Column | Are you experiencing a rollercoaster of emotions?

Hello readers! How are you? I hope you have not forgotten the official twin mottos of this column:

Motto one: Life is short. Use it well.

Motto two: Therefore do not watch Indian TV news for even one minute.

Friends, last week, there was some disheartening news about a very young bureaucrat. This fellow, who had only joined the civil service a few years ago, had been apprehended by the authorities in the process of accepting a bribe.

The ‘steal’ frame of the Republic and so on and so forth.

The whole thing reminded me of an incident that happened a quarter of a century ago, when this writer was but a youth in college. It is a brief story. We will shortly come back to the main thrust of this column — linguistic confabulation.

So one day, a distant relative of mine decided to retire from his business in the Middle East and return to his ancestral village in Kerala. Today this village is a bustling town. But back in those days, it was very much a villatic place. Little tea shop in the corner. Neighbours secretly trying to move fences and accost property. Coconuts falling on children. Cows in the barbershop. That kind of thing.

So this guy came back and decided that he was going to dedicate his life to the people. And he would do this by standing as a candidate in the Panchayat elections. His platform was incorruptiblity, and he said he would join any of the local parties if they abided by his “clean” manifesto. The parties rushed to his house immediately. This guy was well-loved, and was prepared to self-finance his campaign. The perfect candidate.

Eventually, he chose one party. And the campaigning began. And he and his party swept to power.

At the time, I told my grandfather: “Wow, what a great man. I am very optimistic for this village.”

My grandfather said: “Nope.”

Immediately after the election, his party trooped back to his house for an emergency meeting. “Hello guy,” they said, “we need to talk about incorruptibility a little bit. Just a minor trifle. No big deal. But basically we would like to bring back corruption in a limited manner. For the betterment of the people.”

Their point was as follows: ‘Look guy, you went to the Gulf and made money. We don’t have any money. We spent all our lives doing politics. Now finally we are in power. Unless you let us take a little bit of commission on the side, our families will suffer. We will only take a little bit. But otherwise we will be fully clean. It is a fair request.’

He said, fine.

I told my grandfather: “Oh no.”

My grandfather said: “Yep.”

(My grandfather used a grand total of 300 words in his whole life. Around 150 of which were “Nadia Moidu”. A fine use of limited resources.)

Dear readers, how many times have we experienced this very same roller-coaster of emotions?

Young whippersnapper enters the arena. Threatens to shake things up. To destroy the status quo. To uplift the masses. To invigorate the discourse.

And immediately, you think to yourself: “What a refreshing development! I am feeling so optimistic for this person… but also for the country as a whole. A new dawn is upon us!”

But you also think: “However, what if a few hours after the new dawn, there is a vigilance raid because of refreshing development in the person’s mattress due to note bundle? Better to be a little bit careful. Just in case of absolute shenanigans.”

Readers, there is as yet no word in the English language that captures this quintessentially Indian predicament. I propose, therefore, the word ‘nope-timism’.

Example sentence: “The new CEO announced he would eliminate all office waste and introduce radical transparency, but Julie felt a tiny bit nope-timistic when she saw him take the coffee machine home, including two litres of milk.”

I am confident that this new word will help us navigate public life with greater calm and balance. I am sure of it. Okay, fine. I am nope-timistic.

The writer is head of talent at Clarisights. He lives in London and is currently working on a new novel.