August musings

Some years ago, I wrote in these columns a piece on collective nouns in the English language, sharing less-known ones and suggesting some new ones. A couple of discerning readers told me they enjoyed reading that particular column. I took that to be a comparative statement, placing the ones I have written on historical themes or on matters of contemporary interest below the one on collective nouns. The subtext of this was ‘Don’t give us information; we have Google for that. Don’t give us views; we have Facebook for those. Don’t give us wisdom; we have any number of Gurus for that — religious gurus, business gurus, science gurus, management gurus. Give us some wit. Give us some laughter. Cartoonists and satirists are so rare…’

That gentle tick-off did my writing ego a world of good. We columnists tend to think what we write can influence or change opinions. This is but an illusion. A simple case of self-elevation.We can, I think, be called, collectively,an innocence of columnists.

Thinking upon this, it only seemed right that I should now attempt another on the same theme, my sources being recent observations and reflections.(I should, I suppose, say ‘a spring of sources’.)

To start with, the nation’s recent celebrations of our independence crossing its seventy-fifth year, I imagined—

A flutter of flags.

A jostle of speakers.

A throng of listeners.

A swarm of cameras.

A torrent of speeches.

A flight of memories.

A vow of promises.

A sizzle of rhetoric.

A wave of gestures.

A roar of slogans.

A boom of claps.

A chant of resolves.

A Jai Ho! of songs.

A Hind of hopes.

A Bharat of dreams.

Which brings me to the quotidian world of every day.

A yesterday of ideals.

A today of realities.

A tomorrow of dreads.

A rhyme of assurances.

A fable of promises.

A tumble of setbacks.

A rut of despairs.

A ditch of disappointments.

A poem of apologies.

A textbook of explanations.

A varnish of amends.

A polish of words.

A paint of visions.

A flair of pledges.

A scoot of false oaths.

A hollow of plighted words.

Basically, collective nouns help us understand the subject by abstracting what is specific, by making it an image in the order of a noun. But — and here lies the beauty of collective nouns — by making that abstraction as visual, as familiar, as recognisable, as possible.The subject — like, for instance, despair — may be serious, but when placed within the collective noun, can be utterly real. As real as a rut.

But collective nouns, while making a subject accessible, do not necessarily simplify the subject. They merely vivify it. And by so doing, they economise on paraphrasing. If one were to want to explain the gravity of a plighted word being betrayed, one would have to say, ‘His plighted word, was a word of honour. It was meant to be respected, redeemed. But the man went back on it. He did so shamelessly.He said what he said and then simply let us down. His promises simply vanished into thin air.’

‘A scoot of plighted words’ says all that. Collective nouns are, to that extent,what telegrams used to be. They say the maximum in the minimum of words. They are the linguistic equivalent of a cartoon, as differentiated from an editorial. They are also close cousins of the devices of allegory and metaphor.

Different disciplines can yield collective nouns of good effect.

For instance, law can yield —

A Division Bench of contradictions.

A Constitution Bench of conclusions.

A gavel of finalities.

Departing from the ‘collective’ principle, since proper nouns are also nouns, one could suggest from the same field of law and jurisprudence—

An Ashutosh Mukherjee of self-esteem.

A Daphtary of humour.

A Chagla of acumen.

A Seervai of learning.

A Krishna Iyer of activism.

A Palkhivala of probity.

A Fali Nariman of acuity.

But these seven are departures from the norm for collective nouns (in which the subject must also be, strictly speaking, in the plural form). I have given them here because I cannot think of the law and of courts in India without thinking of these eminent persons, among whom I must add, by itself, in itself, for itself, that of Justice H.R. Khanna, the dissenting judge superseded during the national Emergency (1975-1977) for the office of Chief Justice of India. Famed for his observation, “the imbecility of men, history teaches us, always invites the impudence of power”, he was, and remains, a collectivity of stunning qualities, startling attributes, whose stature went way beyond the incumbencies of ephemeral office. He must figure in my listings as —

A Khanna of dissents, a Khanna of strictures, a Khanna of Don’t-Cares.Persons become integrated symbols,depending on the ‘firstness’ or firmness, the importance and intensity,of what they have been or done. Like Hillary and Tenzing have, of daring perseverance, as Rakesh Sharma has, of being the ‘first up-there’, as Mother Teresa and M.S. Subbulakshmi have. And as Neerja Bhanot has. Neerja…?

I teach students fresh out of school and in their first year or two at Ashoka University a course on the civilisations of India. I had asked them to share names of persons they admire for their contributions to India’s civilisation. One of them said, “Neerja Bhanot”. To my shame, I could not place the name immediately and asked “Neerja…?” And when the student told me who she was, I recalled, of course, the dare in duty, the grit in danger that this 22-year-old flight attendant displayed at Karachi airport on September 5, 1986, when terrorists had hijacked the Pan Am plane she was serving in. I had, at that point in my class, become a learner and my student, an instructor. Neerja Bhanot was shot when she was helping passengers escape through emergency exits. Neerja was just two days away from her twenty-third birthday. By what she did she showed what civilisations are about — an evolving humaneness. She is the youngest recipient,posthumous, of the Ashoka Chakra, our highest award for peace time gallantry. Inspired by her example,I can think of —

A flash of shocks.

A bolt of dangers.

A turbine of energies.

A voltage of duties.

A rotor of reflexes

.A gleam of inspirations.

Those who may be reading this column have been newspaper-readers over a long period. They will respond to the following examples of the collective noun —

A rustle of pages.

A banner of shocks.

A mast of blows.

A scoop of incredibles.

A bunch of stories.

A snap of hopes.

A forest of ads.

A leader of opinions.

And as readers of world news, their responses can be ‘collectivised’ as —

A sigh of sorrows.

A desert of depressions.

A pang of memories.