Best of both worlds

We all give in to a bit of intellectual vomiting now and then. Back in my grad days, these sessions sometimes carried on for entire nights until the ‘fuelled’ bon-fire of thoughts would be extinguished by hunger and other primitive human functions. It was these regurgitations that sometimes resulted in scrawlings on the wall, almost always status messages. In fact I am pretty confident that they would have led to a novel or two had not Chetan Bhagat beat us all too it. That guy ruined the novelty for the rest of us. (Pun intended.) But something that would always surely result from such a session was a blog post. But is that why we used to indulge in them? To write a blog? To announce to the rest of the world that even though we were studying engineering we shouldn’t be considered literarily challenged? Quite frankly, I think it was because we had nothing else to do. Bhagat recently wrote an article (again, I had nothing else to do at that time) for the TOI in which he coined a new term ‘lerd’. I can quite imagine MR. ‘I-do-all-my-writing-on-flights’ smiling smugly to the air-hostess as he was penning this, no doubt basking in the glory of being able to brandish his literary license in the face of innocent readers yet again. Apparently, lerds are the literary students, the social intellectuals. They are the other side of the coin of which nerds, the scientific intellectuals form one face. He then goes on to suggest the failings of each of these groups. He also considers himself a nerd and quite humbly (well, for him atleast) accepts that his ‘rigorous’ scientific studies have rendered him socially inept.

The point is, CB advocates a meeting of minds, a give-and-take between the nerds and the lerds of this country in order to reach solutions to the problems of this country. But reading between the lines, you can clearly see that he is actually invoking a hybrid of the two species. Maybe an engineer? Someone who went on to study the interplay of arts and science that is called management or business administration? Also, maybe someone who led a highly goal-oriented life, like that of a banker, but pursued non-goal oriented dreams, like that of an author? You get the drift; the conceit of CB betrays him in his article. In a nutshell, he seems to suggest that he and his kind are the future of the country. Bhagat knows his readership base quite well and rightly assumes that they will fail to see through the pedestrian screen of words he has put up once again to hide the big flickering neon sign that says ‘ME’.

Now there is some value in what he says in the article, but I don’t think, that the likes of Chetan Bhagat are what this country needs. Let me explain why. To my mind, the hybrid that hesuggests will never give rise to an offspring that has the best qualities of both. In fact, most certainly it will be the mediocrities of both groups. We need to go back to those sessions in grad school to understand why. As I said, the reason for those sessions was that we had nothing better to do. I can look back today and see clearly that those who enjoyed the ‘rigorous’ scientific studies rarely indulged in these vomiting sessions. It was us lot that found themselves disillusioned with what they thought they would be doing in a engineering school that indulged. My lerd friends too would indulge in scientific pursuits only if they found the Sociology 101 akin to chewing cardboard. What happens when a nerd tries to be a lerd? Chetan Bhagat and his notion that he will inspire the youth of India into greatness. Now I am not saying that an engineer shouldn’t write a book, or an arts graduate shouldn’t head an automobile manufacturer. What I am saying is, we shouldn’t even start to assume that we are shaping a country’s future or in fact achieving any other such goals of similar magnitudes. What we are, are nothing but the outcome of a marriage of mediocrity of both worlds.

Now there are some people who are the best of both worlds. And there is a title given to such people. They are called polymaths. They are the likes of Benjamin Franklin, Michelangelo and maybe Steve Jobs, in his own way, was one too. But history suggests that polymaths are not ‘made’, they just ‘are’. And quite clearly, Chetan Bhagat isn't.

Well, maybe that is what Chetan Bhagat meant afterall. Yet again, it takes lengthy rant to fathom that his lenghty rant about how he is a nerd and other blahs, was actually a one liner. India needs some polymaths.

p.s. A word on TOI. The newspaper has well and truly sold its soul now. The sunday editorials page was the only space that still maintained the class and stature of the old days. But now Chetan Bhagat frequently features on it.