DNA Edit: What magniloquence! – Tharoor’s remarks are marketing gimmicks

Shashi Tharoor sure knows how to peddle his wares. Having been in politics for a while, he realises the efficacy of controversial statements in  marketing his latest offering: The Paradoxical Prime Minister, which has none other than Narendra Modi on the cover. The Congress MP  from Thiruvananthapuram is his own publicist — making the most of every  public platform he has access to with his looks, gift of the gab, and erudition, strictly in that order. Without going into the literary merits of his last two books, the other being Why I am a Hindu, his choice of subjects in keeping with the zeitgeist, reflects the astuteness of a marketing wizard. A wizard who can turn ‘floccinaucinihilipilification’ into a fruitful exercise in self-aggrandisement. There you go, even the  mention of Tharoor can afflict one with literary diarrhoea. 

But herein lies the distinction! While Tharoor’s tongue-twisters can set social media on fire, a similar attempt by a lesser mortal won’t even elicit a ‘bleh’! Tharoor is, to borrow the cliché, ‘a thinking person’s sex symbol’ who will make crowds at literary festivals eat out of his hands, thanks to the overall decline in popular culture. In this age of crass public discourse, Tharoor, a gentle ‘Grammar Nazi’, is the Modern Colossus of refined free speech. Indian politics needs Tharoor because of the quality of his performance that appeals to both the East and West. He can turn into a compelling nationalist while holding forth about the exploitative nature of the British Raj. No wonder he has supporters from the Left, Right and Centre. So, let’s give it to Tharoor for enriching our vocabulary and the occasional mirth. The people deserve a break from “the exasperating farrago of distortions, misrepresentations  and outright lies”.