(22) Baay of Bangaal

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Dear Ms. Fussy Zaroor,

Thank you, dear Editor, for rescuing my Fundamental Principle of Lexicomedic Dynamics from its unfortunate omission. I had, rather absent-mindedly, defined the Zaroor Factor (Z) with great solemnity, only to leave it waiting outside the very equation it was destined to inhabit.

I have now restored Z to its rightful place. The equation is mathematically unchanged, but editorially immeasurably happier. I consider that an elegant bargain.

Your question, however, deserves a far more serious answer than my equations usually permit.

You asked what first persuaded a perfectly respectable mathematics teacher that words, too, deserved to be counted, measured, weighed and occasionally teased.

The answer takes us back to Class IX in 1976 in Indore.

As you may have guessed, I was reasonably comfortable with Mathematics and Hindi. English, however, occupied a considerably higher altitude than my linguistic mountaineering equipment could then reach.

I studied in a Hindi-medium school. I could read the English alphabet, pronounce many simple words with remarkable confidence, and understand almost none of them.

Expressions such as Bay of Bengal belonged to that mysterious category of English which everyone else seemed to comprehend effortlessly.

A cousin of mine, of exactly my age and educated in a fashionable English-medium school, would occasionally hand me his Geography textbook and invite me to read aloud.

To me, it was not a test.

It was a stage.

With the self-assurance that only complete innocence can produce, I would declaim:

"Baay of Bangaal."

The assembled cousins would burst into laughter. I, blissfully unaware of the joke, accepted their applause with the quiet dignity of a Shakespearean actor after a standing ovation.

Several months elapsed before I eventually discovered that the applause had been directed less at my English and rather more at my extraordinary pronunciation.

Oddly enough, I have never regarded that episode as an embarrassment. I regard it as an investment.

It was probably on that very day of discovery that I made an entirely private resolution. If English refused to behave like a language I understood, I would persuade it to behave like mathematics instead.

Ever since, I have quietly suspected that the two subjects are not distant cousins but identical twins who were separated at birth.

Mathematics constructs ideas from numbers.

Language constructs ideas from letters.

One arranges digits into numbers; the other arranges alphabets into paragraphs.

Both seek symmetry.

Both admire elegance.

Both punish carelessness.

Both reward imagination.

And both possess an astonishing capacity to make perfectly intelligent people look magnificently foolish from time to time.

Indeed, anyone who doubts their close kinship need only read your own splendid epistles. They proceed with the inevitability of a mathematical proof while flourishing with the exuberance of a literary performance.

There is, I believe, another delightful coincidence.

Our familiar decimal system rests upon ten symbols.

The English language rests upon twenty-six letters.

Both are merely base systems from which infinitely many beautiful structures may be built.

One gives us equations.

The other gives us epistles.

And, on particularly fortunate days, they conspire to produce something I have lately begun to call... Leximathocomedy.

It has just occurred to me that this is precisely the literary genre we have been unwittingly practising throughout our recent epistles.

Yours, with renewed respect for both arithmetic and the alphabet,

Pankaj Khanna

Urban gardener, rustic cook. Music enthusiast. Curious blogger since 2009. Cyclist for over five decades. Word lover: Epeolater. Anagram addict. Punster with pen in hand, pun in mind, and a pan in the heart/hearth. Steam-engine devotee: a ferroequinophile. Avid avian watcher. Magic-square aficionado. Retired mathematics teacher and an apprentice Lexicomedian.

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Legsy Notes 

🪳 ROACHES HALL OF FAME

Citation No. 003 — The Supremo of Nakhra, Shor & Natak

The Roaches Hall of Fame is privileged to honour another towering figure of the Indian Cockroach Movement:

Shri Ashutosh Ranka

A leader whose contribution to Cockroach Civilization cannot be adequately captured by his given name alone. Fortunately, Anagrammatic Science has come to the rescue.

Through that venerable linguistic technology, ASHUTOSH RANKA reveals its first, and perhaps most revealing, incarnation:

ASHUTOS NAKHRA

The Supremo of Cockroach Nakhra

Here, Nakhra is not to be dismissed as mere affectation. In the higher philosophy of Cockroachism, Nakhra is an assertion of dignity — the solemn declaration that even a cockroach has the right to demand attention, recognition and, where necessary, a disproportionately large placard.

But the linguistic revelations do not end there.

A second anagram unveils an even more comprehensive description of his leadership methodology:

ASHUS SHOR, NATAK

Three words.

One philosophy.

SHOR. NATAK. NAKHRA.

If the first anagram establishes his personality, the second establishes his political technology.

For what is leadership without Shor?

What is public mobilisation without Natak?

And what is either of them without a generous helping of Nakhra?

Shri Ashutosh Ranka understands this trinity instinctively.

Where ordinary leaders deliver speeches, Ashutos Nakhra produces Shor.

Where others organise meetings, Ashus Shor, Natak produces an event.

Where others seek attention, he ensures that attention has absolutely no choice in the matter.

His leadership doctrine may therefore be stated with admirable brevity:

“If there is no Shor, increase the volume.
If there is no Natak, create some.
And if neither works — deploy Nakhra.”

This remarkable synthesis has made him an indispensable asset to the Cockroach Community.

For his distinguished contribution to Roach Leadership, Nakhra Studies, Sonic Mobilisation, Performative Activism and the advancement of Natak as an instrument of collective cockroach expression, the Roaches Hall of Fame hereby confers upon Shri Ashutosh Ranka, a.k.a. Ashutos Nakhra, a.k.a. Ashus Shor, Natak, the exalted title:

“Supremo of Cockroach Nakhra, Shor & Natak”

May his Nakhra remain inexhaustible,
his Shor remain unmissable,
and his Natak continue long after everyone else has left the stage.

For where there is Nakhra, there shall be Shor.
Where there is Shor, there shall be Natak.
And where there is Natak, Ashutosh Ranka cannot be far behind.

— Roaches Hall of Fame, Citation No. 003
Issued by the Ministry of Roach Affairs, Department of Dramatic Mobilisation & Excessive Nakhra

Legsy Suroor

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Foot notes and Foot Prints of  Pak Jan

THE COCKROACHES, THE PROFIT MOTIVE & THE FORGOTTEN BABY BOOMER

The Cockroaches have so far issued three Citations honouring their three Founding Fathers. Yet, strangely, they have spared not a thought for their Baby Boomer benefactor, Sonam Wangchuk, who actually sat on a hunger strike in support of their cause. Apparently, gratitude didn't make it to their manifesto.

Perhaps they don't see  ANY PROFIT in maintaining an association with Sonam. After all, ANY PROFIT is an anagram of PROFANITY—or, to put it in their own philosophical vocabulary, why invest in gratitude when there is no political return? These Cockroaches are learning the art of politics at a positively alarming speed: they seem to have discovered the sophisticated principle of use and lose.

Sonam Wangchuk reminds us of the good old Anna Hazare days, when a hunger strike could command public attention and moral support. But memories, like morals, appear to have a remarkably short shelf life in contemporary politics.

Or perhaps the Cockroaches have developed an allergy to the anagrammatic possibilities of SONAM WANGCHUK → NAMO'S WANGCHUK. And so, in their imaginary  parliament, the slogan might well be:

“CHUG, NAMO'S KNAW!”

I shall refrain from attempting another anagram of KNAW. Some linguistic investigations are best left unfinished—not because the vocabulary fails us, but because the resulting evidence might be too incriminating for publication! 

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Fussy Art Gallery

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