TOPIC OF THE DAY –
“The Thoothukudi Fables”
The Thoothukudi firings of May 22 have been read as linear narratives, as specific reports without possessing the power of storytelling. The Thoothukudi violence needs a storyteller to capture the eloquence, the poignancy of anecdotes. One has to see the fables not as remote fragments, morsels of a marginal India, but as a microcosm of what is happening everywhere. Thoothukudi has to be treated as an early warning system for the emerging threats to Indian democracy.
Three tales –
One cannot even begin with a “once there was” because Thoothukudi is a collection of three tales. Time determines the depth and level of story. It is, first, a tale that began over 20 years ago when the Sterlite plant shifted from Maharastra to Tamil Nadu. It is also a tale that began 100 days before the firing, when housewives, children and villagers created a community of protest which found its one-lakh-strong epicentre at Thoothukudi. Yet the tale from Thoothukudi is just over a fortnight old when we focus around the scandal of the firings.
The euphemism of media reports is intriguing. They are generally dubbed as shootings or firings, they are not called killings, blatant acts of murder. The symbolism of a sniper and the needlessness of his violence no longer belongs to the Gaza strip. Terror is at home in Thoothukudi and elsewhere as state terror extends its tentaclesworld-wide.
Thoothukudi is global and local in a different sense. It reflects the new conversation between a decade of oral history, the complaints, the everyday gossip of people dying, of children fainting in school, the moment when the eventless history of environmentalism clashes with the trauma of the Internet. That the Internet was suspended in the area after the killings makes one realise that it is not in Kashmir alone that such events take place. Time becomes critical because suddenly the silence of waiting, the epidemic of little prayers, the little protests around every village combine to show that Sterlite is not just one company town but a state of mind. It introduces us to the company towns of the mind, the new panopticons which are spreading like dictatorships across the world. The ease with which environmental tribunals and scientific laboratories are subverted needs to be chronicled. Words such as sustainability or corporate social responsibility become acts of hypocrisy, the new oxymorons of ethics created by a corporate world indifferent to everyday suffering. As an ecologist friend of mine observes, there are more protests outside the Vedanta office in London than in India. It is almost as if patriotism and security are concepts designed to protect corporate greed.
WORDS AND MEANINGS –
1) Firings
Meaning: The discharging of a gun or other weapon.
Example: “The prolonged firing caused heavy losses”
2) Eloquence
Meaning: Fluent or persuasive speaking or writing.
Example: “A preacher of great power and eloquence”
Synonyms: Oratory, Rhetoric
3) Poignancy
Meaning: The quality of evoking a keen sense of sadness or regret; pathos.
Example: “The pregnancy has a special poignancy for her family”
Synonyms: Pathos, Distress
4) Anecdotes
Meaning: A short amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person.
Example: “He told anecdotes about his job”
Synonyms: Story, Tale
5) Fables
Meaning: A short story, typically with animals as characters, conveying a moral.
Example: “The fable of the sick lion and the wary fox”
Synonyms: Parable, Apologue
6) Morsels
Meaning: A small piece or amount of food; a mouthful.
Example: “Juliet pushed a morsel of toast into her mouth”
Synonyms: Mouthful, Bite
7) Microcosm
Meaning: A community, place, or situation regarded as encapsulating in miniature the characteristics of something much larger.
Example: “The city is a microcosm of modern Malaysia”
8) Epicentre
Meaning: The central point of something, typically a difficult or unpleasant situation.
Example: “The epicentre of labour militancy was the capital itself”
9) Fortnight
Meaning: A period of two weeks.
10) Scandal
Meaning: An action or event regarded as morally or legally wrong and causing general public outrage.
Example: “A bribery scandal involving one of his key supporters”
Synonyms: Impropriety, Wrongdoing
11) Euphemism
Meaning: A mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing.
Example: “The jargon has given us ‘downsizing’ as a euphemism for cuts”
Synonyms: Substitute, Understatement
Antonyms: Dysphemism
12) Intriguing
Meaning: Arouse the curiosity or interest of; fascinate.
Example: “I was intrigued by your question”
Synonyms: Interest, Fascinate
Antonyms: Bore
13) Blatant
Meaning: (Of bad behaviour) done openly and unashamedly.
Example: “Blatant lies”
Synonyms: Flagrant, Glaring
Antonyms: Inconspicuous, Subtle
14) Sniper
Meaning: A person who shoots from a hiding place, especially accurately and at long range.
Example: “He was killed by a sniper’s bullet in the Great War”
15) Tentacles
Meaning: An insidious spread of influence and control.
Example: “The Party’s tentacles reached into every nook and cranny of people’s lives”
16) Gossip
Meaning: Casual or unconstrained conversation or reports about other people, typically involving details which are not confirmed as true.
Example: “He became the subject of much local gossip”
Synonyms: Tittle-tattle, Whispers
Antonyms: Facts, The truth
17) Fainting
Meaning: Lose consciousness for a short time because of a temporarily insufficient supply of oxygen to the brain.
Example: “I fainted from loss of blood”
18) Trauma
Meaning: Emotional shock following a stressful event or a physical injury, which may lead to long-term neurosis.
Example: “The event is relived with all the accompanying trauma”
Synonyms: Shock, Upheaval
19) Panopticons
Meaning: A circular prison with cells arranged around a central well, from which prisoners could at all times be observed.
20) Dictatorships
Meaning: Government by a dictator.
Example: “The effects of forty years of dictatorship”
Synonyms: Despotism, Autocracy
Antonyms: Democracy
21) Tribunals
Meaning: A court of justice.
Example: “An international war crimes tribunal”
Synonyms: Board, Panel
22) Subverted
Meaning: Undermine the power and authority of (an established system or institution).
Example: “An attempt to subvert democratic government”
Synonyms: Destabilize, Unsettle
23) Chronicled
Meaning: Record (a series of events) in a factual and detailed way.
Example: “His work chronicles 20th-century migration”
24) Hypocrisy
Meaning: The practice of claiming to have higher standards or more noble beliefs than is the case.
Example: “His target was the hypocrisy of suburban life”
Synonyms: Pietism, Humbug
Antonyms: Honesty, Sincerity
25) Oxymorons
Meaning: A figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction (e.g. faith unfaithful kept him falsely true ).
26) Greed
Meaning: Intense and selfish desire for something, especially wealth, power, or food.
Example: “Mercenaries who had allowed greed to overtake their principles”
Synonyms: Avarice, Rapacity
Antonyms: Generosity, Temperance
