[Reader-list] Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, Tarun and Others

[pratap pandey]

Dear Tarun, and all,

I like the way you refer to me as a "puny and
frustrated intellect".

You are right. I an puny (I "merely" possess a
computer). I am frustrated. Which enjoyer-in-knowledge
teaching in a college in India is not? Are you not
frustrated? Would you not grab an opportunity to teach
at some college in Illinois, USA, if you got the
chance?

I wouldn't. That's because I couldn't. I do not
possess your kind of knowledge into things. I, too,
teach in a college. Most of my energies go into
teaching first- and second-generation learners English
Grammar and conversation, so that their dreams of
getting "good" jobs get fulfilled. It's difficult to
handle clauses, active-passive Voice, and Zizek, in
one day. [I actually prefer Dudek (the Liverpool
goalkeeper)].     

Out of these frustrated enjoyers-in-knowledge turned
lecturers-by-employment, some manage to find a
hobby-horse, and so get out of their frustration.
Others, like me, are still searching.

At least you concede that I possess an "intellect".
Thank you. Coming from a Hindu college teacher, that's
the best compliment anyone from Delhi's academic
community could have paid me. 

There obviously exists a discourse from within which
serious, unfrustrated, unpuny, academics like you
produce your statements. I want to say "dominant"
discourse, but you already know that my "familiarity"
with "serious academic debates", and hence concepts,
are "suspect".

My "attempts" to "display familiarity with serious
academic debates" become "suspect" only when you wish
to speak within a pre-ordained (you would say:
continuously changing, or, eminently inflected)
universe of discourse. You obviously believe that
there exists only some ways of saying things; I want
to test a belief I have: can we say the same things in
other ways, completely different ways.

The "obnoxious comments" are a way to see if satire
(however badly or incompetently rendered) can
co-exist, within the dominant discourse of the
"serious" academic community, as a form of anarchic
knowledge that can say the same things in a different
way. So also "this contributor's previous postings".

I have always suspected that Global aeducated Indians
are not friendly to satire. You are familiar with
genres, with the demands of "form " and "genre". Yet
you do not recognise satire when you read it (like a
literary reviewer in an Indian weekly magazine would,
you call it "personalised slander"). Your outrage
confirms my suspicion. If intelligent people like you
react to satire (however bad) like this, how will I
ever publish anything? 

Nobody who writes on the Internet is a "person". One
is only an identity. One merely takes a position, a
stance. I wish you had commented more on the textual
stance of "my" postings, rather than commenting on
"me". "You" know "me". Don't use that knowledge to
comment on "me". That's bad politics. Comment on what
"I" post. Discuss its merits. Instead of saying
"smutty tone and quasi-pornographic drift", I wish you
had discussed the poems. They may be bad. That's
because I may be a bad (trying to be) satirist.
But discuss the material, not the intention of the
author (oops! more "egregious posturing and
self-promotion").
  
Instead of being outraged, you could look into the
political rationality of conversing in as many
languages as possible, in as many ways as possible.
Especially on the Internet. Please check out other
lists, like rhizome.org. There, people abuse each
other more openly, without neo-conservativist fear
(Oops! Some more "self-promotion"!).

I don't understand what you mean by "peeping tom
overtones". Am I too close to you?

The sarai reader's list has not been "hijacked" by me.
I am not a terrorist. Please don't unsubscribe. That's
a loss to the list. The list needs intellectuals like
you to be a "contributor".

Your (correctly) high-moral threat to unsubscribe to
the List makes me want to unsubscribe. Why are you
taking this stance? It is I who posted the "ugly and
motivated innuendo". So I should unsubscribe. The list
doesn't need "the worst sort of tendency" that I
obviously represent.

I say again: please, please don't unsubscribe. Please,
please don't blackmail the List. Kick me on my ass, if
you want to. I'll come to Hindu College to receive the
kick in person, if you want me to. But please leave
the list out of this.   

You are from Hindu College, a venerable institution.
Although Ania Loomba and Suvir Kaul fled from there,
because they felt "puny" and "frustrated", you possess
a lot of cultural authority in Delhi by being a
teacher in Hindu College.

Therefore, I apologise to you. In the future, I might
write a book that might come to you for review. I bow
to you with folded hands. I beseech you to forgive me
for my (incorrect) turds of discourse.

In the same vein I apologise to all readers, outraged
or not. You cannot see my folded hands. But believe
me, they are now folded, in a way I never have
publicly ever folded them before. They are obscenely
folded.

Namashkar.   

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