Yours Et Cetera

Dear Mr Goradia

Apropos your book (Dear Editor, 1997) I have a candid confession to make. As I was reading the book, I found my attention wandering constantly. I just couldnt concentrate on a single letter. That got me worried, for I normally have an attention span of at least 10-15 pages. Then, while browsing through the book in one of my renewed attempts to read it, I chanced upon an explanation. It was in the preface, where you admit I am unable to read for more than a few minutes at a time. That was it, I realised. The authors affliction is catching.

 

But I had a job to do. And so I persevered and read on. And, no, it wasnt a rapid look of the kind you say you do every morning.

I have always had this sneaking admiration for those countless writers of letters to the editor. They seem such well-informed, thinking, people who have an opinion on practically every subject under the sun. I mean, just look at your range: politics, ideology, policy, business and commerce, social comment, foreign affairs. Your erudition on all these matters put those eggheads at the India International Centre and Centre for Policy Research to shame.

How many of them can claim to, singly and with equal finesse, reflect on democracy and pan-Asianism, wax on the dangers of Islamic fundamentalism, agonise over the plight of women, delicately tackle the subject of sex education, comment on Hitler and Rommels strategy, worry about Pakistani democracy....Its a great mind indeed that, besides being preoccupied with so many things, has also to be involved with your business. As you yourself say, mentally, business is a full-time occupation.

Maybe thats why one shouldnt be too harsh on you when you start off by writing a letter on one subject and go off on a tangent on another.

Like that outburst (a very legitimate one, I admit) about Marxism as a religion in a letter about the legislation to separate religion from politics? I read that letter thrice to find a link between the subject and your statements. Apart from the word religion that is. Or is linking disparate subjects your way of bringing a sense of perspective into your letters?

Ive also often wondered about what drove letter writers to write. I thought it was just the thrill of seeing ones name in print, pontificating on ponderous matters of society, state and the economy. But now I know it is also an attempt at self-education and the even more loftier ideal of initiating the search for an indigenous system that would make Indians tick. A round hole for a round peg. But if you want an indigenous system, why do you root for a common Roman script for all our languages? And why do you cite the US Senate where every state, regardless of its size and population, has only two representatives as an example worth emulating by our Rajya Sabha where seats are allotted on the basis of population? And how come there very little mention of Mahatma Gandhi and his views? Shouldnt he be a logical reference point for someone concerned about indigenous systems?

Incidentally, what are the elements of your round peg, your compilation fails to reveal. Okay, so you want smaller states and youre not exactly averse to Hindutva and think that excessive government is contrary to the Hindu ethos. Therefore, what India needs is a minimal government. But isnt minimal government the best solution regardless of the countrys religious ethos? What else? Well, you seem to admire the bania spirit, you want public sector undertakings to be set free, you want good men to enter politics.

All that is fine but just as the ideas needed for inspiring a revolution are often irrelevant for designing a state, random thoughts that occur while reading newspapers are often irrelevant for designing pegs: even if they are round ones for round holes.

But why am I writing you such a long letter? Forgetting that you are unable to read for more than a few minutes at a time?

Yours etc Just as the ideas needed for inspiring a revolution are often irrelevant for designing a state, random thoughts that occur while reading newspapers are often irrelevant for designing pegs: even if they are round ones for round holes.