The Fundoo Funda

‘Funda’ is a Hindi word (or, more accurately, an Indian word, as it is also used in other Indian languages, including English), which is a short form of the English word fundamental. The same is the case with the word ‘fundoo’, except that is it an adjective derived from ‘funda’ according to Hindi derivational morphology. The adjective has two senses. One of these is the sense familiar to a select group of people, the kind who are educated in colleges like New Delhi’s St. Stephen’s and have a circle made up almost exclusively of people from a similar background. For this group of people, the word ‘fundoo’ means fundamentalist. And nothing else.

Thus, for them, ‘fundoo’ (the noun version) basically means a person from the Sangh Parivar. And since they (not the Sangh Parivaris) are mainly ’secular’, it is a term of derision. Just like the other n-term they have for the Sangh Parivaris.

I first became familiar with this word when I entered an engineering college for my bachelor’s degree. In that college, the word was heavily used. It meant someone whose fundamentals (as in Thermodynamics or Theory of Machines) were very strong, i.e., who was very good at something. It could also be used with some metaphorical extension to mean high praise (with regard to anything) for someone or something. It might sound strange to many, but at that time I somehow thought that this word (and the word ‘funda’) were slang words only used in that particular college.

Later I found out that these two words are among the most heavily used words as far as the young (school or college) generation is concerned.

Being called fundoo can be a big complement, though the overuse of the term means that the complement could be highly diluted.

I didn’t become familiar (till much later) with the other sense — fundamentalist — of the word till I read a particular number of one of the most popular columns in the Indian press, written by Khushwant Singh. I had no idea that the word was also used in this sense. But what was more surprising, almost astonishing to me, was the fact that Khushwant Singh similarly seemed to have no idea that there was another sense in which this word was used.

By the way, I wrote ‘one of the most popular columns in the Indian press’ instead of ‘in the National’ or ‘in the English’ press because this particular column is syndicated by many Indian language newspapers and they publish a translation.

As I then read all kinds of magazines and newspapers etc., I found out that there were others like Khushwant Singh for whom too the word only meant one thing: fundamentalist. What was common among all these people was that they were from the select group that I mentioned in the beginning.

I have spent various periods of time in many educational institutions of India and have lived in many cities and towns and have kept my eyes and ears open, especially to language related things. Nowhere except in the writings of this group of people have I found anyone using the word ‘fundoo’ in the sense that they use. And as I said ealier, it is one of the most heavily used words and therefore I keep hearing it much too regularly.

I am aware that there might, in fact, be some other people outside this group who use the word in that rare sense. And I am not sure about the origin of the word either. It could very well be that the word was initially used in the first sense. But I have heard no one using it in that sense. Not a single person.

To repeat once more to make the point clear, the second sense of the word is used so heavily that I find it hard to believe that if you live in an Indian city or even a small town (and know either English or an Indian language), you could remain oblivious to the second sense of the word. But you could easily be unaware of the first sense because it is used so rarely. The only way this can happen is if that group of people has somehow cut itself off from the life around it and is not much in touch with it.

This cut off has to be fairly radical, because according to many yardsticks, I myself am quite cut off.

But I know the second sense. As well as the first. I knew them much before I started studying Linguistics or related fields.

Or perhaps they are words from two different languages, the first spoken by the top caste and the second by the other lesser mortals.

The Elite Strikes Back, Fetishiously

From right after the transfer of power from the British to the local English Elite (the Babus in the broadest sense), one recurrent theme in the Indian ‘National’ press, which translates as the English press, has been to come down like a 16 ton weight on anyone who so much as mentioned the case of the Indian languages and the extraordinary privileges enjoyed by the English speaking Elite in the country. So, for example, if any politician of the Hindi belt suggested that students should be allowed to write some important exam in Indian languages or that English should not be compulsory at the primary level or even something much less radical-revolutionary and world shaking, there would be (without fail) editorials in the ‘National’ newspapers about how the language chauvinists are going to lay waste our great democracy.

