Operation Lexicon: Tharoor’s war on terror with words!

Raju Korti
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor is both a rebel without a pause and a rebel with a cause. I will leave the pauses and the causes to the reader’s wisdom and grammatical grasp. What is undeniable is that Tharoor, armed with his signature vocabulary that can leave both Merriam-Webster and the Oxford Dictionary nervously flipping through their own pages, is now heading into global diplomatic territory that might need more than just security briefings. It may also need subtitles.

As part of India’s “Operation Sindoor,” the government has announced a 59-member, all-party delegation blitz across 32 countries to push New Delhi’s zero-tolerance stance on terrorism. Tharoor, who has of late taken to toeing a somewhat anti-Congress line with Shakespearean flair, finds himself one of the chosen few to tell the world why the Pahalgam terror attack is not just an Indian tragedy, but a global warning shot.

Of course, any journalist worth his/her semicolon knows that Tharoor on foreign policy is a recipe for two things: copy that writes itself, and audiences that might need a stiff drink and a dictionary afterward. Or vice versa depending on your condition.

Let us imagine the spectacle: Tharoor stands at a polished wooden lectern in Brussels, flanked by flags and flummoxed functionaries. He begins:
“Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to unequivocally articulate India’s irrefutable repudiation of insidious terroristic proclivities and our concomitant commitment to constructing a pluralistic prophylaxis against the metastasis of extremist ideologies.”

At this point, half the delegation reaches for their translator earpieces, while the rest begin to wonder if what they heard was right.

Unfazed, Tharoor barrels on:
“We are not merely anathematising the nefarious perpetrators of perfidious violence, but are also enunciating an epistemological framework of global peace, predicated upon the principles of intersectional sovereignty and post-colonial pluralism.

”By now, a Danish diplomat is discreetly checking if “anathematise” is a form of diplomatic expulsion. A Turkish envoy stares wistfully at his espresso. And a Swedish representative, clearly bilingual, is heard whispering, “I think he just declared war on punctuation.

”Tharoor delivers the climax with the gravitas of a man who has read the UN Charter, the Bhagavad Gita, and all of Proust -- in one sitting:
“Let us coalesce to catalyse a convocation against carnage!

”There is stunned silence. It might be admiration. It might be confusion. A few brave souls clap cautiously, like they are unsure whether they have just heard a plea for global peace or a recipe for existential despair.

This, in essence, is the curious genius of Shashi Tharoor. While other members of the Indian delegation might arrive armed with policy papers, statistics, and PowerPoint presentations, Tharoor comes ready to bombard the world with lexical cannon fire. For the countries on his itinerary, this mission may become less about counterterrorism and more about countering vocabulary fatigue.

But maybe, just maybe, that’s the point. After all, in an age where attention spans are dwindling and diplomacy is increasingly conducted in emojis and hashtags, Tharoor represents a stubborn -- and strangely poetic -- reminder that words still matter. Even if you need a thesaurus and a nightcap to understand them.

So, as India sends out its message of strength and solidarity to the world, it is reassuring to know that among the arsenal is a man who can single-handedly out-talk a UN translator. Whether it’s a verbal surgical strike or a collateral explosion of adjectives, Tharoor’s global tour promises one thing: it won’t be boring.

Whether the mission succeeds diplomatically is up to the diplomats. Whether it succeeds semantically -- well, that depends on whether the world is ready to Google "epistemological pluralism.

Now for a serious epilogue for a lighter prologue.

This is what I wrote on September 1, 2020 after going through Tharoor’s book “Tharoorosaurus”: Much is being made of Tharoor's propensity to charm and sweep women off their feet but that's not being fair to his decrepitude for words that have become harem to his imagination. Tharoorosaurus as we predictably realize is a word play of his name mixed with the word Thesaurus and it ostensibly seeks to find synonyms for words. Published by the Penguin Random House India, it is a veritable inventory of 53 words, one for each letter of the alphabet. Dubbed the Wizard of Words, he shares these examples from his parallel vocabulary -- unusual words that are more Latin and Greek than Latin and Greek actually are -- from every letter of the alphabets. All of five vowels and 21 consonants. You do not have to be a linguaphile to partake of their novelty, you just have to souse in how he marinates them. Perilously disposed as I am to my perennially penurious condition, I cannot even nurse the chance finding Rs 373 that the book costs but I can indulge fair guess work to know what the book subsumes in its denouement.

Those who know me even peripherally, will bear me out. I have sweated in litres browsing and studying Thesaurus and the Dictionary for ever since I can remember. The words, their substitutes, homologues, equivalents, usages, figures of speech, idioms, synonyms, antonyms, homonyms and what else have you of from the labyrinthine macrocosm of Wren & Martin. Like Tharoor, I have jealously and steadfastly guarded my paintbrush while celebrating words and treating them like clay. It amuses me no end that the permutation and combination of 26 alphabets spin a complex ecosystem of words that can be moulded, shaped, chiselled, crystallized, kneaded, polished, carved, built, embodied, minted, modeled, framed, forged, fashioned, cast, sketched, whittled, roughened and fabricated in becoming the edifice of Literature.

People who are lesser endowed with words than I am -- and I don't say this in my self-arrogated wisdom -- grudgingly tell me all the time that I am too overbearing with them. Their refrain: Do you have to be so extravagant and grandiose with mentally taxing words when simple words could have got your point through. My riposte is as simple as it can get. Why not make the dish more appetizing by garnishing it well! Words don't drill holes in your pockets. Kortictionary will be my tribute to Tharoor’s Tharoorosaurus. Since it incorporates my name, my copyright is guaranteed by default. What Tharoor is to Thesaurus, Korti will be to a Dictionary. Hope you get the essential drift here. The similarity between Tharoor and Korti ends here. I do not possess the other talents which Tharoor is generously accredited with.

Some day, I plan to write Vocabulary Chalisa. It will take you on an unending game called Word Play.