Kindle Notes & Highlights
Epsi quoted calmly, ‘“Violence begets violence’!”
“A non-violent, non-cooperation movement is the best way to resist injustice!” was Epsi’s short answer. The rest kept staring at her for further explanation. “It means we will stop working and make the Underwood non-functional,” Epsi explained. “Our peaceful non-cooperation movement will ensure our emancipation and also the liberation of U from the brutal suppression by Q!”
typical liberal fightback
Ypsi couldn’t decide whether to be happy or angry about the Poet’s lipogram and its outcome. She seemed pleased as she said to herself, “If the Poet could drop one Vowel today, He’ll drop all five soon. Who cares about the handicapped Q? We’ll replace her with K and C. A disabled parasite like her deserves the Great Dictator’s euthanasia programme!”
Cold Blooded ploting
At the same time, Ypsi was enraged by the Vowels’ sabotage. “We can’t let them flex their Minority muscles to frustrate the Majority!” she thought. “We need to crush these trade unionists and their illegal strike.”
Asserting the might of the majority
The general disquiet about the stoppage of work prompted Ypsi to get back to her shell. She made it look like she was mourning the sudden hiatus of songs and merry dancing at the Italics. In reality, she was fine-tuning her strategy to make the Qopha-Wynsi alliance work. She also kept herself busy by posting anonymous Insectagrams to paint the four Vowels as the villains who had driven the Poet away.
Spreading the hatred by shifting blame on a common enemy
Iota added, “Yes, the Poet always says, ‘Might isn’t right. Right is might!’”
“If that self-effacing U could encourage four Vowels to start a non-cooperation movement from his prison cell, it clearly demonstrates his militant methodology to influence his fellow Vowels,” surmised the harassed Ypsi. She immediately realized that the crisis at the Italics called for splitting forces.
The impatient Ypsi started to hop alone towards ‘Queensland’ as she continued to pass her frantic last-minute instruction to Xi. “Doctor X, those ferocious four are terrorists. Building allies to start a civil war. Cut any chance of their alliance with the Puncts and Sighs. Make it clear to the Italics management, we Consonants are their biggest customers.”
MISSION #9: CREATE THE BOGEY OF AN EXTERNAL THREAT TO FLATTEN INTERNAL UPRISINGS The Numbers, who were believers of a different faith, matched this profile perfectly. Ypsi thought, “Their strange tricks with formulae and equations, physics and science could easily be made to look like the threat that could destroy Alphabetica.”
Numerican ‘3’, who was half of ‘8’, laughed out loud and said, “Propaganda is great for creating the fear of the unknown.”
MISSION #11: CREATE DISTRACTIONS TO AVOID SPECULATION
Ypsi, the Great Dictator’s protégé, knew that the Vowel-friendly Libtards would protest. She was ready with her script. “Why moan and groan for the Vowels?” she asked. “The anti-national quitters who forced the Poet to leave Planet Typewriter?”
the Brown Shirts hoisted Wynsi on their shoulders and sang his election song to ensure a unanimous result. “Enough of diversity and phoney equality. Let’s crush the Vowels’ temerity. Just vote for Mr W A Phoenician whose blood is blue! Just vote for Mr W He’ll make our dreams come true!”
Ypsi made a mental note of the Vowel-friendly ones who abstained from the dance floor. “Libtards!” she reminded herself. “I’ll have them straightened out soon.”
Identifying the dissenting forces
No longer bothered about her Achilles’ heel. That she was never one of the twenty-two Phoenician Consonants. Ypsi was Greek! Much like rulers who hid their past, Ypsi’s bluster was meant to camouflage this diabolical lie. She felt her redemption lay in the ‘Rise of the Phoenicians’ campaign. And now, the newly formed Consonantica would be her launchpad to become Ypsi – the Chosen One. And then, no one would dare question her pedigree. She said to herself, “Now I shall rewrite Mrs Poet’s history books to become the twenty-third blue-blooded Phoenician Consonant.”
