Dr Bowdler

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In Shakespeare's time, England was free from inhibitions. By the 19th Century, this Nation of Shopkeepers unwittingly acquired an Empire and then there emerged a Society Stratum that turned genteel to maintain its status different than the worker-bees. Typical Jane Austen Syndrome. In these well-fed households the long winter months were cruel to spend forcibly indoors in the wretched English climate. There was no Radio, TV to divert them. So, the fathers took it upon themselves to amuse and educate their wives and kids by reading aloud passages from the Bible and Shakespeare.

One such was little Bowdler's father. When he grew up to be a physician of private means, Dr Bowdler turned to his father's pastime of reading Shakespeare aloud to his kids. He discovered to his consternation that his late lamented father was conning them by omitting, rewording or sweetening some very juicy sentences from the original Shakespeare. It then occurred to him that he could do himself and the prudish English households enormous good by publishing his own version of a 'Family Shakespeare' fit for consumption of the forthcoming Victorian Society. It sold like hot cakes and Bowdler was immortalized by becoming a verb 'bowdlerize' for 'censoring', which can be said to have officially begun with him, at least in Literature.

When the acutely British 'The Statesman' copy containing my celebrated article 'In Praise of Laziness' arrived at my desk, courtesy Shyamal, I was curious to see how much of my 'copy' was bowdlarized by the resident represantative of the erstwhile British Empire in The Statesman House in Chowringhee. I was astonished to note that it suffered no major editorial licenses than changing some Capital Letters to which I am addicted to lower case. And it was acompanied by the routine Debabratada's drawing. And I was amused to see that the picture he drew neither had Sherlock Holmes. nor SDM, nor even me; but an IAS Babu in the Writers Building relaxing in his stupid chair with a cigarette in his hand, and a matchbox on his Table which had a heap of files in the Inbox and none in the Outbox. I could figure it out that when my article landed on his desk, Debabratada saw the Title and wanted to be true to it by being too lazy to read the 'copy', but assume its contents.

My IAS brother-in-law was curious to see Debabratada's picture more than my article. It so happened that they had a family get-together at Hyderabad, six highly accomplished brothers and their womenfolk. And I was asked to bring along with my wife a xerox copy of the Statesman article, which I carried to the Hotel suite where they were staying. As I entered the room, the youngest of the six brothers snatched the paper from my hand. Now, this gentleman was an MD in Microbiology settled in London for over a quarter century. By sheer dint of his services to Her Majesty the Queen he was recently honored by an OBE (Officer of the [defunct] British Empire). And he started reading it aloud for the benefit of the gathering of a dozen or so gentlemen and an equal number of ladies (with the exception of me and my wife, who would wilt to be so labeled).

Now, this Read Aloud thing is something which always embarrassed me acutely. And I knew that there was a word in my 'copy' fit to be censored out by an OBE, and was waiting for it to arrive. When the OBE saw it while reading aloud, he paused, recovered his composure quickly, and replaced it by a more innocent upstart. What the Statesman didn't dare do to me was done by an OBE. I could have dragged him to a British Court of appropriate jurisdiction:

The offending word was: 'bum'. I called Sherlock Holmes the proverbial 'lazy bum'.

He read it out as: "lazy, ahem, Man"!

I give you below the Free Online Dictionary's Entries:

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bum: 1
n.

1. A tramp; a vagrant.
2. A lazy or shiftless person, especially one who seeks to live solely by the support of others.
3. An incompetent, insignificant, or obnoxious person: 'The batter called the pitcher a bum'.
4. One who is devoted to a particular activity or milieu: 'a beach bum'.

bum 2
n. Chiefly British Slang

The buttocks.

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You be the Jury and the Judge. Our own USA hands out 4 meanings all of which vindicate me and only 1 'British slang' which bugged him.

Am I not justified to be peeved?

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His IAS brother, who happens to be my brother-in-law (Saalah Inverse) was having a rather poor opinion of Retired IIT Professors of Physics as unread except in Physics unlike the widely read IAS Brotherhood. But, after reading 150 of my impromptu Limerical Political Satires, he reversed his opinion and turned a fan of mine (these IAS chappies know which side of their bread is buttered...."Better be the first rather than the last to appreciate and encourage 'hidden' talents").

When I wrote an amusing but biting piece of satire called 'Mehsud mehsud' and sent it to him, this was his spontaneous reply :

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Wah Janab! Wah! Apne Kamal kardiya! Khuda se mujhe yeh dua hai Apki is Hasee-majak sada salamath rakhe! diwali mubarak! asli mazhab ye hai "Auri ki dukh se jo pershan nahi hota wo majhab koi bhi ho, woh musalman nahi hai. khud hafiz apki shub chintak.

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So far so good. But when a week later I happened to meet him at his Madras Home on my return trip from Madurai, he did point out that Brahmins don't have 'pony tails' as I wrote in that piece, but 'pigtails'. I was fresh from Srirangam, the chief temple town of Vaishnavites (to which be happens to belong) and I told him that I saw all the Pujaris there with ponier-like tails than the pigtailed Shaivites. And the matter ended there.

While preparing the piece for printing in my booklet: 'Woolgathering' I reread the sentence;

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"They even sell Veg Haleem nowadays for pony-tailed Brahmins"

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I found the word irreplaceable, not because of its veracity, but 'pigtailed' sits uneasily if it replaces the word 'pony-tailed'.

Reason: Our beautiful Lady Teacher of English at our University taught us that the letters l,m,n are special in the English alphabet and they are called 'lyrical' letters particularly if they occur in combinations like in: 'lemonade, moonlight, or even lamentable'.

And my sentence above bristles with combinations of these letters; and the harsh guttaral 'pigtailed' would be a brash intruder.

So I kept it as such, IAS or no IAS!

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Below I take pains to keyboard a devastating sample of bowdlerizing:

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Oliver Wendell Holmes, more than a century and half ago, was 'commissioned' to write a short poem to a committee for a certain celebration, which he thought was to be a festive and convivial occasion. But its President turned out to be a 'teetotaler'. So, Holmes' poem was suitably 'altered' by the President.

Here is the original poem;

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Come! fill a fresh bumper,- for why should we go
While the nectar still reddens our cups as they flow!
Pour out the rich juices still bright with the sun,
Till o'er the brimmed crystal the rubies shall run.

The purple glebed-clusters their life-dews have bled;
How sweet is the breath of the fragrance they shed!
For summer's last roses lie hid in the wines
That were garnered by maidens who laughed through the vines.

Then a smile, and a glass, and a toast, and a cheer,
For all the good wine, and we've some of it here
In cellar, in pantry, in attic, in hall,
Long live the gay servant that laughs for us all!

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And below is the teetotaler President's 'slightly altered' version:

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Come! fill a fresh bumper,- for why should we go
While the logwood still reddens our cups as they flow!
Pour out the decoction still bright with the sun,
Till o'er the brimmed crystal the dyestuff shall run.

The half-ripened apples their life-dews have bled;
How sweet is the taste of the sugar of lead!
For summer's rank poisons lie hid in the wines!!!
That were garnered by stable-boys smoking their long-nines.

Then a scowl, and a howl, and a scoff, and a sneer,
For all strychnine and whiskey, and ratsbane and beer
In cellar, in pantry, in attic, in hall,
Down, down, with the tyrant that masters us all!

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