Well, well – ‘Wanton whimsy’ was started upon a whim, and lo! It’s one year old already.
I hope a lot of you folks will say ‘Happy Birthday, and many happy returns’.
One thing I can vouch for: it’s hard work, no matter who you are, to be funny and off-beat at a stretch without being merely vulgar and fatuous. Even with help. So I need more help here. Not only by way of encouragement from my followers (may their tribe increase), but with frequent inputs of good stuff.
And also, I need more comment. In contrast to my other blog, my readers here are strangely silent. Feeling shy? … by the way, the best comments I have got in this one year are the one which was a witty rejoinder to something I had written, and the one which said this blog had completely restructured the mental image of me that the writer had built up on the basis of hearsay about my reputation.
Since this is a ‘whimsy’ blog rather than merely funny, I am also open to suggestions about new directions in which it may venture. Meanwhile, I’ll think of things on my own, rest assured. I remember Holmes telling Watson with a touch of pride in his voice, quoting Shakespeare, ‘I trust that age doth not wither, nor custom stale, my infinite variety’.
For now, I sign off with a little poem about one of the founding fathers of modern economics, Adam Smith, written by Stephen Leacock, who like me trained to be an economist, but later became a writer of humour. This has been quoted in Amartya Sen’s latest opus, The Idea of Justice:
Adam, Adam, Adam Smith
Listen what I charge you with!
Didn’t you say
In a class one day
That selfishness was bound to pay?
Of all doctrines, that was the Pith.
Wasn’t it, wasn’t it, wasn’t it, Smith?
In a rare lapse into elitism, Sen quips, paraphrasing Shakespeare from Twelfth Night, that ‘while some are born small and some achieve smallness, Adam Smith has had much smallness thrust upon him’. I leave my more erudite readers, especially the economists among them, to figure out what Sen means!
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5 comments:
Sir,
I like this blog of yours because of its lighter aspects on serious issues.
Wishing Happy Birthday to this blog. We all hope to read more of your posts in the coming days.
Regards,
Subhajit
Very Many Happy Returns of the Day for your Wantonly whimsical Blog, Suvroda. I'd sing the birthday song for it if I were there.
I'd never heard of that limerick, and now I've been saying it in my head off and again since I read your post. Thanks for sharing that and the last bit. Oh, and I liked the bit on Holmes too. Can quite see that.
Keep writing...
Love and luck.
Shilpi
Dear sir,
first i would like to wish your blog a very happy birthday. I hope this blog attains much more fan following than ever before. Yes, you are right – being funny and to make people laugh, to sustain it for one long year without being vulgar or offensive is truly very difficult. However, I do feel humor is meant for the classes and not for the masses. This is why one sees such rash comedy shows on television. If they use humor, their TRP’s will go down drastically. I feel you have done a marvelous job this past year and hope much more joyful reading in the years to come.
I liked the limerick very much which you mentioned in this article. You were very correct when you pointed out mr. amartya sen is elitist when he says ‘some people are born small while some attain smallness’ . What i feel is mr.sen may have meant small in the context that some people are born poor ie, they are born in relatively poorer sections of society and chained eternally by illiteracy , ignorance which is basically the roots of poverty. I think mr.sen could have used the word in a more appropriate way. This said, i would like to point out i have the fullest respect for a noble laureate like mr. amartya sen and i do not intend to criticize him in any way.
However, I feel mr.sen is right when he says it is upon the nature of an individual that he demonstrates through his behavior which determines one’s true colors. One’s learning, values and culture determines whether one grows up to be a good human being in life or not. Nobody is born small in this world. It’s what one consciously and willfully chooses to become in real life that matters. One always gets paid back in the same coin for one’s actions – that also in the same lifetime. God never punishes someone for one’s ‘karma’(actions) which one may have done in one’s earlier life in this lifetime – even if i were to believe in the cycle of life and death. All sins have to be accounted for in this lifetime only. However, i do believe we all imbibe ‘smallness’ from the social set-up we are brought up in. Children learn to cheat from their peers, selfishness from their parents, hypocrisy from the society etc. They grow up with this mindset without ever realizing this is so harmful to their development as a true human being. But if one has the courage, he can easily overcome all these smallness and be the kind of person he wants to be in life. The power for change always lies in our hands. One just needs to ask himself what kind of an individual he wants to be. This is however true, in this age – rarely do people give any respect towards good behavior or kindness or genuine sympathy,except in certain circumstances. People even mistake one’s goodness or niceness with one’s weakness.
One needs to be determined if one has to stand his ground or not deviate from one’s beliefs and values in life. So, the choice is all ours – whether to join the crowd and adapt ourselves to the needs of the age where ‘smallness’ is supreme or to take that bold step and be different confidently.
Regards,
Avishek Mondal
( Student )
This is what, I wanna say..
Suvro's blog I love a lot,
wit and humour, it's landscape dot,
from docs to socks,
you have it all,
it feels to me like
the 'good-life' call!
Suvro's blog,
it hones your skill,
fun and pun,
they boredom kill,
it is sometimes you,
and sometimes me,
Sir's blog: lets reality, see!
So,
now that it has one year passed,
I pray thee that
for decades it lasts,
for every time Sir has something told,
I've felt, I'm growing old!
Love
Manoshij
Oh dear - Avishek, I'm no economist but the Amartya Sen quote makes sense when you see that Adam Smith has been viewed negatively by different groups of individuals who see Smith as having promoted a narrow form of self-interest (see the funny limerick that Suvroda's posted by Leacock), which forms the basis of the free market system. What Sen is getting at I'm guessing is that Smith doesn't deserve quite so much censure from so many people for he didn't merely talk about promoting or upholding a narrowly defined selfishness although that’s what most people best remember Smith for...Smith seems to have had 'smallness thrust upon him'....and so one chuckles.
That's what I walked away with...Suvro da would be able to explain things much better with greater clarity and depth.
Shilpidi
P.S: No, life does not work according to a cause-and-effect relationship.....We are not always 'paid back' in life for either good or bad actions over the course of a single lifetime, and there is more than culture, values, and even one's learning that 'determines' an individual. I know people say that we reap what we sow - but there is plenty of indeterminacy within that picture and parts that cannot be explained mechanistically.
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