Get me a tharoorasaurus

Amul’s ad. Image from: The Indian Express

 Once upon a time, I did not know the meaning of the word “lalochezia”. But then, I met him. And my life changed.

I used to walk around this world, very comfortable with the notion that I was very erudite. I used to write essays, stories, and even poetry. My mother used to tell the whole world that I got a perfect score in GRE. My friends mocked me for saying “dulcet” instead of “musical”, or “prurient” or “orgiastic” instead of “sexual” or “horny”. My closest friend stopped talking to me for two days because I made fun of her for not knowing the difference between mordacious and mendacious.

But then, one day, as I was picking papayas from the clouds atop Lake Michigan, he appeared with some bananas in his hand, on a cumulus of lavender. I will never forget the noisomeness of the combination of papaya, banana and lavender in the air. I thought he would leave, but he just sat there in the sky, while I tiptoed on the surface of the lake, picking my papayas.

I did not want to talk to him initially. He seemed very vain, and kept twirling his thick, shiny hair. His eyes, a seductive hazel, were hard to avoid though. But the moment I gave in and smiled at him, everything went blank.

I found myself in a dingy room full of books. A cave, almost. A broken, dusty bulb hung from the ceiling, too close to my face. He sat across me, a fat notebook in his hand. His hair was different. Curlier than I remembered it.

Slowly stroking his cleanshaven dimpled chin with his right hand, he asked me, “I believe you love to gasconade about your perfect GRE score? I hear you too bore everyone in your life with endless rodomontades about the English language? I hear you too are a victim of the commoner’s floccinaucinihilipilification of a talent so rare?”

I stared.

But he went on, now smiling, “I may have finally found a sesquipedalian worth talking to. Life was getting rather bromidic, don’t you think? We have enough to deal with – snollygosters ruling the world, kakistocracy in power everywhere! The last thing we need in this world are hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobics who keep spinning a farrago of allegations against us. So puerile. Why don’t they understand that I am not trying to discombobulate anyone? I am no fan of circumlocution…”

The soporific cadence of his speech was a potent anodyne. I fell asleep just as he began saying something about the insurrection of idioms…

I woke up. I checked my phone. My mother had texted me the article “Unique English Words That Dr Shashi Tharoor taught us”. I threw my phone out the window.

And then I woke up with a start.

His appearance in my dream strangled any scripturient passions I might have had.

I began to use words like “great”, “amazing”, “incredible”, and “cool”. I even confused mordacious and mendacious while writing a book review. I stuck to the simpler “spurious”. I read a Chetan Bhagat novel. And I lived happily ever after.