Thanx!

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"That woman speaks eighteen languages, and she can’t say 'No' in any of them."

...........................................Dorothy Parker

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That is our Naughty Dorothy at her vitriolic best.

But let us dismiss the sex angle implied by her in just one sentence:

Had Adam or Eve the sense to say: "No!" to the other or to the Resident Serpent of their Eden Gardens, the entire Holy Bible would have just been like this watery blog: gul tales that don't hang together.

And with that crack we pass on to weighty matters.

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It is safe to say that all tragedies, mythological as well as historical, depend crucially on the inability to say an emphatic: "No!" at the critical moment by their Heroes, Heroines or Villains.

Iliad wouldn't have been written if Paris had the courage to say: "No, Thanx!" to serve as Judge at that infamous Beauty Contest.

And the botched travels of Odyssey wouldn't have happened had Ulysses the guts to say a blunt: "No!" to join the ridiculous war for a woman (Woman is only a woman but a good cigar is SMOKE!; ask our Kipling) instead of humming and hawing and pretending to be mad...not an easy thing to do at the best of times.

The crux of Ramayan is the abduction of Sita, which wouldn't have happened if her husband or b-i-l put their feet down and said: "No!" to as illusory a thing as a Golden Deer (even Ishani can figure that out).

And the Mahabharat that culminated in a fratricidal war depended on a series of mishaps that could have been avoided by a loud: "No!"; for instance by Yudhistir to the invitation of a Gambling Game with heavily loaded dice.

Hitler would not have lost his Battle of Britain and his War had he shouted: "Nein!" to the stupid advice to stop bombing the Aircraft Factories at Coventry but bomb London instead, out of pique; and Churchill's stirring speeches like: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few"....would have been like so many silly slogans on Hyderabadi sweatshirts.

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An honest and prompt "No!" is much better than a dishonest "Yes" or a weak and meek "OK".

So many heart-wrenching divorces (with kids on both sides) could have been avoided if the guy demurred when confronted by the objective: "Wilt thou...?"; a question that should have really been topic for a 3-hour Essay.

Well, I Googled and found it is not as short and crisp as our JEE Objective questions:

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http://lordbeazy.deviantart.com/art/Wedding-Vows-Two-133576561

"Wilt thou take this woman
With all her charm and grace,
And give to her the strength she needs
Beneath that gown of lace.

Wilt thou honour this woman,
And cherish her winsome ways.
Keep alive her shining smile,
All through the autumn haze.

Wilt thou adore this woman
Who has pledged her love to you.
To keep her safe and free from harm
In all the things you do.

Wilt thou compare this woman
To a rose petal’s lightest kiss.
Recognising her inner beauty,
Satisfy her dreams of bliss.

Wilt thou forgive this woman,
As dawn forgives the night.
She never offered perfection,
Seeking only what is right.

Wilt thou lay with this woman
In the golden sands of time.
Pledge your heart and soul to her,
And in all things be sublime.

Wilt thou revere this woman,
And swear to never part.
Give to her all things she needs
With undivided heart.

Then I pronounce you man and wife
To honour each and banish strife
This is the woman thou hast chose
I give thee both a symbolic :rose: "


......................................"What the deuce, I mean to say, Bertie!"

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And then we always have the Buddhist middle path:

Instead of saying a blunt "Yes" or No", there are several devious ways out.

Once the denizens of this Earth were fed up with the inequities of the Rule of Ishwar, and decided to petition him for granting them a Democracy, like the US.

So, they urged their Holy Cow reputed for her Honesty to forward their request to Him.

When Ishwar asked our Holy Cow: "Is this what I hear true?", she nodded assent with her head up and down, but denied it by a shake of her tail; giving the Benefit of Doubt to both the Ruler and the Ruled.

Ishwar took the hint and suppressed the revolt ruthlessly: That's why we are now in this hapless state described by Dorothy herself:

"If you want to know what the Lord thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to".

Anyway, Ishwar thereupon decreed that the Holy Cow's tail (not to speak of her urine) is holier than her head. And that is why in AP, her tail is washed first and worshiped before tackling her head; and the Pradikshin (circumambulation) starts from her behind rather than her head.

And then there is this civilized Brahmin glutton who, when asked if he wanted one more laddu, would vigorously shake his right hand like the dickens but with his left forefinger point to the vacant place on his plate.

And when Feynman asks his electron: "Are you a particle or a wave?", she just smiles, like our civilized Indian ladies unlike Dorothy's blunt New Yorker Polyglots.

My Father insisted that I should say either "No, thanx!" or "Yes, thanx!" instead of just those monosyllables.

But I discovered one better:

When this Senior Pool Officer was posted in our Dept, he caught hold of me in the Lounge of our Faculty Hostel and lectured me for ten minutes how to teach Electrodynamics the Modern Way.

And at the end of his oration he looked at me as if asking my opinion and when I said: "Thanx!", he ran back to his native Ithaca.

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