantar to raise placards, shout slogans and return home with sore throats, Badass Rahu has turned it into a pilgrimage centre for the Inter-Generational Cockroach Movement.

His mission is breathtakingly simple:

“Make every future generation a Badass Rahu.”

Why settle for personal badassery when you can make it hereditary? His doctrine is a three-point programme:

Survive like Rahu.

Disrupt like Rahu.

Become a Badass Rahu.

For distinguished services to Roach Mobilisation, Cosmic-Cockroach Continuity and the propagation of Inter-Generational Badassery, the Roaches Hall of Fame hereby confers upon Shri Saurabh Das, a.k.a. Badass Rahu, the exalted title:

“DEITY OF JANTAR MANTAR”

May his placards never droop, his slogans never falter, and his adversaries underestimate him only once.

May every cockroach inherit the sacred Badass Rahu Gene.

The original Rahu swallowed the Sun.

The cockroach swallowed history.

And Badass Rahu intends to swallow the future.

His struggle is eternal.

His survival is non-negotiable.

His mission is inter-generational.

And his anagram is unavoidable.

— Roaches Hall of Fame, Citation No. 002
Issued by the Ministry of Roach Affairs, Department of Inter-Generational Badassery.

Legsy Suroor

+++++++++++++++++++

Foot notes and foot prints of Pak Jan

COMEDY! Legsy has invoked the sacred word democracy while eulogising Badass Rahu, the scholar who reportedly could not clear CLAT even once but now is regarded as the legal luminary of Cockroaches.

Badass Rahu—What a glorious linguistic faux pas—or should we call it a Roach-ian revelation?

Indeed, Comedy is a letterwise subset of Democracy. And the anagram of Democracy? COMEDY CAR! The alphabet, it seems, has finally decided to campaign.


Come the next elections, watch the 'Comedy Car' of 'Democracy', chauffeured by our leader Cockroaches, trundle through every street of the country. What a beautiful site it shall be—democracy on wheels, with a full tank of grandiloquence and cockroaches at the steering wheel! Remember this old lady's anagrammatic prophecy!

And who needs mere elected representatives when we have our beloved Perpetual Scholars of the Roach Republic to rescue democracy from the perils of, well, democracy itself.

Long live the Comedy Car! Democracy is saved. The passengers have been warned.


+++++++++++++++++++++++!

Fussy Art Gallery

++++++++++++++++++++++

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Click here for The Lexicomedy Line-Up: (The list of all Episodes published till date for your binge reading.)

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