Kindle Notes & Highlights
Ensconced in a cradle of timelessness, Alphabetica was a city-state suspended on the Westerloo Wall of Planet Typewriter.
Verbose1
Tumbling down the winding stairways, they would hop across gurgling culverts, hemmed with a lush lacework of flowerbeds. Running along the narrow cobblestone lanes, chiselled out of a metallic mountainous terrain, they playfully somersaulted through the ample breathing spots of gardens and parks.
Verbose 2
Ypsi was deeply conscious of the disparate and distinctive aural qualities and peculiarities of the Vowels and Consonants and her own unique skills too. Although she was acutely aware of the Consonants being the majority and the Vowels the minority, she chose not to exert power to stamp her authority on their daily affairs.
“Best not to rock the boat,” she thought. “Unfortunately, the two groups have to complement each other’s special features and attributes for a common purpose. Livelihood! C’est la vie.”
Presided over by the Benefactor of Planet Typewriter, the Underwood was His temple of ‘free speech’. Interestingly, for the Alphabeticans, He was the ‘Poet’, and for the Numericans, the ‘Writer’. One planet, two Gods.
With ballistic catapults hitting the Ink Ribbon through a turret of a cylindrical fortress and pulleys ferrying a gigantic piston triggering an alarm bell, the magnificent Underwood was a battleground of creativity.
Poetic 1
Epsi (Comedian E) joked: ‘“Jealousy’ was meant to have all five Vowels, but Y replaced I and made it her middle name.”
Upon seeing the sudden rise of Ypsi’s ‘whys’, Camel (Scholar C), Ypsi’s arch-rival in the Underwood classroom, undertook research to fathom “Why is Y so obsessed with ‘why’?” One of her theories was that Ypsi had fallen in love with Whyalla, a city in Planet South Australia. Or, she could have been possessed by a whydah, Planet Africana’s widowbird.
Then Epsi tried to lighten matters by declaring Ypsi as “Y, her Royal Whyness”.
The other major grouse was about the article ‘an’. Ypsi never stopped complaining about this favouritism towards Vowels. “When it’s ‘ear’, it’s ‘an ear’. But for ‘year’, it’s ‘a year’. Same for ‘east’ and ‘yeast’. Why? What’s the difference?”
From ancient times, Earthling’s history has revealed that every family, community and country has had its undercurrent grudges. There have always been disgruntled members who believed that the grass was greener on the other side of the fence. Ypsi was one such aggrieved character in Alphabetica who thought having the article ‘an’ was better than ‘a’.
Ypsi’s acrimonious ‘whys’ were an indication of her desperation to be recognized as someone special, with a unique identity. She felt she was the sole voice of the Consonant Majority. Her most recent ‘whys’, questioning the Vowel Minority, clearly exposed Alphabetica’s hidden fault lines of majoritarianism.
The Numbers enjoyed the respect of occupying the highest rung of workstations. One level higher than Ypsi’s. “They are totally undeserving of the allotment,” Ypsi thought. “Their use is restricted to the Poet’s weekly expense statements. Insignificant!” One day at the Underwood, Ypsi, a perpetual first-bencher in Mrs Poet’s class, heard the Poet and His wife discuss the evolution of the English alphabet. Ypsi promptly gave it a spin and named it ‘The Birth of Alphabetica’ and began lecturing her Consonant mates with a superior air. Assuming the role of ‘Professor Whyness’, she claimed, “We
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After the glorification of the Consonants, the Professor went on to demolish the Vowels. “Our Phoenician forefathers were just twenty-two Consonants. Forget about being the minority – as they are today – the Vowels didn’t even exist at the start. They were like little dots and squiggles. All thanks to the Greeks, the Vowels surreptitiously infiltrated Alphabetica! Then, after the Romans granted them Latin citizenship, they usurped their compass and tricked them into reading the alphabet ‘left to right’ instead of ‘right to left’. The Phoenician way. In fact, this land was meant to be called
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Ypsi looked sharply at her two dumbstruck mates and continued: “And now the Vowels happily use the article ‘an’ like their regal toga. But do you realize the harm they’ve done to us?” Ypsi provoked them a little more. “Not only do we have to live at the bottom of the Westerloo Wall, but our house also has the most insulting name – ‘The End’! If we were to be read the Phoenician way – right to left – Earthling children would be taught to call us ‘ZYX’ and not ‘ABC’!
Her mates applauded loudly without understanding her angst, as was the norm. Unknown to them, Ypsi held back vital information that could puncture her pompous posturing.
The vexed Ypsi declared to her confused mates: “Enough of this appeasement policy for the Vowel Minority. Even as a Consonant, I can form words without Vowels. Article ‘an’ will be mine!” After a brief pause, she added, “And for every Consonant. One nation, one law!” Both her mates nodded their heads vigorously, and Xi added: “For you, we’ll make it article ‘can’ – ‘What Y can, no one can’!”
