Tehelka-Gate: The Primer
A: Acquiescing
Last used in conversation in the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’
when Captain Barbossa refuses to accede to Elizabeth’s request to stop
battering Port Royal.
A: Adamantine
Unbreakable. Only Tejpal can perhaps describe Shoma’s
feminist resolve using a word which begins with ‘Adam’.
A: Atonement
What Tarun now wants to undergo. (also see laceration)
B: ‘Bob’ Robert De Niro
The Hollywood legend who became an excuse in the sex crime.
B: Bangaru
The man who’s ghost Tejpal claims has come back to haunt
him. The guy’s still alive FYI.
C: Chronology
Shoma’s spiffy comeback word when harassed by the media
C: CCTV
That video surveillance device which is never in the right
place at the right time.
C: Contrition
The extent of Tarun’s remorse before the Mr.Hyde switchover.
C: Consensual
What the law calls rape, the victims calls molestation,
Tarun calls Consensual
C: Courteous
How Shoma felt about the nine hour grilling by the Goa
police
D: Drunken banter
That thing you do sometime before a feeling of contrition
sweeps in.
E: Elevator
Tejpalese for ‘lift’
F: Feminist-principle insistence
That thing which the media interpreted as a cover-up
engineered by Shoma
F: Fleeting
Those precious moments when you feel that the “Universe is
telling us something”.
H: Half-truths
What Tejpal had accused the victim of, days after saying
things like ‘It's alright to be in love with more than one person’
I: It
The thing Tarun’s daughter wants kept him to keep in his
pants.
L: Lacerate
It’s what you’d normally expect a Salman Khan fan to do,
after his one-way overtures are rejected by a Sonam Kapoor fan.
M: Managing
How Shoma spent her time discharging her duty as Managing
Editor after the victim complained to her about the sexual assault.
M: Mendacious
A seemingly sexist word which means lying. But somehow it
does make sense.
N: Non-consensus
One can make sense of this word if you can actually make
sense of this sentence.
“It is a totally mendacious account of what happened, in its
details, in its tonalities, in its very suggestion of non-consensus,” Tejpal
said.
O: Overrode
The thing that Shoma did to Tarun before asking him to
recuse from his position as editor-in-chief and issue an apology.
P: Predicated
Based on. It’s the kind of word one uses after using the
word acquiesce.
R: Rock-Solid
The kind of support, Tarun says, he received from his
family, friends and most of his colleagues after claiming his sexual liaison
was consensual, after first claiming it was not.
S: Smothered
One would think the word smothered was generally associated
with kissing. But the masterly Tejpal uses it express regret.
T: Tonality
When Arnab Goswami snarls on the News Hour it’s a bark, when
Shoma does that it’s all about wrong tonality.
T: Tehelka
An investigative weekly which does more stories on the
Opposition than incumbent governments.
P: Prufrock
An elite highbrow club in Delhi which was conceived by
Tehelka before Tejpal defrocked.
R: Recuse
Some interpreted it as rescue. Although it did look like
one.
S: Sexual liaison
Tejpalese for molestation
U: Unqualified apology
The set of two words which triggered an unmitigated disaster
for Tejpal.
W: Wrenches
That feeling in the hearts all lovers of
Tehelka, who are now following its fall.
posted by Mayabhushan at 4:26:00 pm
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