With the changes that have happened in the last 15 years or so (some for better and more for worse), this trend became less common. But now the lumpen antics of the Thackerays have given the Elite a golden opportunity to come back with a 32 (or is it 64?) ton weight on the ‘language chauvinists’.

The way the Thackerays have been able to carry on their thuggery (in the Hindi as well as the English sense of the term) is so absurd that only a few things can compete with it. And one of those things is the fact that the English Elite of the country have been so amazingly successful in summarily suppressing all Indian languages including the legally National Language (Hindi), the language that has the most chauvinistic support from its speakers (Tamil) and the language of the most intellectual community of the sub-continent (Bengali). These and many others are not endangered languages (at least not yet). Most of them can be called mega languages in terms of the number of speakers. All of this is so well known and so often repeated that I feel weary of having to write this. Also equally well known is the fact that only a very small fraction of the Indian population is comfortable with English. However, as India is a society whose structure is mainly defined by the caste system, no one except the top caste wants to remain in their own caste. They all want to make the transition to the higher castes, even as they list the reasons for the greatness of their caste. And the highest caste now effectively is that of the English speakers, who have replaced the (literal) Brahmins from their perch at the top (I know, ‘replaced’ is not a good term because a large fraction of the Elite is Brahmin). Naturally then everyone wants ultimately to make the transition to the top caste. This has lead to an extremely comic and absurd fetish about any language anywhere in the world. It is the fetish for the English language. This fetish too is a well known, though rarely talked about in the English media. A recent issue of the Outlook magazine was an exception. (The issue was the exception, not the magazine). The ‘language media’, of course, used to talk about it. Innumerable books have been written about it. Movies have been made about it (a recent one being Tashan, one of whose stars is now living out his character’s fetish in the real world). And sometimes politicians have talked about it for electoral purposes. But most of them have learned that it doesn’t pay much as the Indians (especially the North Indians) are not very keen to be seen speaking their own languages when in respectable company. They don’t even want it to be known to anyone that they are not good at English. Parents who can’t speak the language will parade their English learning children in front of any visitor and have a little performance of nursery rhymes being chanted in English, even if the visitor as well as the child feel tortured. They will also mention with pride that their child is very poor in Hindi (or any other Indian language).

It’s not that no one in the English speaking community has noted this. Even Nayantara Sehgal had mentioned this in one of her novels long ago. More recently Arundhati Roy had written about the oustee villagers from the Narmada dam site being scolded by Maneka Gandhi for not writing their petition in English, after they had travelled all the way, enduring hardship and hoping to save their lives. There have been others like Namita Gokhale among the (English speaking) writers and artists who have at least hinted at the absurdity of the situation.

But, by and large, the Elite has managed to suppress all talk about any fairness with regard to Indian languages which account for the overwhelming majority of the population of India. They have used diversity as an argument for maintaining the hegemony of English. They have used chauvinism as an argument. They have pitted one big language (Tamil) against the other (Hindi). They have pitted small languages (the so called dialects of Hindi) against big languages. They have pitted Dalits against the upper castes: no matter that most of them belong to the upper castes themselves. They have used linguistically spurious claims about the superiority of English over the ‘less developed’ Indian languages. They have steadfastly refused to concede even a pinhead worth of territory to the Indian languages.

Talk of divisiveness.

Unfortunately for them, The Market (whose praise they are now singing, be they from any part of the political spectrum) may be a brutal place, but it has allowed the Indian languages to gain some territory. As had the linguistic reorganisation of the states, which also they have always kept riling against.

The people may be ashamed of their own languages and of being seen reading books in them (chauvinism indeed!), but they are hooked to the movies and T.V. serials in those same languages. The movie scene is not any less hilarious either. The people involved in these movies may be making their career, earning huge amounts of money and generally being the gods of urban life in India (along with the cricket stars) through Indian languages, but they too are equally ashamed of the languages they make movies in. The scripts of Bollywood movies are written using the Latin alphabet. More than one big Bollywood Hindi movie star has been on record saying he hates Hindi. One of them said he didn’t want anyone around him speaking in Hindi. Offscreen, all they want is for their lives to be copies of Hollywood stars.

