THIS ABOVE ALL
Shades of inherited genius
Khushwant Singh

I have repeated many times that the only genius I have met in my life is Vikram Seth. I had assumed his parents were Punjabi. I was wrong. Both are from Uttar Pradesh. There is good reason to believe that some of his genius is inherited from his mother Leila Seth. When his father was in England on an assignment for Bata, she joined the Inns of Court, School of Law, London. She topped the list of new barristers.

Back home, she rose to become the Chief Justice of Himachal Pradesh. Vikram can pick up a new language within a few days. His first love was Chinese. He translated three of the country’s leading poets into English. He has also translated Sanskrit, Pali, Hindi, and Urdu texts. His The Golden Gate, a novel written in sonnet form, and A Suitable Boy will be read for decades to come.

He is currently working on another novel. He has a passion for calligraphy. He has rendered calligraphic masterpieces in Chinese, Sanskrit, Arabic, English and Hindi. He is a poet in his own right. His latest publication The Rivered Earth (Penguin Books) has a selection of translations from different languages, with many of his own compositions. I was very much taken by one entitled Fire. I quote its second verse:

Fa-yaah
O fayah-fayah-fayaah
Dizayaah
Hot hot hot
I’m burning a lot with dizayaah
O fayah fayah fayah
Hot as a funeral pa-yaah
Leaping up ha-yaah and Ha-Yaah
I sizzle, I daze
I fizzle, I blaze
I scorch, I toast
I smoulder, I roast,
I flare, I excite
I flash, I ignite.
I rage, I lust,
I blaze, I combust
Red, yellow, white,
I light up the night,
The endless night,
with disayaah,
O fa-yaah, Fa-yaay! Fa-yaah!

My first reaction on seeing the book was of being critical of its publishers. They have been unfair to the author by having a unimaginative cover design. Very few people browsing round bookstores to buy reading material will be tempted to pick it up. However, since the name of the author, Palash Krishna Mehrotra, rang a bell, I decided to take a look at its contents. Once started, I could not put it down. The Butterfly Generation: A Personal Journey into the Passions and follies of India’s Technicolor Youth (Rain Tree: An imprint of Rupa Publication).

It is about Indian urban youth between 25 and 35 years, who mostly work late hours in call centres, their addiction to varieties of drugs and a laidback attitude towards sexual relations. They regard marriage as an outdated institution and prefer to have intimate relations with their colleagues when overcome with desire. I cannot vouch for its authenticity as I have yet to come across anyone who is into drugs but swear by the book’s readability. It is brilliant prose, full of wit.

When writing to each other, these butterflies use their own shorthand; ICUR busy stands for I see you are busy. There are many such abbreviations. The language, though full of four-letter obscenities, is appropriate. So is the witticism. His prose is flawless.

I give one example of his justifying homosexuality from his chapter Gay Ho! It reads: "Any mention of homosexuality scares the pants off most Indians. Horror and derision are the stock responses to what remains one of nature’s enduring, as also boring, enigmas: same-sex relationships. It’s boring because sex is sex and it really shouldn’t make any difference whether a man sleeps with another man, or a woman sleeps with another woman, or if someone swings both ways. It is a mystery why what happens between two consenting adults in the privacy of their homes should be seen as threatening the very foundations of society".

Mehrotra (born 1975) is a product of St Stephen’s College, Delhi School of Economics, and Balliol College, Oxford. He is the Editor of Recess and author of Eunuch Park and writes a fortnightly column for Mail Today. Writing is in Palash Krishna’s genes. He is the son of the eminent poet Arvind Mehrotra.

A big billboard inside the Tata Steel Plant in Jamshedpur reads: One who knows not but knows not that he knows not, is a fool, leave him. One who knows not and knows that he knows not, is simple, teach him. One who knows but knows not that he knows, is asleep, awake him. One who knows and knows that he knows, is wise, follow him.

                                                                                      (Contributed by A. Taraknath, Jamshedpur)