Short N Snappy

MMM

Dancing Doctors & other Jis

These are times when in the worlds of politics and arts, you can earn brownie points by prefixing people’s names with a ‘Doctor’ and suffixing them with a ‘ji’. The latter, incidentally, appears to have penetrated the Tamil lexicon, at least in Madras that is Chennai, for even the most rabid Hindi haters use the ‘ji’ at all odd moments. Coming back to the similarity between the worlds of arts and politics, it does not end with the Dr and the Ji. Politics is said to be an art and as for art, it is full of politics.

All these profound thoughts came to the mind of The Man from Madras Musings when last fortnight he attended a seminar on hundred years of dance or some such topic. MMM is rather vague about it chiefly because the speeches that he heard did not have that theme. It was more a question of a standard presentation that each of these presenters had, which they no doubt flog repeatedly, force-fitting it in some way to suit the topic for which they had been invited. How else can MMM explain the fact that one of the keynote speakers spoke entirely on the scenario in Indian dance in the 2nd Century CE? He remained steadfast to that time period and even at the end of his presentation did not touch on the dance scenario of the last hundred years. If that was not bad enough, his presentation itself comprised images of several closely typed pages being projected on the screen, all of which he insisted on reading out in pitiless detail. In a way that was to the good for the audience could not read a word – the type size was beyond the capacity of the human eye and the only way out would have been to present each member of the audience with a pair of binoculars, the kind that ornithologists use.

If that was bad enough, the speaker in question had quite clearly decided that he was the sole presenter for the day. He had been given twenty minutes, as had everybody else, but he chose to ramble on for an hour. The net result was that the time schedule was shot to pieces. Not that it appeared to matter to anyone except MMM. The audience dozed, glad to be in an air-conditioned room while the temperature outside was like that of any oven set to bake. They would have slept on and the speaker could have droned on, had not the major domo of ceremonies, waking mid-snore, took a startled glance at the clock and announced tea break. The speaker then came out of his trance, declared that he had no idea that the time had gone by so quickly. He never could keep track of time, he said, especially when he was speaking. He then promised to wrap up in the next few minutes and spent the next 15 of them in thanking everyone concerned, all of them Dr ‘Ji’s. The Dr ‘Ji’s in the audience lapped it all up and when, eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, the speaker waddled off stage, he was greeted with good applause. The Dr ‘Ji’s were happy that they had been referred to in flattering terms and let MMM tell you that when applying flattery in the arts world you need to do so with a shovel. As to why several others in the audience clapped was something of a mystery to MMM until he came to know that the speaker, or the drone in question, had in him the power to grant fellowships, research grants and an award or two. He was warmly thanked for his erudite and scholarly presentation.

MMM was billed three down, but he realised that given the way the programme was going he would get his turn somewhere around midnight. He therefore used his cajoling powers and got himself upgraded to speak immediately after the coffee break. And having finished what he had to say, well within the time allotted to him, he chose to depart. The next speaker was scheduled to have a go and the first slide depicted something from the 5th Century BC.

One-way communication

Sorry Chief, The Man from Madras Musings is aware of the fact that you do not like the same story or topic to dominate the entire length of this column, but MMM is not yet done with the above seminar. This was organised by one of those Government bodies that have been set up somewhere up north ostensibly for the promotion of Indian culture. And they do so little that they can be said to be In the Cause of Cultural Rationing. And on this occasion, MMM had experience up close of how they work.

The first intimation was through a phone call from a well-known dance personality of our city, a woman of great  achievements and erudition. She invited MMM to speak at the seminar and MMM, delighted that such an eminent personage had called him, accepted at once. The danseuse rang off, thanking MMM and telling him that he would soon hear from the Rationing Body mentioned above. An e-mail arrived shortly thereafter from the organisation, thanking MMM for accepting and stating that as part of the rules, MMM would need submit a detailed article on his theme, which would be included as part of a publication to be released after the seminar. To this MMM sent a reply stating that when he accepted the invitation he was unaware of such a precondition and if this was compulsory he would prefer to be excused from attending the seminar as his time schedule did not permit his taking on the writing of such a detailed paper.

There was complete silence thereafter and MMM assuming that his nomination had been scratched, moved on to other things. But a couple of days before the seminar he got a call from a minion up north which wanted to know as to where MMM’s paper was. To this MMM replied that he had already expressed his inability to write one and had bowed out of the programme. The voice became all confused at this and hung up. A day later came another e-mail, asking for MMM’s paper and giving him details of the venue of the seminar and what time his speech was, etc. It ended with a request for MMM’s paper, which the email sender noted, was not yet received. All this set MMM’s teeth on edge and he called the dancer and asked her what was to be done. She suggested that MMM ignore the missives and turn up anyway. Which is what MMM did.

But the organisation has not yet finished with MMM. Two days after the seminar MMM received an email thanking him for participating and reminding him to send in his paper as soon as possible. MMM wonders if not complying could be a non-bailable offence.

Tailpiece

The Man from Madras Musings did not know that 94 was a landmark number. Nevertheless, a certain set of people decided to celebrate it as a birthday event for a certain nonagenarian. The message went out that the birthday boy was not to be disturbed. This however, clearly did not apply to the rest of the city, which suffered cut-outs, posters, traffic hold-ups to facilitate VIP movement and more than the usual levels of noise pollution.

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