Farrago(ed) narrative of a Rocket Scientist

One of the most abused words in the English language is...? You don’t need to be a Rocket Scientist to know that. Personally, I am exasperated with this abuse. A college punk with flared nostrils admonishes the nerd with a randomly hurled “Rocket Scientist” into the sentence in the college canteen debate.

Then there is the NGO leader with his impeccable trimmed beard to a length where time and space ceases, closing his eyes into a trance, takes a deep breath and drops the Rocket Science bomb to demolish his opponent’s arguments into ruins. Utopia!

Anyone who wants to project himself as intellectual uses it. Anyone who wants to identify himself as smart, cool or chic uses it. Anyone who doesn’t want to be anyone of these afore-mentioned categories uses it.

Even our Aunties use it with a blush and an elbow nudge to the coy adjacent aunty: “You don’t have to be a Rocket Scientist to know how to please him with just Sarsoo de Saaag.”

Or “it’s not Rocket Science Betaaaa...” She rubs in the humiliation-masala with scrunched eyes and nodding her head sideways: “Areehh....NoRocketScience.” In moments like these you almost see a halo, which also sways with the head. 

But, of late another word that has given me cold sweats during unending nights – and you don’t need to be a Rocket Scientist to know that - is “NARRATIVE.” Uhhhh...eeeee...

You switch on the Indian News channels and you will find some TV anchor, a panellist, a WhatsApp Warrior, a Facebook fighter, a columnist all milking the word. Most with a smirk and garlanded with certificates from self-certified intellectuals!

Narrative is yours...Narrative is theirs...Narrative is ours... Narrative is different... “What is the narrative?”...  

I am upset that this narrative would soon enter into the bedrooms and kitchen where one of the aunties, with hands on her hips, ask a trembling Uncle: “SO WHAT IS THE NARRATIVE IN THE KITCHEN TONIGHT, HA!?

Later in the night, the Uncle begging to the aunty in the bedroom: “will the narrative change tonight Pumpkin....eh... pie?”

There is a herd mentality into these usages where my waterhole is being muddied. These are “exasperating farrago of bleats.” Oops! I said it; hope farrago is not the proverbial sacrificial lamb next in line. We have to pray for now.

But no matter what, I will never tire in this life of a narrative of a person who comes close to my understanding of a rocket scientist when he said: “ARE YOU SERIOUS? If you know what I mean you must have also noted the modulation. 

It goes from a high pitched modulation to a soft echoing whisper that caresses your cheek with a Zarda Pan-induced warm breath of a chronic-seducer: Are you S e r i o u s? Are you S e r i o u s? Are you S e r i o u s..........?

Damn it of course I am not stay away... neither are a 100 million Mango-men!