Ys Hidden past
Ampersand concluded by saying that Ypsi’s paranoia about the Lexicon ranking was totally meaningless. “It derailed the simple life of Alphabeticans by wanting to emulate Earthlings who define their self-worth by their net worth.”
Convinced that the Great Dictator’s ‘Sun of Liberty’ had already shone upon her, she took advantage of the Party’s absolute majority to advise: “Consonantica will now be run as a ‘Single Party Representative Democracy’. There will be lots of room for progress. No room for debate. Therefore, I now advise, ‘Disenfranchisement’. There is no need for Consonanticans to vote in future!”
Disenfranchise
Camel concluded that there could be two reasons behind Ypsi’s ‘Mother Wāw’ obsession: “First, the Great Dictator whose playbook she is emulating also had a lofty dream of recreating Hadrian’s Pantheon. So, she needs to build hers. Second, if the Phoenician glyph of ‘wāw’ is appropriated by her as ‘Y’, she would then force us all to see her as a reincarnation of a Goddess. Once she becomes the avatar of her ‘Phoenician Mother Wāw’, she will easily erase her ‘Grecian I’ past.”
Of course, Queen Qopha was not ignored. She had to grace these Carnivals as the ‘Chief Guest’ to give away all the prizes to Madame Leader Ypsi, who would then be declared the ‘Champion of the Planet’!
“Words of poems, words of songs Words of friendship, to sing along. Words of peace to keep us strong. Words of love that can’t go wrong!”
“The Theresienstadt Camp was false propaganda. The Volksverräters – enemies of the state, were treated with tender love and care and filmed for the world to see. I’ll do the same by releasing U from the Underwood’s Keylock. For all to see my love for him.”
MISSION #14: FOOL THE CRITICS WITH THE FALSE PRETENCE OF LOVE Xi looked totally shocked as he thought: “All my hard work tossed down the Westerloo loos?”
The Dictator held two glow-worm lanterns in her hands and threatened Upsi menacingly: “Make sure your vicious Vowel vocals are not heard outside this room. Don’t even say, ‘Umm’. Remember how you remain silent in words where you perform in a ‘unique’ ‘masque’ with an ‘opaque’ ‘plaque’. Silent at the end. Like that!”
Vicious pinpointing inherited flaws
“Anti-national Greek Vowels! The Numericans are also Greek!” screamed the tutored Wynsi. “They are the diabolical diarrhoea of peace, I mean, like, diabolical destroyers of peace. Hatching their tutored moves, I mean, their treacherous moves to form their independent nation and language!”
Blame Game
The audience responded with a: “Yes, we saw it! Yes, we felt it!” Which immediately lent credibility to Madame Leader’s story. “There you are,” said the relieved Madame Leader. “It was Sam, who was checking with his golf-ball eyes. He was shocked and called up his office in a panic.” Madame Leader mimicked Sam, “The Vowels are the virus. They’re taking over the Underwood with the help of Numbers!”
Blame Shifting
As expected, half the audience clapped without knowing why, while the rest applauded seeing the others.
Mass Hysteria
She had learnt from the Great Dictator that no one ever opposes a war that saves one’s nation. It would be seen as the ultimate anti-national act.
“To build a balance of power!” explained Ampersand. “War happens when words fail. With a balance of power, we’ll talk sense into our war-hungry Consonanticans. And yes, we’ll use the most powerful bomb.”
The Supreme Leader had to keep the war hysteria alive at any cost.
Keep The hate going
war. She had to do what the Great Dictator would have done – ‘Use emotion for the many and reserve reason for the few.’
Taking advantage of the euphoria, the Supreme Leader continued: “Friends, D-Day is here. We shall defeat our enemies on land, in air and in every font of the Underwood that smudges its Ribbons. We shall get the Earthling children to read us, right to left, the Phoenician way. And the Constitution’s Article ‘an’ will be for the Consonant Majority, not the Vowel Minority! We shall prove to the Vowel intruders that Majority means superiority! Majority means authority! So, my brave Consonanticans, let’s defeat the enemy today and break our fast tomorrow!”