Professor Whyness scoffed at Epsi’s humour and labelled it as false modesty. “If hard work were the criteria, the ‘Space Bar’ of the Underwood should have got the highest honours in the Lexicon.”
What Ypsi couldn’t get over was that she, The Chosen One, had a humiliating word share of only 1.80 per cent!
Some felt that Ypsi, with her extra-long hands, had wrapped up Xi – hook, line and sinker. The truth, however, was that Ypsi was incapable of loving anybody other than herself. All she wanted was Xi as her crutch to achieve her mission.
Ypsi hoped that one day Zayin would infect the five vowels with her narcolepsy. “If they sleep like Z at work, they will lose some of their word shares for sure!” thought Ypsi.
Then, one Friday night, Xi and Zayin persuaded Ypsi to hop across to their favourite hangout, the Italics. While her two mates were looking forward to an evening of heady, Ink-induced, fun and frolic, Ypsi had a different mission to achieve. She promised herself, “Today, I’ll puncture E’s ego and bend the backs of all the Greek Vowels like the slant of the Italics!”
The Punctuations and Signs, fondly called the ‘Puncts & Sighs’, ran this uber-cool hangout.
Most of the Signs pledged their allegiance to the Numbers to precisely articulate calculations.
The serious and regimented Numbers never showed up at the Italics. Given their frugal, monastic lifestyle, hanging out at the Italics was considered to be infra dig. It didn’t add up on their ordinal moral balance sheets.
“Hey, B!” Epsi exclaimed, “You look so chilled with your AC keeping you company!” It was a weak warm-up line from Epsi. Ypsi was happy that it got almost no applause.
To Camel’s complete shock, Epsi cackled loudly and said, “Sorry, C. Wrong answer! It’s the Earthlings’ Post Office that has the largest number of letters.”
“There was this lady from Shanghai Who kept asking, ‘Why? Why? Why?’ ‘Why is the sky so high? Why do babies cry? Why can’t turtles fly?’ Her friends packed her off to Mumbai. And they happily sang ‘Bye-bye!’ Soon Mumbai was tired of her ‘Whys’. So she was dispatched to live in Dubai. So, it’s best to give Dubai a flyby Or, she’ll make you cry, ‘Why? Why? Why?’ Until you have a stye in your eye! Sing! Bye, bye, Madame Why. Bye, bye!”
The Italics erupted with spontaneous loud applause. Ypsi could only glare at Xi and Zayin for laughing. Not able to contain herself, she squealed, “Why, what’s so funny? Madame Y is world-famous. She’s not like E, who wants to slip into every word to say: ‘Me, me, me. I’m E. Notice me!’” Wiggling her delicate little back, Epsi responded with a churlish chuckle, “I know, I’m envied for being so eclectic, electric, energetic…” “Exasperatingly egoistic, eccentric and erratic!” interjected Ypsi as she said to herself, “Once I’m in charge, I’ll tax the Vowels for their high word shares. And I’ll
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But Ypsi wasn’t happy. “Omega, the obese Vowel, is exulting, but why isn’t there a single ‘Y’ in the longest word?” She fumed inside.
To Ypsi’s disgust, Epsi reclaimed the dais. With a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, she said, “I have a long word, but for Y, the Royal Whyness’ sake, there’s no ‘E’ in it. The word is ‘Floccinaucinihilipilification’. You got to tell me…” Before Epsi could complete her question, pat came Camel’s answer: “It means the habit of regarding something as unimportant, having no value, worthless!”
“Brava! Dear C,” Epsi applauded, as did the entire room. All except Ypsi. “It can’t be that straightforward. It’s got a hidden message,” she thought. And she was right. “Why? Why? Who in Alphabetica is the champion of ‘Floccinaucinihilipilification’?” Epsi mimicked Ypsi with a naughty grin. “Who regards everything to be ‘...
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Ypsi screamed like a defeated warrior: “E, the limelight you steal will put you in a dark ordeal. You’re a pompous little eel, in a ridiculous hat, who needs to be spanked like a rotten spoilt brat!”
Through the entire fiasco, there was one silent observer – Shin, the spy. She loved the excitement of espionage. A crime without being caught always caused an adrenaline rush through the ages. It was no different for Shin.
That prompted Epsi to say: “After Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’, Ypsi is the most sought-after still-life painting.”
One day her assumptions about the might of the majority were shattered when she heard of Minority Regimes ruling some parts of Planet Africana. Ypsi was worried sleepless. It seemed like a warning that the Minority Vowels would soon gain control over Alphabetica. Such thoughts made her fuzzy hair permanently stand on end. She felt these were exclusive messages for her. After all, she was destined to be ‘Ypsi, The Chosen One’!