Another of the cards the Elite uses against any demand for linguistic fairplay is that of communalism. The fact that the Jan Sangh/BJP and the Sangh Parivar in general have been shouting the slogan of ‘Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan’ has been used time and again to put down (and discredit) any such demand. This time they are vehemently talking about how the ‘Hindi fetish’ of the BJP and the Sangh Parivar has brought about the Thackerays’ Marathi version of the same. One of them has grudgingly noted, though, that there are differences between the two.

The only part of the slogan in which the BJP and the Sangh Parivar are interested in is the Hindu part, and they have made a travesty of even that. The preferred name for India for them is Bharat, not Hindustan. India is referred to as Hindustan (or Hindostan) more in the Urdu literature than in the Hindi literature or in the literature of these right wingers.

As a person whose mother tongue is Hindi (standard Hindi, Khari Boli) and who wants to write in Hindi, I refuse to surrender all the rights of this language or the terms Hindustan, Parivar, Sangh (or even Hindu) etc. to the Sangh Parivar conglomeration. The Elite has done its best to give exclusive rights for all these to the conglomeration. I keep the rights to these as an individual, not as a member of a group. I also keep the rights to contribute and participate as an individual, without being a member of any group.

The plain fact is that injustices are committed on a large scale every day in this huge country in the name of languages. However, there can be no doubt that the largest number of these injustices are in the name of English. Time and again I have seen (first hand) how careers of even brilliant students go the steep downward path because they are not so good at English. And careers are a just small part of the picture. If you are involved in a court case, you are unlikely to be heard if you use an Indian language.

I am not talking about a polish person’s case not being heard properly in France because he can’t talk in French. Even that, as a lot of the members of the Elite perhaps know, can be a valid grievance.

The plain fact is also, as a prominent Hindi writer said in an interview on Doordarshan, that ‘we’ (the people talking about the Indian languages) have accepted English as an Indian language and as our own: the question is whether ‘you’ (the English Elite) are prepared to accept the Indian languages as Indian and as your own.

She said this when the first great lit-fest was held a few years ago at a former royal palace near Jaipur where the guest of honour was V. S. Naipaul, who came with all his knightly glory. And where hardly any Indian language author was invited.

Another plain fact is that most of the mainstream literary writers in Indian languages (whatever might be their other shortcomings) are neither chauvinists nor communalists. In fact, they are the most committed opponents of the right wing politics of the BJP and the Sangh Parivar. And hardly any of them has ever been able to survive from literary writing alone, except perhaps those whose books become textbooks, which is itself a long story. Dismissing the whole idea of linguistic fairness by waving the communalism card is something that we usually expect from unscrupulous politicians, but the Elite (especially of the Left variety) has been doing exactly this ever since the transfer of power to them. Absurd as it may sound, one can understand this if one realizes that they have always felt threatened that some day the vernacular hordes will take the power away from them. There is a great deal they have at stake. I suspect part of their initial vehement opposition against the BJP was motivated by this. And the BJP saw this and made good use of this: they started talking about political untouchability being practiced against them and they gained a lot of sympathy votes on this point alone. The same Elite later became much more tolerant of the BJP once it came to power. Perhaps they accepted it as the fait accompli.

Fait accompli is another card that is heavily used by the Elite. English is the most powerful language that can give you any chance of a decent career and the possibility of some kind of justice so just shut up and try to improve your English. As one strategic think-tanker recently wrote about the Taliban, if you really want to get something done, then you have to go and talk to the people who have power.

Why would the editor of a National daily spend the time and effort to write an editorial about every non-committal language related statement from every two penny politician?

The Left part of the Elite is prepared to talk about all kinds of injustices except those related to language. Except when it is Indian language vs. Indian language. In that case it’s great fun for them.

What we actually have is a strange kind of fanatic language chauvinism practiced by the Elite against all Indian languages: more than just fetishist chauvinism. It’s so real that you only need to walk the roads of any Indian city and read the posters (among other things) of English teaching joints.

