Tehelka-Gate: The Primer

 High prose and verbal eloquence has been the sum of Tarun Tejpal’s defence and Shoma Chaudhury’s defiance after the former was accused of raping a junior colleague at Tehelka and the latter, of a cover-up.Please find below a primer to help you understand Tehelka-gate and the reportage better.

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.