'Tharoorosaurus' by Shashi Tharoor ;Published

by Penguin / Viking ; Pages 319;Price Rs.399/-

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In a celebrated literary anecdote Oliver Goldsmith admonished Samuel Johnson-- “If you make Fishes talk they will talk like Whales”.This applies in equal measure to that Enfant Terrible Shashi Tharoor whose latest concoction is an unabashedly “Wordy” book and deals with interesting words from every letter of the alphabet.

 Tharoor has acquired some notoriety for employing obscure words .He has debouched the book under review to to share words, both long and short, with those fascinated by language. 

Tharoor begins the book by acknowledging his debt to his father.His fascination for words had to rub off on his eldest child .The words include everything from an oft-used Apostrophe to a bit archaic Panglossian. I’ve never had any sort of systematic approach to trying to learn new words; the best way to expand one’s vocabulary is through reading, and I would say that that has held true for me all through my life. In this book, there was no particular reason for the choice of words — they were either words I’d recently used  or words that the country was suddenly using a lot more often than usual (like “pandemic” and “quarantine”), or words in the news (like “impeachment” and “apostrophe”), or sometimes just words that I could tell interesting stories about (like & “curfew” and & “defenestrate”). 

 

It all began with the delightful correspondence Tharoor had with fellow writer Chetan Bhagat who asked the word wizard to praise him using "big words".Much to the delight of Bhagat, Tharoor the diplomat-turned-politician replied,

"Sure, @chetan_bhagat! It's clear you are not sesquipedalian nor given to rodomontade. Your ideas are unembellished with tortuous convolutions & expressed without ostentation. I appreciate the limpid perspicacity of today's column." For the unversed, 'sesquipedalian' means a word being polysyllabic, 'rodomontade' is boastful, 'convolutions' means complex, 'ostentation' means being pretentious, 'limpid' is clear and 'perspicacity' is to be shrewd.

Shashi bandied in Twitter and praised Bhagat for his article in Times of India, titled "The youth need to shut their phones and ask about the economy".Shashi termed Bhagat's opinion piece as "superb" and one with a "clear message".

The book has 53 words with definitions and the history of the word and also an Indian context in some. The copious details and choice of words make this an unusual compilation . He repeats some words but offers them a different meaning.

Any word lover will love this work of love for language and the way it constantly evolves.

Sashi is noted for his recondite scholarship that makes one chase a lexicon. The author and politician has a vocabulary that has been admired for how expansive it is. It has also inspired countless memes. Tharoor, however, has always been the first to laugh at himself. An evidence of this is his new book.

Tharoor’s mind-boggling plethora of uncommon words have forced the common man to become astounded and even aghast!.

In 2017, Tharoor's tweet, with words like "exasperating farrago of distortions", made headlines and became the buzz word of the Internet.

As an asthmatic child, often confined to the bed, Tharoor  took to the comfort provided by books. This was in the era of fewer distractions. There was no television, mobile phone, PlayStation, or the Internet. "They [books] were my entertainment, my escape and my education. I would read copiously and indiscriminately," he shares. When he came across the same words in different books and in various contexts, he quickly learned "how they are used, their meanings and nuances". "As a result, my vocabulary naturally expanded," Tharoor added.

The idea for the book was born out of a column that Tharoor used to have in a Sunday newspaper, till recently, where he would discuss a new word, every week.

There was no particular reason for the choice of words he included in the book. "They were either words I'd recently used in a tweet (like 'farrago' and 'kakistocracy'), or words that the country was suddenly using a lot more often than usual (like 'pandemic' and 'quarantine').

Defenestrate is also a word that he is "overly fond of" and goes back to his college days at St Stephen's in Delhi. "The word literally means 'to throw out of a window', and while opportunities for its literal usage are limited in our civilized times, its metaphorical possibilities are limitless! Especially for an Opposition MP trying to defenestrate the ruling party," he quips. A word, he feels, Indians should be using more often is "agathokakological," which means something or someone made up of both good and evil. "We see so many examples of agathokakological people, situations, and stories in our daily lives in India."

What Tharoor finds most amusing is when people ask him, which dictionary or thesaurus he refers to, to improve his vocabulary. "People think I am some sort of nutcase who studies dictionaries all day long, but the reality is that I have barely opened a dictionary in my life."

 The book displays his famous wit. Select the word ‘Goon’ .Shashi writes, “The goons who assaulted students at Jawaharlal Nehru University could not have entered and left without the complicity of the police.” . It would feel almost disingenuous, especially in my profession, to write without reference to the terribly unjust times we are living in. Those who committed the violence at JNU most certainly exemplify the word “goon”.

 The love of learning is self-reinforcing — the more you practice it, the stronger it becomes. That has certainly been true in my own experience. In a multilingual polity like ours, familiarity with usage is often a challenge, and wit and humour, in particular, can often be lost in translation.

Shashi like Amitabh in Namak Halal, can leave the ‘Angrez’ behind. He can talk English, he can walk English, he can laugh English, and it’s that last characteristic that turns his new book a huge entertainer --indeed a minor achievement.

The origin of the words and the process by which they evolved into their current avatar are limpidly clarified . Tharoor is a great yarn spinner with a Wodehousian sense of the comic!

Tharoor is an accidental artist of the long word. Indeed, his early forays into this domain were not quite distinguished . The number of Tharoor-isms has increased, and their adoption by a vibrant social media soon made him the Pope of the spoken word.

Shashi does not cloak his political leanings . So often there is more swipe than required of Narendra Mody and this does pall. Perhaps a more uncommitted wordsmith would have been equally critical of the Dynasty. Sans doubt Shashi has his prejudices,likings but these are the warp and woof of life.

The charm of the tome is redoubled by the deligh tful illustrations of Mihir Joglekar. Sashi’s book is not exactly un-put-downable but surely is engaging,entertaining and occasionally elevating. With Tharoor around there is a promise of there being not dull moment after the diplomat –lexicographer’s landing in God’s own country.

                                

                                                  Shashi Tharoor

P.P.Ramachandran.

01/11/2020.