Not that there are no injustices in the name of Indian languages. The situation very much fits the big-fish-small-fish metaphor. There is also the infinitely indecent situation in Indian villages of there being separate upper caste and Dalit languages. The Dalits are not allowed to use the ‘upper caste language’. Language is used as a tool for domination, oppression and daily humiliation. In this language-eat-language world, the biggest fish by far in India (as in most parts of the world) is English. Even if it is spoken by a miniscule minority.

Trying to cover up this situation with slick diatribes about chauvinism and communalism might go on paying for a long time, but it might also lead to more dangerous situations than what we already have.

I really haven’t believed for one moment that the Thackerays have any love for Marathi. It’s their only possible ticket to power as of now. If they find some other better ticket, they will gladly drop the whole Marathi Manoos issue. The BJP and the Sangh Parivar are a bit more serious about the Hindi part of their slogan, but as their conduct while in power has shown, they care about Hindi only as much as the Bajrang Dal cares about the Indian culture. And everyone knows how much and of what kind that is. I abhor all kinds of chauvinism, but I still think it is an insult to the real chauvinists (like the ones who took part in the anti-Hindi riots a few decades ago) to call Thackerays (or even the Sangh Parivaris) language chauvinists.

If we were to take the English Elite’s rhetoric about chauvinism seriously, one would have to call even Orhan Pamuk a language chauvinist. And Satyajit Ray. And Tolstoy. And every French writer. And so on.

In many places in his books Tolstoy resentfully showed how French was treated as the superior language among the Russian Elite and how no one among them wanted to be seen speaking Russian. Except may be when talking to the inferior people: servants, peasants etc.

As one member of the Elite (in a moment of frankness) living in New Delhi narrated in a ‘middle’ in The Hindustan Times several years ago, she was embarrassed when a foreigner from the West came to visit them and tried to talk to them in Hindi. Because for her and for the people in her class, Hindi was a language to be used when talking to vegetable sellers.

Most members of the BJP would love to make a transition to the same class. Some have already done that.

There are schools in India where students are punished for using an Indian language. Not in the class room. Not just for any formal or academic purpose, but even in their private conversation, say while playing in the playground.

So much for chauvinism.

Not to mention the Fetish part.

As for the Thackerays, I wonder why they don’t write their surname as Thakre.

They are defiling the name of one my favourite writers.

400 m Dogfoodbowl

A lot of you had suggested new events for the coming series. It was very hard to select the few that we can accommodate. Out of these few, the judges have selected one for special mention. It will be called the 400 m Dogfoodbowl.

400 m is the right distance to cover in one go at good speed. Sprints are for those who start with an abnormal burst of energy but soon run out of it. You know what it can be compared to. Not very respectable. Kilometers are for half starved barefooted people who have to run because they can’t afford to ride. Can be compared to the same as above if you replace the young with the old. 400 m, on the other hand, represents healthy prosperity.

Direct hit on the ball to put it right into the hole is a good thing but doing so with an indirect hit is better. You hit one ball, which hits another. This second ball, in turn, hits the ball you want to put in. That’s a whole different level.

Combine these two things and you have got the star new event for the coming series.

But before we say more about it, there is an announcement to make. Most of you must be aware of this, but those who don’t, especially the newcomers, should take a note. In keeping with the tradition, you can bring along with you your own pardoned little things. However, since there are space and other constraints, we can only allow one pardoned little thing per kickarticipant. This is a restriction, but it will allow you to focus on dressing your little thing as well as you can. Let’s come out and show how well we treat little things as long as they are not impudent. Let us prove that we don’t hate little things. We love them like our children. But we should also make it very clear that if they misbehave, we are not going to treat them like our own children. So don’t allow your interest in dressing little things come in the way of the kickevents.

