PARAGRAPH, WORDS AND MEANING
PARAGRAPH OF THE DAY –
Talk like a South Asian –
The Maldives imbroglio has become a fable for international politics. Politics, especially international politics, often appears to be an eerie combination of slapstick and farce. One sees an exhibition of egos, of the sheer pomposityof power barely hidden behind sanctimonious words like national interest and security. Whenever Chinese one-upmanship finesses India in the neighbourhood, we fall back on exercises in pedantry, unaware that India cuts a sorry figure in the local political scene. Our obsession with Pakistan and China makes us indifferent to other countries in the neighbourhood. South Asia as place, as a bubbling culture of diversity, gets converted to space or at the most to turf or territory. The future of India as a South Asian imagination becomes dim as India turns hysterical over China’s entry into the Maldives. Yet three things are obvious. We have no sense of the Maldives. We treat their politicians as vassals who have become rebels. We are almost orientalist in our attitudes to islands like the Maldives, Mauritius, treating them as lesser orders of political reality. It is as if the annexation of Sikkim is our chosen model for South Asian politics.
WORDS AND MEANING –
1) Imbroglio
Meaning: An extremely confused, complicated, or embarrassing situation.
Example: “the abdication imbroglio of 1936”
Synonyms: Complication, Entanglement
2) Fable
Meaning: A supernatural story incorporating elements of myth and legend.
Example: “he had conjured up a monster fit for any fable”
Synonyms: Myth, Epic
3) Eerie
Meaning: Strange and frightening.
Example: “an eerie green glow in the sky”
Synonyms: Ghostly, Spectral
Antonyms: Normal
4) Slapstick
Meaning: Comedy based on deliberately clumsy actions and humorously embarrassing events.
Example: “slapstick humour”
5) Farce
Meaning: A comic dramatic work using buffoonery and horseplay and typically including crude characterization and ludicrously improbable situations.
Example: “he toured the backwoods in second-rate farces”
Synonyms: Slapstick, Travesty
Antonyms: Tragedy
6) Pomposity
Meaning: The quality of being pompous; self-importance.
Example: “his reputation for arrogance and pomposity”
Synonyms: Pretension, Arrogance
Antonyms: Modesty, Humility
7) Sanctimonious
Meaning: Making a show of being morally superior to other people.
Example: “what happened to all the sanctimonious talk about putting his family first?”
Synonyms: Pious, Unctuous
8) Finesses
Meaning: Impressive delicacy and skill.
Example: “orchestral playing of great finesse”
Synonyms: Skill, Expertise
9) Pedantry
Meaning: Excessive concern with minor details and rules.
Example: “to object to this is not mere pedantry”
Synonyms: Dogmatism, Formalism
10) Bubbling
Meaning: Be filled with an irrepressible positive feeling.
Example: “Ellen was bubbling with enthusiasm”
Synonyms: Overflow, Gush
11) Turf
Meaning: Grass and the surface layer of earth held together by its roots.
Example: “they walked across the springy turf”
Synonyms: Lawn, Sod
12) Vassals
Meaning: A holder of land by feudal tenure on conditions of homage and allegiance.
Synonyms: Liege, Serf
Antonyms: Freeman, Lord
13) Orientalist
Meaning: A person who studies the languages and cultures of East and Southeast Asia; relating to orientalism.
Example: The orientalist fantasies of Western colonialists.
14) Annexation
Meaning: The action of annexing something, especially territory.
Example: “the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938”
Synonyms: Seizure, Occupation