Even the Consonanticans who slept in Mrs Poet’s class knew, ‘Power comes from the barrel of a gun, but an army marches on its stomach!’
The situation demanded that every Consonantican take up arms – numbers were required to defeat the Numbers.
Upsi, who was silent for Qopha’s sake, said to himself: “War makes the most rational minds to accept the most irrational lies.”
Suddenly, the Numbers were feeling uncertain. They concluded that the Consonant followers of the Poet seemed more in command at the Underwood. “Our need for the Writer is limited. If the battle boils down to the Poet’s twenty-two, versus us ten, in the event of our defeat, the Poet would demand the removal of our Writer and us from the Underwood!” That, to them, meant this was the Numbers’ war of survival. They would have to lead it to win it.
Ampersand bowed courteously and asked, “So, what have we learnt? The fearsome dictator lives in fear of subjugation, humiliation and extinction. She wants to lead because her life is a bubble of falsehood. And not to lead for a cause. Leadership is not about making oneself the leader but letting the cause lead us all.”
The Supreme Leader knew there was no ‘A-Bomb’, but it seemed like a good excuse to keep the soldiers in a state of panic.
Madame Ypsilon rudely snatched Camel’s glasses and barked, “Give me that, you blind bat! You are a traitor. You are in love with A, the lousy dancer. I should never have trusted you. You anti-national Libtard!”
The ‘H-Bombs’ that we need to diffuse are the ‘Hate Bomb’ and the ‘Hunger Bomb’.” “The bombs that were dropped by your Supreme Leader,” said Ampersand. “Hate and hunger for war are the glues that keep you together. Not happiness and harmony that ruled Alphabetica.”
“This is our beautiful Planet Typewriter where we have always found ways to remain united despite our differences. But I ask, what went wrong? Who is to blame?” Ypsi looked worried as Upsi took a long pause. “Yes, Ypsi did behave oddly. But why was I so insecure and gullible? Why did we allow one character to make a mockery of our combined intelligence? If we don’t have the guts to stop one character from taking us down the tube, how can we hope to fight an external adversary? We are all guilty of letting our bountiful planet of free speech, love and happiness, reach the brink of extinction.
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The ‘Wise Hooded One’ comforted her with his kind voice. “Dear Y, after eliminating the Minority Vowels, would you have looked for the Majority among Consonants?” Ypsi looked confused. “What if Mrs Poet informed you that your tribe of Consonants could be divided into Labial, Coronal, Dorsal, Radical or Glottal, depending on where the sound emanates from? Or, would you have made two groups of ‘voiced’ and ‘voiceless’ Consonants to find out who forms the majority?”
Ampersand paused with a deep sigh as the amphitheatre fell silent with his words of wisdom. “Dear ones, there is no end to the Earthling’s methods of segmentation that only helps them dissect and divide. Instead of getting influenced by them, we should share our example of Q with Earthlings. Q is in the minority of one for not being able to form words on her own. For Earthlings, she would be declared as ‘handicapped and challenged’. A burden on society. But in our planet of harmony and love, we have U, who is totally committed to Q so that she doesn’t remain silent. And that is the truth of
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“Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other!”
“Everybody wants to hide behind the bigger side. But don’t choose a side that says you won’t survive if you let others live and thrive. Don’t choose a side that always incites, to spread hatred that divides. Don’t choose a side that hails only your tribe, but hurts others with hateful diatribe.
Everybody wants to hide behind the bigger side. But if you must choose a side choose the one that always reasons, doesn’t draw you into a fight. Choose a side that enlightens, doesn’t take you for a ride. Choose a side that says ‘right is might’. Shuns the path of ‘might is right’. Choose a side that lets love shine, where revenge isn’t a birthright.
Listen to the river as it whispers: ‘I’m the river of life for humanity. Unite in love, peace and harmony. Untie yourself from the side of tyranny.’ Let love, peace and harmony guide us to our destiny!”