Coming back to the new event, though there will be no direct kicking, there is no dilution of the focus. The event is still about kicking little dogs. The novelty is that the player will do it as part of a 400 m race. The race will take place on a two storied track. The player will kick a dummy dogfoodbowl on the upper level. On the lower level there will be the little dog who will be chasing the real dogfoodbowl. The two bowls will be equipped with computing devices which will be connected through a bluetooth connection. As the player kicks the dummy bowl, the real bowl will also move forward. But, as you know, dogs can run much faster than human beings. To take this biological factor into account, the speeds of the bowls will be adjusted according to the ratio of the speeds of the player and little dog. This ratio will keep changing based on the actual speeds at any instant. This will ensure that the player does not have to run too fast to keep up with the dog. In fact, it will be the other way round.

Still, the event will require from the player that he or she be not only a first class runner but also have very good foot-eye coordination and that too while in motion on feet. You can be sure that the event is not going to be an easy one.

For all this effort, every player will be treated at a special banquet, apart from the usual medals etc. for the winners. The bowl that the little dog will be chasing will have the choicest canine delicacies, which will be given to the pardoned little dog brought by the player. The chasing dog won’t be starved. It will given what it deserves. If it does exceptionally well in the race, it might even be given a piece from the bowl it was chasing. After all, it will have to run in several other races and we don’t want it collapsing in the middle of the event.

So all of you who think they can be champions at this event, start practicing. The details about getting a slot at the track will be announced later.

Kickarticipate

We are pleased and honored to announce that the long awaited series of events are about to begin.

At the dawn of civilization, people started giving up their isolated lives and took their first steps towards what would much later be called Social Life. They started to work together and thus their lives became interlinked. They started to participate in common activities, leading to the development of the first institutions. Since those primitive days, we have traveled a long way. Some of the words used to describe social life are no longer so appropriate. Thus, in tune with the social life of the times, we call all of you to kickarticipate in the events you have long been waiting for.

Nothing brings more joy than kicking little things. And the best way to do so, in the hallowed traditions of civilization, is to do it together. Till now we have been doing this on a small to medium scale and in a scattered manner, but let us now shift from this somewhat anarchic way to a properly managed and well organized way of kicking.

Accordingly, this season we will be bringing to you a very varied set of events centered around kicking little things. Since the program has not yet been finalized, you are welcome to send any suggestions. The only condition is that the things to be kicked should be little (literally or metaphorically), should be alive and should not be able to hit back. Things which hit back cause unpleasantness and we do not want any unpleasantness on such a joyous occasion. Let everyone enjoy without any hindrance.

However, after some discussion and based on your feedback, we have decided to allow things which are able but unwilling to hit back.

Many suggestions have already been made about how the events should be designed. These include kicking indoors and outdoor, in person and by proxy, in sunlight and under artificial light, solo and as a band. And so on. The events could also be categorized according to the weight and age of the kicker and the kicked. The possibilities are limitless. The only limiting factor is the number of kickers and kickables. We are in touch with the sponsors (who have also agreed to provide prizes for the medalists) to ensure a reliable supply of the latter and have replacements ready during all times. But we need your cooperation for the former.

As you already know, the focus this time will be on kicking little dogs.

One of the attractions will be musical kicking. In this type of event, you can bring your own favorite piece of music and kick with the music (and perhaps even dance while you do it). From the popular Singing in the Rain to the classical Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, everything is allowed. You can even bring music composed by you. But do try to bring only very good music. The events should maintain the standards for good taste.

Once again, the events are going to begin soon. The rehearsals have already started. Be sure to turn up in good strength. We can all make it a great success.

Vitaliate

So someone brought down the image of your profession, country, community etc.? You got to vitally retaliate. Know that little dog outside? Why not go and kick it in the head real hard. It really deserves it. Remember that other day when someone kicked it in the belly and it barked back? Not just that, it even growled back at the next person who had just brought his foot near its head. Not even touched it. Needs a lesson. The next time it growls back it should be kicked till it stops. This can’t be allowed to go on.

You got kicked too? I know, but that was by a superior. That’s more like a friendly thump on the back. We are not talking about that. There should be some order.

