Sloguns

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This morning I saw this slogan on the ambulance of a corporate hospital:

"Cure with passion and care with compassion"

I am sure this will never catch on and will remain a curiosity for retired folks like me. If it has to go viral and provoke, a slogan ought to be short and crisp.

Like, say, "Vande Mataram!" during our British Rule. I heard it during my infancy. I am sure the Brits never understood what it meant but they didn't care...they saw in it a sharp rallying cry they thought would shake their Empire (which it did by and by). And they ordered their (Indian) Police to wield the lathi on whoever utters it. That was enough for the slogan to catch on.

During our school days (early 1950s), there was this Telugu Fantasy Movie: 'Pathala Bhairavi'. There is this six-inch golden statuette of the goddess. Whoever holds it to his forehead and says: "Jai Pathala Bhairavi!", will have the goddess materialized in front of him in human form and asks: "What's your desire, Man?" And it will be fulfilled at once, like: "Bind the Princess and bring her here!" The movie became an all-time hit and the slogan: "Jai Pathala Bhairavi!" was heard everywhere; at home, in the streets, in schools, uttered by urchins and street smarts.

Unfortunately this dhoti-clad Maths Teacher of our Village School one day got uppish and cried: "Jai Pathala Bhairavi!" when his confirmation letter was delivered to him in the class. That's it! Wherever he went, in the school compound and the Village streets, urchins used to howl: "Jai Pathala Bhairavi!" whenever he was seen strolling. And he used to react obnoxiously trying to chase them. And he got fed up one day and shouted at them: "You are like dogs which bark when the elephant walks majestically in the street."

Next day onwards they used to tease him shouting: "Elephant! Elephant!! Elephant!!!"...I guess there is a moral there...I can't find what.

"Jai Pathala Bhairavi!" also led to a street fight between students of Andhra Medical College at Viskhapatnam and shopkeepers. It so happened that one medico went to the cigarette-cum-soda shop and in his momentary exuberance said: "Jai Pathala Bhairavi!" And unfortunately the shop was then being manned by the wife of the owner. And she couldn't resist the slogan and smiled and reacted: "What's your desire, Man?" And he winked and said: "YOU are my desire, girl!"

Old Congressmen fell on their face when they couldn't resolve which of them should be the PM when Lal Bahadur Shastri suddenly died at Tashkent in early 1966. They thought they would install young Indira Gandhi as a stopgap while they resolved their in-fight. And chuckled: "She is but a goongi gudia (dumb doll)". Very soon they discovered that she was smarter than all of them put together and when she called for Elections, they came up with the slogan: "Indira Hatao! (Banish Indira!)" And she turned the tables on them by the counter-slogan: "Garibi Hatao! (Banish Poverty!)" Till date no one knows who coined this winning slogan, but she went public with the disarmingly innocent battle-cry: "O bol rahen hain, Indira Hatao! Mai bol rahan hoon: Garibi Hatao!" She won hands down and the Old Guards as they were dubbed were dumped promptly into the dustbin of history. Such is the power of a smart slogan, mouthed by a smart woman. Let us hope her D-i-L will come up with a similar winning counter-slogan against her bete noire who once proclaimed, rather hysterically, that she would shave off her head if the D-i-L is installed as PM; which is done ritually at a nominal cost at Tirupati.

As for battle-cries, I am told by an Army Officer in our Faculty Hostel that the Gorkha Regiment's: "Ayo Gorkhali!" is blood-curdling. This is because Gorkhas are allowed to always carry their khukri (curved steel knife) with them in their belts. And they understand and adhere to the Geneva Convention strictly but they don't believe in the wisdom of taking POWs (say, to the tune of 93,000).

But some slogans, after their purpose is served, take on different and comical meanings. For instance, during the Liberation of East Pakistan in 1971, the battle cry was: "Jai Bangla!" After the dust settled down, the eye infection conjunctivitis, came to be called: "Jai Bangla" even at IIT KGP. Perhaps because it was exported as a sweet revenge by the country which India helped create...


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