While writing her own memoir, Ypsi became his diehard worshipper. She concluded that she, too, needed to be democratically elected by the majority. Like the Great Dictator, she too would have to rise, by hook or by crook. Once elected, she could become the tyrant dictator forever! The majority would always love the dominating dictator, and the minority would live in fear.
Unfortunately, Ypsi’s Underwood schooling was a classic case of dangerously selective knowledge. Significantly, her thesis was based on the Great Dictator’s rise, but not his fall.
Soon one day, Xi and Zayin feared a repeat of an explosion at the Italics. The Poet’s song that day was titled ‘Tutti-Frutti’, and Ypsi didn’t like how it was spelt. ‘“Tutti’ ought to be ‘Tutty’ and ‘Fruity’ can never be ‘Frutti’!” Ypsi was convinced that this was one more of Epsi’s pranks.
While the Offset Band was getting ready, Iota, the slender lead crooner, announced with a naughty giggle, “Sorry, Y, there is no ‘Y’ in the song. You got replaced by ‘I’. But please don’t ask ‘Why’. Just dance, sweetie pie!”
Lately, she had begun noticing the Poet’s preference for ‘I & E’ over ‘Y’. When it came to words like quality, penny, embassy, He would unfailingly replace the ‘Y’ at the end with ‘I-E-S’ to make these plurals. But only when a Vowel preceded a ‘Y’, like in key, delay, annoy, an ‘S’ would be added after ‘Y’ to make such words plural. This, to her, was a reconfirmation of her own paranoia and the power ‘I & E’ wielded over the hapless Poet.
Through her meditations in her dark cave of a room, she had learnt, “Anger was a precious commodity that needed to be preserved for the big battle that lay ahead.”
MISSION #1: A RULER MUST HARVEST BLIND DEVOTEES And the simple formula to have devotees would be to make them subservient and insecure. In return, she would have to promise them hollow dreams. She knew now that leaders needn’t deliver on their promises.
“Why?” screamed Ypsi in her soprano pitch. “Why can’t you see it’s a conspiracy? Today, I got dropped in the ‘Tutti-Frutti’ song at the Italics. Tomorrow, you’ll lose your Alphabetican citizenship!”
Ypsi switched to a low, husky tone and offered some half-truths to rattle Zayin. “You know Z, unlike Planet Americana, Planet Britannica isn’t in love with you. There, most words with ‘Z’ are replaced with an ‘S’ – socialise, minimise, prioritise… All with ‘S’, not ‘Z’.” Zayin was wide-eyed as she exclaimed, “O my Poet, the Brits must be crazy!” Zayin was used to the Poet preferring a ‘Z’ over an ‘S’. But she vaguely recalled the night she was getting roasted.
Epsi had cracked her usual poor joke about the aristocratic British lisp. She had lisped excessively to needle Zayin: “To do justice to their lisp, they could easily drop ‘Z’ from their Lexicon. Then Zebra will be Thebra, Zoo will become Thoo, and Z’s life will go Thig-Thag!”
Ypsi now turned her gaze on Xi. “And you, X … you can be replaced by ‘C’ and ‘S’!” “What do you mean? Why would the Poet allow that?” asked Xi, in his panic laden voice. “Why not?” Ypsi sounded knowledgeable. “If ‘ecstasy’ is written without an ‘X’, what stops the Poet from dropping you from words like excite and exchequer? You will have no ‘excuse’ to ‘exercise’ when these will be spelt as ‘E-C-SC-U-S-E’ and ‘E-C-S-E-R-C-I-S-E’. And you’ll have a quiet ‘E-C-S-I-T’!” Xi immediately remembered that an early Lexicon had listed ‘Xebec’ as the only word starting with the letter ‘X’. He was
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Bigotry 2
Xi walked up to Ypsi and sat down quietly. He blinked nervously and asked, “But what about His ‘Spellcheck’?” “Ha, that!” Ypsi laughed. “With a click on ‘Add to Dictionary’, Spellcheck will add these words to the Poet’s brain. And you’ll be history.”
Scowling at the two confused faces, Ypsi continued her vitriolic attack. “Why, haven’t you two realized that the Vowels have looted the Succinct Oxonian Lexicon and left ‘The End’ as one of the poorest homes? We have a combined word share of just 2.4 per cent!”
Bigotry 3
She followed the Great Dictator’s example of making the Consonants feel persecuted and deprived because of the Vowels. She then punctuated her pique with Shakespearean grandstanding. “The fault, dear X and Z, is not in our stars,” she whimpered theatrically, “but in ourselves. Despite us Consonants being the blue-blooded Phoenicians, we still don’t get to use the article ‘an’!”
