How long is a piece of string?

Of late, I have been receiving a few friendly comments from a handful of readers who have my best interests at heart, to the effect that my columns tend to be a tad too long. Happily they are in the minority, but I tend to take any feedback seriously. I reflect. If not exactly riddled with self-doubt, I contemplate and cogitate. Rather like Macbeth, I am not even sure if it is a dagger that I see before me or something less lethal. Do many of the others in my circle feel the same way, and are only keeping their counsel out of a sense of propriety? The very fact that someone has bothered to write in and comment at all, is generally a welcome sign. In order to be even handed, I should also mention that there are many who write extremely nice things about my blogs, and thank you very much indeed. You know who you are. You buck me up no end.

Getting back to the vexed issue of the length of my blogs, I responded to one of my good friends’ comments about the piece being too long with a snappy, philosophical, almost Kierkegaardian ‘how long is a piece of string?’ To his credit, he responded with a terse ‘long enough to become a noose.’ On my part, this was not taken amiss. This is good-natured banter, but he had given me food for thought. Not that I had entirely agreed with him, but still, something over which to chew the cud.

Now here is the thing. On average my columns tend to weigh in at around 1500 to 1600 words. I go in for what is fashionably called ‘the long form essay.’ I could add here that, as long-form essays go, mine will come under the shorter version of the category. There are many distinguished, and some not so, writers who think nothing of spitting on their hands and dashing off four to five thousand words! Without batting an eyelid. Almost the length of a not-so-short story. So, I repeat my cardinal question, ‘how long is a piece of string?’

In the past, when I used to contribute regularly to a few newspapers, I had to cut my coat according to my cloth and restrict the verbiage to around 1000 words or less. Which is not something to be sneezed at, but one was constantly worried about having to curtail one’s natural instincts to spread oneself high, wide and handsome, in a manner of speaking. On the odd occasion that I erred in length, to employ a cricketing terminology, I darkly visualised some junior sub sweating under a naked light bulb in front of his desktop till late at night, burning the midnight oil and resenting the fact, sadistically wading into my piece with a hatchet. Apostrophes going haywire, semi-colons where none should exist, transferred epithets being re-transferred ruinously, sentences and paragraphs getting mixed up. It was a nightmare. Next morning, I would scan the broadsheet with trepidation. Furthermore, it did nothing to enhance my reputation when folks opened their newspapers of a morning with their hot cuppa. At least, now if a hawk-eyed reader swoops down on a clumsy mixed metaphor or a grammatical solecism, I can gallantly put my hand up and say, ‘mea culpa.’

Back to the topic on hand. You see, that is another thing. One aims to stay on the straight and narrow path sticking to the essentials of one’s subject, but every now and then, the main path leads us on to some interesting side roads, turn-offs and alleyways that require a bit of explaining. That is how, without even being conscious of it, the words tend to multiply. I could, of course, suggest to some of my readers that if ploughing through 1600 words feels like a steep climb, perhaps they ought to read my burnt offerings in two easy instalments. 800 words a day should be a leisurely stroll in the park. The downside, however, is that the suspense involved in the wait to get at the second instalment might be too stressful. Was it the butler who put the strychnine in the soup or was it the housemaid? So much simpler to read the whole, damn thing in one go and get a good night’s sleep. Incidentally, it was the squint-eyed gardener!

I am not sure how many of you have heard of the late Miles Kington. He was on the editorial staff of Punch and contributed prolifically to many of Britain’s leading newspapers and magazines. His stock-in-trade, as one would expect of a Punch staffer, was humour. I discovered him during my early days in a reputed advertising agency in Calcutta, where the librarian had the good sense to subscribe to Punch. More for the glossy adverts than anything else. I devoured the magazine and Miles Kington was my favourite columnist. In more recent times, I have been fortunate enough to access his books online and not a day passes when I don’t read and re-read his delightful musings.

The reason I brought his name up was that he apparently wrote a column a day, anything from 1000 to 2000 words. Yes, you read that right. For nearly forty years, almost till the day he breathed his last, this indefatigable humourist wrote a piece every single day! It would greatly surprise me if he is not featured in the Guinness Book of World Records. What is more, his editors swear Miles’ quality never wavered, and his choice of subjects could be just about anything under the sun or nothing at all. So here I am, wondering how to manage to write one column every week, huffing and puffing, without being gently rapped on the knuckles for contaminating my mailing list’s inboxes with tiresomely long pieces, when good, old Miles Kington could do it on a dime.

There is a personal postscript to the Miles Kington story. A story I might have told before, not that anyone will recall, and at my age, repeating myself is an occupational hazard. In my callow, ad agency days, people like Miles inspired me to write little snippets purely for my own pleasure. On one occasion, I decided to write a longer snippet, if that is not a contradiction in terms, and in a rash moment of bravado, dispatched it par avion, by registered post to Miles Kington ‘for favour of publication in your esteemed magazine.’ Which, of course, was Punch. We are talking mid-70s here. The post office charged me a pretty penny for the stamps to London. Rather ambitious, you might say, but what the hell. Young blood. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Or, if you prefer, in for a penny, in for a pound.

Nothing was precisely what I heard for quite a few weeks. Just when I had all but given up the ghost, a light blue envelope with a postage stamp bearing the Queen’s silhouetted bust arrived. Next to that was franked the Punch logo in black. My heart leapt upstream like a young sockeye salmon in season. I opened the envelope with great care, lest I should inadvertently damage part of the precious contents, took the letter out with trembling fingers and opened it. There it was, a Punch letterhead with a brief, handwritten note from none other than MK himself, which I reproduce from memory. ‘Dear Suresh,’ it read. ‘I found your contribution most interesting, but the format needs some working and as such we will, regrettably, be unable to carry it. Keep writing. Best wishes, Miles.’ A bit of a blow of course, but I do not believe I have received a regret letter that made me happier than this one. It is preserved in aspic. If only I could find it. For what it is worth, that article which Punch declined to publish carried approximately 1600 words. As you can see, I am wearing Miles’ polite nolle prosequi like a badge.

Eliza Doolittle, the charming, Cockney flower girl from the hit musical My Fair Lady (born out of G.B. Shaw’s Pygmalion) tells off her language guru, the irascible Prof. Henry Higgins with these opening lines of a memorable song, ‘Words, words, words / I am so sick of words / I get words all day through / First from him, now from you / Is that all you blighters can do?’ She makes a powerful point. Today, you switch on your television set to any news channel and what do you get? The Tower of Babel. Perhaps the Tower of Babble would be more appropriate, given how all the participants shout in complete disharmony and we grope to make any sense out of the proceedings. We are on far more civilized ground when it comes to words in the written form.

So, there you are. I had very pious intentions of making this a short and sweet piece, in order to please my friend who first pointed out the lengthy error of my ways. Once, however, I started putting pen to paper, speaking metaphorically, the urge to let myself go was too great. The blog took on a life of its own. You might say it is a kind of affliction, this craving to be long-winded but, as Novak Djokovic said recently, it is what it is. My English teacher in school during the swinging 60s would have approved, but in this day and age of short attention spans, the same teacher would probably have given me detention, six of the best and ordered me to write 500 times, ‘From now on, I shall not write an essay consisting of more than 500 words.’

There you have it. I have crossed the finishing line. Breasted the tape. The verdict is in. 1640 words. Au revoir.