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    Politics of Eponyms
    Politics of Eponyms
    Politics of Eponyms
    Ebook81 pages1 hour

    Politics of Eponyms

    By Harish Kumar

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    About this ebook

    Pattur and Noolur are two mutually interdependent silk-weaving towns in South India. While Noolur made patturis for Pattur and fed Pattur's silk looms with value-added silk yarns of superior quality, Pattur lent its eponymous tradename patturi to Noolur's silk saris for greater visibility in global markets.

    This interdependence worked fine for both towns, until one Venkatraman, a first-generation English lecturer, appeared on the scene. Venkat was visibly enraged by Pattur's Big Brother attitudes and actions, its dominance and its merciless exploitation of Noolurian silk weavers and silk co-operatives. Venkat assumes the role of an iconoclast and the responsibility for smashing the status quo. He goes about raising the war flag for Noolur's generic independence and for liberating the nooluri eponym from the clutches of patturi.

    Venkat's contagious war cries force Noolur and Pattur into ugly confrontational situations. Where and how do they end? What was the outcome of the face-offs? Did Venkat succeed in his mission? Whatever happened to the murky politics of eponyms?

    A novelette with an unusual plot that spins around this murky politics of territorial eponyms, Politics of Eponyms is a must read for anyone who likes to delve deeper into how eponyms evolve and exploit. To weave offbeat plots in the bargain.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarish Kumar
    Release dateApr 22, 2020
    ISBN9781393030485
    Politics of Eponyms

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      Book preview

      Politics of Eponyms - Harish Kumar

      Politics of Eponyms   

      1

      It was one of those lazy Sundays, seven in the morning. Venkatraman cast a monotonous glance at the street outside his living room window.

      As Venkat could see, there were no Sundays for silk weavers in his hometown Noolur. Literally meaning thread town in Tamil, Noolur had been up and about much earlier than seven.

      Across Noolur’s long-winding streets dotted with poles with taut silk yarns stretched between them, Venkat could notice live human corpses moving about in silky repetitions.

      In fact, Venkat was once a silk weaver, who abandoned the profession later to turn into an English teacher in a local college. Nevertheless, he has been living in this location called The Silk Weavers Street for generations.  

      Why these monotonous glances and silky repetitions? That is a long story.

      Though silk weaving activity had become less profitable for the silk weavers, it was a profession of pride for his community in the small temple town of Noolur, somewhere south of the Vindhyas in India.

      Venkat’s forefathers had migrated to this non-descript Noolur in the hope of building a small silk weaver community and lording over it eventually. As misfortune would have it, that was not to be.

      Venkat looked intently at the couple of stray dogs scavenging the street corner bins for food, while the silk weavers on the street looked like some zombies from another planet trying to make silk sarees just to eke out a living. Without life, without their hearts and souls in the job.

      Venkat had little interest in silk weaving.   The reasons were many. The chief among them was the dominance of the Big Brother, the more affluent neighbouring Pattur with formidable financial and marketing muscles.

      With such strengths, Pattur, literally meaning the silk town in Tamil, transformed into the ultimate word in the Indian silk weaving industry. So much so that silk sarees woven anywhere in India were known globally by the generic name patturis. Venkat was clearly upset over this eponymic tyranny of patturis.

      This is one of the reasons why he gave up silk weaving to become a first-generation English teacher.

      The not-so-affluent Noolur weavers in the cow dung-swept streets outside and their famished looks seemed to tell him that dreams of grandeur of his forefathers had turned into a generic nightmare.  

      According to his late grandfather, Venkat remembered, Noolur in those days resonated non-stop with the tic-toc of restless looms and hummed constantly with undying buzz around 60-metre long silk yarns, stretched taut on poles erected on narrow streets.

      How did all that change?

      As history transformed into current affairs, as politics transformed the neighbouring erstwhile royal capital Pattur into a silk powerhouse, Noolur’s business-like silk weavers’ streets degraded into a strategic silk feeder cog in the supply chain of Pattur.  

      Naturally, scores of youngsters from his silk weaving community had abandoned the silk looms quite some time ago, in quest of name and fame, in search of wealth and financial health.

      That’s why Venkat gave up whole-time weaving to turn into a first-generation English teacher in a local college.

      Add to this his undying love for the English language, he was determined not to look back. So, by choice, Venkat was the first Noolurian to work as an Assistant English Lecturer in the local college. Sure, his love for English idiosyncracies did help his transformation.   

      Nevertheless, he tried his hands at the sleepy silk looms in his cramped living room whenever he had the time and the inclination. Largely out of compulsions of being in Rome. More often he operated his silk looms when his local college remained closed for long summer holidays at the end of academic years.  

      For generations, Venkat’s family had been making silk yarns and weaving silk sarees. These silk sarees are garments of silk lengths elaborately draped around the body of traditional South Asian women.

      Venkat’s father, who was no more, used to toil at the silk looms in a hole in the wall called the living room. Venkat’s grandfather used to weave silk sarees single-handedly with occasional help from his wife who used to work mainly on the spindles. To put things in perspective, silk sarees were Venkat family’s forte.

      It was not a happily lived ever after story though. Unable to stand against the heavy-rolling juggernaut of Pattur, his father, why, many Noolurians began peddling Noolur silk yarns and silk sarees to mercenary silk entrepreneurs in Pattur who in turn sold them later as patturis the world over.

      From integrated classy silk saree weavers, the whole silk weaver community in Noolur had to transform thus into mundane traders, thanks to the financial and marketing muscles of the more affluent Patturians.

      A disgruntled Venkat finally made a profession-switch by plunging headlong into teaching. He was terribly upset over patturis quietly burying Noolur’s name and fame, reputation, recognition and chronicles of past glory.

      Despite his humble beginnings as a poor scion of a middle-class silk weaver family, Venkat was not prepared to sacrifice his love for the English language and for its quirkiness. Even when his

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