Wit and grit

To face a hostile situation with cool courage is possible for bravest of the brave.

Different people are endowed with different gifts and the one which I have always admired is that of ready wit, the ability to come up with the mot juste at just the right moment, so as to be able to score a point or put down an uppity opponent. In everyday life, however, ready wit is not at all that ‘ready’, in the same way that common sense is not at all that common.

Repartee is not everyone’s cup of tea but when you come across a really good one, you cannot help sharing it with friends, as I did recently on Face Book. The playwright, Noel Coward, known for his chic and, in no small measure for his cheek, when he met the highly successful American novelist and playwright, Edna Ferber, at a party, stared at her suit and remarked “ You almost look like a man “. Pat came the reply “So do you.”

The die-hard imperialist Winston Churchill could count the gift of the gab as one of his many talents but examples of his wit such as the first woman MP of the British Parliament, Lady Astor, telling him once “If I were your wife, I would put poison in your coffee” and his replying “ If I were your husband, I would drink it”, are oft repeated and are now stale.
Nearer home, there are many stories of the multi-talented T P Kailasam, the Kannada playwright, illustrating his sparkling and ready wit. Once he went to visit a friend of his, along with another friend, and they stayed overnight. The host solicitously enquired in the morning “ Did you have a sound sleep, Kailasam?” Kailasam replied, pointing to his fellow guest “He had the sleep, I had the sound.”

To face a hostile situation with cool courage is not possible for anyone but the bravest of the brave. C Rajagopalachari, Rajaji as he was affectionately called, one of the tallest leaders of the freedom movement, had courted tremendous unpopularity in the country for some time, because he had had the moral courage to differ with Mahatma Gandhi on the timing of the Quit India movement in 1942 and had to quit the Congress himself because of this. He was addressing a gathering in Bombay sometime in 1944 and someone in the audience threw a pellet of tar at him, which hit him right on the cheek. Rajaji coolly wiped his face with his kerchief and said “that young man has a very good aim; he should put it to better use.” He then proceeded with his speech, as if nothing had happened and he was listened to with rapt attention.

When Rajaji was Chief Minister of Madras in 1952 and when the entire Telugu-speaking region was on the boil on the question of the formation of a separate Andhra state, Rajaji, who was perceived as an opponent of the proposed new state, had to address a large gathering in Vijayawada, which was menacingly hostile as was only to be expected. He started off by saying “If there is anyone in this audience who is against the formation of an Andhra state, please raise your hand.” Naturally no hand went up. After a pause, he quietly said “You see, even I have not raised my hand; so I am not against Andhra.” There was loud laughter and the tension in the air was at once dispersed. The meeting went off well. Such was the courage and the ready wit of Rajaji. When shall we have such leaders again?