Sharing our concern with subdued vigour

One can, of course, make things like this up. Except, in this case, it isn’t. IIT Kharagpur authorities have reportedly sent out a mail to the institute’s students asking them to participate in an essay competition to commemorate Narendra Modi’s 74th birthday on September 17. Nothing wrong with that at all, considering our socialist-Sovietesque past has always been extra enthusiastic about commemorating our political leaders from Nehru-Gandhi (Mohandas and Indira) times. The subject of the essay competition, ‘How Prime Minister Narendra Modi Strengthened India’s Global Relations‘, is also kosher. Similar mails have reportedly been sent out in other institutions, other IITs included. Nothing like a bit of 750-800 words essaying to make those nation-building juices flowing properly.

Our niggle is with something else, admittedly minor. The mail on behalf of the Technology Students’ Gymkhana states, ‘The director wishes our students to participate with full vigour so that we are able to bag the first prize in the competition.’ Why ‘with full vigour’? That too asking young students brimming with hormonal harmonics to write ‘with full vigour’? Perhaps English renders ‘puray dum se’ with a different tonality, one that may be liable to be mis/overinterpreted by students with more than full enthusiasm. No, we aren’t overly worried, just wary.