And also do something about the guy who brings the newspaper. He brings bad news and brings down the image of all good things. There should be a law against such news. But those freedom bullshit people won’t allow such a law to be passed.

Still, at least remember to kick that little dog and any other little thing that shows any impudence.

On the bright side of life, there is also the fact that newspapers are now focusing more on the news that is paid for. Such news must be better news on the whole than the outdated socialism kind of news.

Live professionally, hire your body, mind and soul and kick little dogs real hard.

In the head.

Don’t miss any such occasion. Gradually they will disappear.

Sharing Treasure – This Land

A parody of the Woody Guthrie song This Land Is Your Land by JibJab.

A great song for great democracies.

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

Everything You Always Wanted To Say But Were Afraid To

This must be surely on the minds of many ‘highly educated professionals’, but one of them has actually come out and said all this. And not even under the cover of anonymity…

I think that there should be planned elimination of those groups of people who are seen to create problems to the “vision” of India as an good advanced superpower democracy. These irritating problem creators talk nonsense and bring down the image of India by talking about poverty, hunger, human rights etc and counter the good work that the highly educated middle class Indians working in MNCs and abroad do,to propagate the very nice image of India as a posh country with great malls, technology and being generally great.

They should be eliminated as part of an elimination policy and which groups should be eliminated can be determined by polling and asking the good indians who work in the US, the MNCs and other good posh middle class professionals and we are sure to get many nominations of groups that should be completely eliminated .These groups should include the “intelligentsia” who are useless irritants and spoil the name and image of India and of no use compared to the highly educated professionals working in the US and in the MNCs who everyone should listen to because they are the intelligent and good people.

The only slight drawback of this policy is that it can lead to situation where the country will be significantly depopulated and we will be left with noone but the good educated middle class. There would not many people of the lower classes left to admire the goodness and the greatness of India and the highly educated professionals. One way of circumventing this problem is to have along with the program of elimination a program for brainwashing,using mind control techniques etc including psychosurgery so that some people who are the problem can be made to change their opinion of India and the educated middle class indians that they are good , that India is a wonderful country etc.

We should all admire the brave stand. The forthrightness is really like a breath of fresh air.

So when is the pogrom, I mean program, starting? May be it’s already on.

I wonder which category do I fall in.

Walls have Fears

On walls live creatures
They don’t just have ears
They have eyes and they have teeth
And they sure don’t have tears

What adds to their terrors
Is that they can’t be easily seen
But you can feel their presence
If you are one of their victims

They can communicate with each other
With a system more sophisticated
Than that of elephants or whales
It’s so sophisticated that only
Intelligent Design can explain them

They have concrete manifestations
But they are mostly abstract
No wonder so is their food
They don’t eat your meat
They eat your lives and your work and your protestations

You can be safe from them if you want
It’s all a matter of belief and loyalty and obedience
As it has always been through the ages
With other kinds of fearsome creatures

The question is whether you accept
The benevolent supremacy of the Intelligent Designer
Who put them there to watch over you

Just believe and abide and salvation can be yours
Don’t and you, with your work and your life
Can be completely mucked up, inside and outdoors

Milk as Karma

Someone called someone milk
Milk as noun or milk as verb?
Milk as the subject or milk as the object?
Milk as the karta or milk as the karma?

The answer appears as a vision
Of huge torrents of something
(It could very well be milk
Of, you know, something)
Flowing from one end
Of the Zipf’s Law curve
To the other end

How Many Grams?

There is an automatically (intelligently) generated blog which I have read recently.

It appears to be (let’s give ’seems’ some rest) quite a popular one in a certain section.

I know the corpus on which it was trained.

And the corpus on which it was retrained.

(Including most of the quotes and the comments, especially the long ones).

But I wonder whether the order of n-grams was five or six.

It is definitely better than four grams.

It could even be Se7en.

This brings up a new idea.

What about writing a paper on automatically guessing the order of n-grams, given some generated text?

It may be difficult in the general case, but in our case we know the corpus on which it was trained.

Any takers?