Monday, January 18, 2010

Vacuous and Verbose-14

“The death of Jyoti Basu is an irreparable loss to the nation”, say Surjit Singh Barnala, Siddhartha Shankar Ray, Mulayam Singh, Mayawati and Tarun Gogai in their respective condolence messages.

That expression may not have been inappropriate if death had snatched away a distinguished person in the prime of his youth or one who, potentially, had several years of productive service left. But describing the demise of a long-retired, nonagenarian, however great his past achievements might have been, as an irreparable loss to the nation is ridiculous.

I don’t see why this cliché is resorted to when there are so many more at one’s disposal. Examples :“He strode the arena like a colossus”. “He was the last of the Gandhians”. “He was a true patriot”. “His contribution to the country, state and party was immense”. “He cared and fought for the poor”.

3 comments:

ramesh said...

i really don't get the big deal over the death of these old dinosaurs ..i mean seriously did they expect old jyoti to reach 110!! these leaders probably have done a lot over their lifetime (at least that's what they make us believe) but to spend an entire day of news coverage on them is weird especially when they have been invalid for many years.. old advani, vajpayee etc. etc. will be thinking that at least when they die they too will be mourned grandly.. in fact they should fake their death so that they will get a grand high in their 80s or 90s on seeing such 'love', adulation and rhetoric pour forth .. sigh on the other hand we earthly beings will just get a simple family funeral and some sobs by family and friends ..

Balajisblog said...

Raj - I quite like Ramesh's idea of grand old men in politics faking their own death. I did not understand Sonia's comment " he did not go gently into the good night "...what does she mean...did JB have a horrendous death ? Balaji

madapura said...

I am pretty sure that the 'copywriter' was bored to death and just 'cut and paste' from previous comments. We all know that these folks, PM included have ghost writers who pen these words. So what else can you expect? some more gibberish. Truly, they need to read the weekly obituary column in the economist to get some new ideas (but they are so well written, that our guys would not know how to use them!).

Bhaskar