Books & Guides

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Here is a comment that was posted yesterday on a 2-month-old blogpost: 'Nellore-Kovur Marathon':

Anonymous said... " Amiable post and this post helped me a lot in my college assignment. Thank you seeking your information. "

Can't quite make out.

It is definitely from a student in Nellore or Kovur (can't be from Timbuctoo).

Naidu, the ex-CM, who transformed Hyderabad from a lazy easy-going Nizam's place of palaces into a modern IT hub rivaling B'lore, set up the IT culture in AP. Every youngster here is more net-savvy than me.

He also replaced 'History' in the school curriculum with 'IT'.

Sad that 'history' is taking a sweet revenge on him.

In any case, students of English must be scanning the web day and night for their 'suitable' assignments: 'copy-paste'.

In our days it was 'mug-vomit'.

1950's: English surely was the bugbear of 90% of village matriculation students.

So, there appeared in the market fat volumes called 'Guides', shabbily printed on thin paper, but cheap enough.

They were published by Madras companies with names like 'LIFCO' (for Little Flower Company, with three little tiny tots as their emblem. Also Leo and Duco).

They appeared in the market before the text-books did: Inside information.

Marvelously produced but expensive text-books then came with a suitable time-lag.

These 'Guides' had all the 'lessons' followed by: Questions & Answers, typical essays, letter-writing exercises, typical grammar questions and what not.

We were forbidden to be seen with these things in our hands; along with vernacular 'pornography' pocket books and 'detective' books (starring Yugandhar on his red Lambretta scooter, a hotch-potch of Perry Mason, Holmes and Agaatha Christie themes).

The reason is that if the examiner finds two or more 'identical' essays, all these will be scratched and marked zero.

I did consult them for extra 'points', but I mugged up the text-book which apparently was ok!!!

Now, I think, web-search is replacing 'Guides'.

Anyway, in my University we had 2-years of grueling English, with 17 text books, Selections, novels and what not.

The Shakespeare drama was 'Julius Caesar' (Bernard Shaw's was 'Candida', the routine question on which was: "What is the secret in the poet's heart?": My answer was like: "Love & Sex don't mix for poets; while Love warms the poet's heart into sublime verse, sex cools it down to the absolute zero of disillusionment").

While I was passing through my 'Shakespeare' uncles' place, he asked me what my Shakespeare was, and when I said it wa Julius Caesar, he gifted me from his bookshelf one 'precious' copy of an 'annotation' book written by a devious British critic and told me to read it and use it since it was most unconventional.

'Julius Caesar' is special: unlike the other dramas of the Bard, the title-bearer of this drama is killed in the Third Act itself, although his ghost survives till the end.

So, the standard question used to be: "Who is the 'hero' of 'Julius Caesar'?"

A chap who dies midway can't be the hero. Nor Mark Antony, since I suppose there was another drama after him and Cleo.

The standard answer was: 'Brutus'; much like Yudhistir is supposed to be the hero of Mahabharat, though some say it is Draupadi.

Anyway, this queer book gifted me by my uncle very cleverly argues that Cassius is the real hero (it was he who plots the entire assassination while Brutus was just putty in his hands).

Like say, Shakuni could be the real hero of Mahabharat.

Lit folks are funny: How does it matter who the hell the hero is?

Why not Just Enjoy!!! Did Shakespeare bother?

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Mark Twain: "There is no difference between one who doesn't read and one who can't".

Rather strong words!!!

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