Re: [Assam] The Inscrutable English...

Thu, 24 Feb 2005 08:24:29 -0800

Dear Ankur,
 
Brilliant. Did you write it all yourself.
 
"You excell yourself!! " (now was that inscrutable?)
 
Umesh

Prasenjit Chetia <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Do the Englishmen understand now that the "Inscrutability had risen
out of vanity" and the what about the "authentically Indo-British", is
he the new Indian breed ? Why people who wrote their names in history,
were mostly modest ? And most who got their names written had the
inscrutable pride.



On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 10:13:12 +0000, Ankur Barua <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:
> The
> Inscrutable English
>
>
>
> Someday perhaps I shall re-write the colonial history of India with this
> thesis : the reason why the English managed to subjugate the Indians for two
> hundred years was not because the English were Imperial but because they
> were Inscrutable. The Americans may have overtaken the English today with
> their imperial high-handedness, but with their fetishization of Plain
> Eng! lish they cannot come even an inch close to the heights that the English
> had one reached in their love of Plain Inscrutability. Observe these
> snatches of conversation between an Englishman and a Native, with myself in
> the thankless role of an interpeter.
>
>
> (A)
> Englishman : This is not proper at all. No, really, it is not.
> Native : 'Sahib, what is not proper? Too much sugar in your tea? The dog bit
> Memsahib again?'
>
>
> Myself : 'The Native is here asking a very improper question. When an
> Englishman says that this is not proper, he is in fact referring to
> everything in the world. Nothing in the world is ever proper for him. At one
> time, he had an unchallenged control over the seas, only to be overtaken by
> hordes of barbarians from other nations, and now the natives themselves are
> fomenting trouble in the hinterlands. Back at home, it is either the> middle-classes in Manchester, the lower-classes in Dublin, the Greek-classes
> in Oxford, the no-classes in Parliament, or the class-less in Moscow. No,
> nothing is ever proper to an Englishman. As for an Englishwoman, everything
> in this world is proper for her, but that is just because her Englishman
> says so.'
>
>
> (B)
> Native : Sahib, last year I read all the novels of Charles Dickens and Emily
> Bronte.
> Englishman : 'Oh, did you?'
> Myself : 'The Englishman is not asking for more information with that
> cryptic question. He is simply saying, 'Yes, dear Native, I bet you did. Go
> on, go on, what more nonsense shall I have to hear from you now? When my
> Cambridge don asked me to go to India and serve King and Country, little did
> I know that I would meet an upstart with the refined sensitivity to read
> Dickens and Bronte. What a nerve!'
>
>
&! gt; (C)
>
> Native : Sahib, we want freedom from your oppressive regime.
>
> Englishman : 'Brilliant! You couldn't have put it better.'
>
>
> Myself : 'Is the Englishman agreeing to the native's demand here? Far from
> it, he is applying a rhetorical trope which he effectively used on his
> demure wife when she had demanded that she should be given the right to
> vote. He is saying, 'Very well, now you are finally talking like John Stuart
> Mill. But Mill, my dear native, is passe. Haven't you read the London
> Gazette? My, what is the world coming to!'
>
>
> (D)
> Native : Gandhi and Nehru are starting a mass movement against you. How are
> we doing on that front?
> Englishman : 'Oh, not too bad, not too bad. The wind is picking up a bit,
> but London says that the storm will wear itself out very soon. What do you
> say, Pickles?' (Pickles is his D! oberman.)
>
>
> Myself : 'This is every Englishman's last line of defence. An Englishman who
> utters 'not too bad, not too bad' is usually a sinking one who is catching
> on to any straw that comes floating his way. And considering the fact that
> one out every two Englishmen (2001 census statistics) mutters this inanity
> every morning, it is no wonder that Englishmen keep on complaining that they
> have a sinking feeling.'
>
>
> (E)
> Native : Memsahib, if you so wish, I could take you on a tour of the Taj
> Mahal in broad daylight.
> Englishwoman : 'Oh, how preposterous! Don't you keep up with the literature?
> I mean, haven't you a clue about E.M. Forster? No, thank you very much, I do
> not need a passage to the Taj Mahal.'
>
>
> Myself : 'Not being adept at Freudian psychoanalysis or the intricacies of
> post-colonial theory, the Transparent Ironis! t desists from making any
> comments on this one.'
>
>
> (F)
> Native (on August 15, 1947) : Sahib, err, I mean, Mr. Churchill, can we
> shake hands now and forget the past?
> Englishman : 'What? Shake hands with a man of straw! An Englishman will
> never, ever stoop to such a depth!'
>
>
> Myself : 'The Englishman here is revelling in his favourite tea-party game
> for little children called How To Build a Straw Man (And Then Destroy Him).
> He often applies this game to his understanding of international politics in
> the valiant hope that people outside his island really are strawmen. This
> policy has one great advantage : the next time he gets that sinking feeling,
> he can hold on to one of his strawmen and plead with him to rescue him.'
>
>
> (G)
> Native (on August 16, 1947) : Oi, you there! Didn't we ask you to leave
> sometime back, eh? S! o shake a leg and get on with it, will you, eh?
> Myself : 'Yes, mate, getting along with the job, eh. Just packing off the
> last few tins of curries and baltis. Cheers! Care to join me later for a
> drink, eh?'
> Transparent Ironist : 'Thus the ground was laid for the rise of one of the
> greatest civilisations in human history, the Indo-British of which the
> Transparent Ironist is himself an inhabitant. He considers himself neither a
> Native nor an Englishman; he is that strange hybrid that lives on the
> hyphenated middle between the two, and delights in each other's foibles. In
> the end, these foibles are also his own, for he is incurably Indo-British.
> In this manner, of course, he has exposed himself to fire from both sides :
> some will complain that he is not 'authentically' Indian, others that he is
> not an 'authentic' Briton. As for himself, he can only reply that he is
> 'authentically' Indo-British.'
>
> Ankur
> 25 February 2005
>
>
>
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--
Prasenjit Chetia
Atlanta, GA
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