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Bismarck, SP Singh
& Personal Websites
 Bismarck
once said that God looks after fools, drunks, children, and the
U.S.A. I am not in the U.S.A., I do not drink, and haven’t been
mistaken as a child for many years now. Almost crossing over to
the right side of 40 in times when the premium is on being
young, but still nursing an alter ego so inflated as to include
a wish to have a personal website, I must be falling in the
category of fools. For, after all, God did take care of me
reasonably well, or I wouldn’t have survived thus far,
considering the reckless way I have lived my life.
A personal
website is an alter ego. And for some strange reason, this page
is called homepage. As if homes have anything to do with pages!
Personal
websites are, in fact, about exhibitionism. Indians are pretty
good at it, just as Britishers are good at being eccentrics.
Indians would perform poorly on eccentricity index (most are so
predictable), just as Brits would be clumsy at exhibitionism.
Wellspring
for both eccentricity and exhibitionism must be common -- the
difficulty to get noticed. Brits don't bother about the man next
door, and there are so many Indians around that your turn to get
noticed doesn't come even when peeping into the next man's life
is a national characteristic behavioral strain.
Ours is a
loud culture. We don't cry silently, but beat our chests
publicly. We don't celebrate over a glass of sparkling
Chardonnay wine and polite conversation as great raconteurs but
indulge in loud braggadocio talk over hard whiskey, or in case
of those afflicted with inverse snobbery, the home-brewed desi.
At times I
think if I was struck by the idea of having a personal website,
it could most certainly have its roots in my Indianness in
having a braggadocio streak.
So, please
put down my audacity of inviting you to partake of the spread
here to this streak, much the same which caused Brits to invent
hobbies, those muffled pastimes as train spotting and collecting
beer mats.
The British
enjoy anonymity, but we hate such a quieter state of being.
Think of the long line of eccentrics in British literature. The
Canterbury pilgrims are nearly all so. Think of the bard's
Falstaff. Think of Dickens' Miss Havisham, Miss Flite (in "Bleak
House"), Mr. Dick (in "David Copperfield"), Mr. Pickwick and his
friends. Think of Wodehouse, whose characters are eccentricity
unbound.
But now
think of Indians. Think of Sheikh Chilly, think of Mulla
Nassarudin, think of Ravana and all the other demons, why, think
even about all our gods, the Shiva, the Vishnu...
I am
only reflecting this civilisational trait by putting up this
website, but if you still aren't convinced, okay, please put me
down to the only category I can fit into in Bismarck's quote.■
Summer 2006
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