Some voices, which belong to the past, resound unambiguously in the present. Sidney Joseph Perelman, the famous American humourist of the venerable New Yorker magazine, fits the bill. In 1955, after he read about Motilal Nehru sending his clothes to a Paris laundry, wrote “No Starch In The Dhoti, S’il Vous Plait”—a spoof about an enraged Motilal writing to his Parisian dhobi, Pleurniche, accusing him of ruining his clothes and sending a knave to sort it out.
Paris July 18, 1903;
Pandit Motilal Nehru
Allahabad, U.P., India
DEAR PANDIT MOTILAL:
I am desolated beyond words at the pique I sense between the lines in your recent letter, and I affirm to you on my wife’s honour that in the six generations the family has conducted this business, yours is the first complaint we have ever received… Only yesterday, Marcel Proust, an author you will hear more of one of these days, called at our établissement (establishment) to felicitate us in person. The work we do for him is peculiarly exacting; due to his penchant for making notes on his cuffs, we must observe the greatest discretion in selecting which to launder. In fine, our function is as much editorial as sanitary, and he stated unreservedly that he holds our literary judgment in the highest esteem…
Yours cordially,
OCTAVE-HIPPOLYTE PLEURNICHE
Allahabad, U.P:
September 11, 1903
DEAR M. PLEURNICHE:
Spare me, I pray, your turgid rhetoric and bootlicking protestations, and be equally sparing of the bleach you use on my shirts. After a single baptism in your vats, my sky-blue jibbahs faded to a ghastly greenish-white and the fabric evaporates under one’s touch… Five or six days ago, a verminous individual named Champignon arrived here from Pondichéry, asserting that he was your nephew, delegated by you to expedite my household laundry problems. The blend of unction and cheek he displayed, reminiscent of a process server, should have warned me to beware, but, tenderhearted that I am, I obeyed our Brahmin laws of hospitality and permitted him to remain the night. Needless to say, he distinguished himself. After a show of gluttony to dismay Falstaff, he proceeded to regale the dinner table with a disquisition on the art of love, bolstering it with quotations from the Kamasutra so coarse that one of the ladies present fainted dead away… He was gone before daylight, accompanied by a Jaipur enamel necklace of incalculable value and all our spoons….
Your well-wisher,
PANDIT MOTILAL NEHRU
As follows, the absurd mimics reality in public life. Confusion births disinformation. By exposing their ignorance about Rahul’s plans with the Priyanka smokescreen, Congressmen are washing the party’s dirty laundry in public. In a family born with silver spoons in their mouths, bringing Robert Vadra into the party is like Champignon stealing the silver. But then how much land does a family need? The whole of India?
ravi@newindianexpress.com