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During the early 1970s there was this gentleman visiting our Faculty Hostel at IIT KGP. Observing him and talking to him randomly on matters of heaven and earth, I was puzzled how to describe his personality in English. And failed to do adequate justice.
Then one evening I was talking to our Eng Lit genius colleague in the hostel, Basudeb Ghosh, about this gentleman and he solved my puzzle in delightful Bengali:
"Log ta bhalo, kintoo moorkho"
meaning:
"The gentleman is well-meaning but moorkho"
I was familiar with that untranslatable word: "moorkho" since it is there in Sanskrit and Hindi and many Indian languages including my mother tongue, Telugu.
"Moorkho" is made up of 50% obstinacy and the rest a mixture of insensitivity, thoughtlessness, ego, indelicacy and plain cussedness in various proportions.
There is this poem in Telugu (maybe from Bhartrihari original):
meaning:
"You can squeeze sand and get oil, hunt and find water in a mirage, dig out the horn of a hare, but you can't enlighten the mind of a moorkho"
All bigots are moorkhos, vide Autocrat's definition:
"The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye...the more light you pour into it, the more it contracts"
It is often dangerous to try and teach moorkhos.
There is the story of two monkeys resting under a tree after collecting dry leaves on a winter evening and trying to light their fuel catching dozens of fireflies and dumping them into it. And failing but persisting. A dove sitting on a branch of the tree watches the monkeys and alights and tells them not to act like moorkhos.
The two monkeys go wild and kill the dove for insulting them.
Rarely, however, canonical moorkhos turn wise by divine intervention. Like Kalidas. The story goes that he was a woodcutter, sort of, and had his own perverse way of cutting branches of trees. He would climb the trunk, walk up to the end of a branch, turn around facing the trunk, sit straddling the branch, saw it off ahead of him, fall down to the ground along with it, get up and dust himself and climb the trunk again for cutting the next branch...like I tried to do experimental research on NQR for seven long years.
Then suddenly Goddess Kaali (like my Guru SDM) takes pity on him and turns him into a poet.
But as I said this is rare.
Old folks are prone to grow more and more moorkho...ask my son...he has been trying to teach me how to use the laptop without getting spondy and failing.
As for diplomacy in foreign affairs, the US is the ultimate moorkho...it never learns. It has been pampering and cajoling and indulging our good neighbor on our western front ever since its birth...but giving it the last laugh. And with all its megagigatera nuclear bombs, it had to flee a tiny country like Vietnam tucking its tail ingloriously. And it has no clue how to deal with our northern neighbor, which if it catches cold, the US will sneeze. Etc etc etc.
Enough examples of moorkhos I have given. Let me give one of who is NOT a moorkho...the mod woodcutter who had lost his golden axe earlier in Aesop's river:
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During the early 1970s there was this gentleman visiting our Faculty Hostel at IIT KGP. Observing him and talking to him randomly on matters of heaven and earth, I was puzzled how to describe his personality in English. And failed to do adequate justice.
Then one evening I was talking to our Eng Lit genius colleague in the hostel, Basudeb Ghosh, about this gentleman and he solved my puzzle in delightful Bengali:
"Log ta bhalo, kintoo moorkho"
meaning:
"The gentleman is well-meaning but moorkho"
I was familiar with that untranslatable word: "moorkho" since it is there in Sanskrit and Hindi and many Indian languages including my mother tongue, Telugu.
"Moorkho" is made up of 50% obstinacy and the rest a mixture of insensitivity, thoughtlessness, ego, indelicacy and plain cussedness in various proportions.
There is this poem in Telugu (maybe from Bhartrihari original):
Tiviri isumuna tailambu deeyavachchu
Davili mrigatrishna lo neeru daagavachchu
Tirigi kundetikommu saadhimpavachchu
Jeri moorkhuni manasu ranjimparadu
"You can squeeze sand and get oil, hunt and find water in a mirage, dig out the horn of a hare, but you can't enlighten the mind of a moorkho"
All bigots are moorkhos, vide Autocrat's definition:
"The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye...the more light you pour into it, the more it contracts"
It is often dangerous to try and teach moorkhos.
There is the story of two monkeys resting under a tree after collecting dry leaves on a winter evening and trying to light their fuel catching dozens of fireflies and dumping them into it. And failing but persisting. A dove sitting on a branch of the tree watches the monkeys and alights and tells them not to act like moorkhos.
The two monkeys go wild and kill the dove for insulting them.
Rarely, however, canonical moorkhos turn wise by divine intervention. Like Kalidas. The story goes that he was a woodcutter, sort of, and had his own perverse way of cutting branches of trees. He would climb the trunk, walk up to the end of a branch, turn around facing the trunk, sit straddling the branch, saw it off ahead of him, fall down to the ground along with it, get up and dust himself and climb the trunk again for cutting the next branch...like I tried to do experimental research on NQR for seven long years.
Then suddenly Goddess Kaali (like my Guru SDM) takes pity on him and turns him into a poet.
But as I said this is rare.
Old folks are prone to grow more and more moorkho...ask my son...he has been trying to teach me how to use the laptop without getting spondy and failing.
As for diplomacy in foreign affairs, the US is the ultimate moorkho...it never learns. It has been pampering and cajoling and indulging our good neighbor on our western front ever since its birth...but giving it the last laugh. And with all its megagigatera nuclear bombs, it had to flee a tiny country like Vietnam tucking its tail ingloriously. And it has no clue how to deal with our northern neighbor, which if it catches cold, the US will sneeze. Etc etc etc.
Enough examples of moorkhos I have given. Let me give one of who is NOT a moorkho...the mod woodcutter who had lost his golden axe earlier in Aesop's river:
Some time later the woodcutter was walking with his wife along the riverbank, and his wife fell into the river. When he cried out, the Lord again appeared and asked him, "Why are you crying?"
"Oh Lord, my wife has fallen into the water!"
The Lord went down into the water and came up with ANGELINA JOLIE "Is this your wife?" the Lord asked..
"Yes," cried the woodcutter.
The Lord was furious. "You lied! That is an untruth!"
The woodcutter replied, "Oh, forgive me, my Lord. It is a misunderstanding. You see, if I had said 'no' to ANGELINA JOLIE , You would have come up with AISHWARYA RAI. Then if I said 'no' to her, you would have come up with my wife. Had I then said 'yes,' you would have given me all three. Lord, I am a poor man, and am not able to take care of all three wives, so THAT'S why I said yes to ANGELINA JOLIE ."
By: Pankaj Malik
"Oh Lord, my wife has fallen into the water!"
The Lord went down into the water and came up with ANGELINA JOLIE "Is this your wife?" the Lord asked..
"Yes," cried the woodcutter.
The Lord was furious. "You lied! That is an untruth!"
The woodcutter replied, "Oh, forgive me, my Lord. It is a misunderstanding. You see, if I had said 'no' to ANGELINA JOLIE , You would have come up with AISHWARYA RAI. Then if I said 'no' to her, you would have come up with my wife. Had I then said 'yes,' you would have given me all three. Lord, I am a poor man, and am not able to take care of all three wives, so THAT'S why I said yes to ANGELINA JOLIE ."
By: Pankaj Malik
Sent by Aniket
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Chutzpah
The original definition of chutzpah goes like:
"The boy who killed his parents and then asked the jury for clemency on the grounds that he was an orphan"
gps: Substitute "juvenile" for "orphan"
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