Handsome is as handsome does

Member of Parliament Shashi Tharoor, he of the silver tongue, is very much in the news these days for all kinds of reasons. Mostly positive, unless you belong to his Congress Party who at best, are being ambivalent about him and at worst, are deeply suspicious about their star parliamentarian from Kerala and are keeping him strictly at arm’s length. His party bosses don’t quite know what to make of him, and they are not taking very kindly to his singing hosannas to the ruling dispensation, read the BJP and the country’s Prime Minister and, of course, our defence forces for the way the recent conflict with Pakistan has been handled. This is being viewed as the ‘unkindest cut of all,’ tantamount to sleeping with the enemy. To be clear, his praising our doughty men (and women) in uniform is kosher. It’s the others that rankle. To make matters worse, for the Congress Party that is, Tharoor is leading one of many delegations fanning out across the world to present India’s side of the story and to put right the canards that our neighbours across the western border have been so mendaciously spreading about Bharat. The umbrage taken by the Congress in Tharoor’s selection is primarily to do with the fact that the former poster boy is not the party’s first choice. Nor second, nor third. He is not even in the frame. Anyhow, Tharoor and his colleagues have reached foreign shores and their eloquent presentation of India’s case is there for all to see. Just go to YouTube and you can watch it for yourself as Tharoor’s dulcet tones and silken prose floor his audience.

This is where I move on to the nub of my narrative as hinted by the title of the piece. Shashi Tharoor happens to be good looking, subjective as that description is. It is a plus that has greatly added value to his other undeniable assets. While I am in no position to corroborate the general view that women swoon over him, it will come as no surprise if that was the case. However, if indeed I harboured any misgivings on that score, somebody recently put out a short video clip on social media of a press conference (no idea when and where) which left no one in any doubt. A lady of Oriental origins (I have no means of ascertaining which country from the Orient she hails from as the film was devoid of any informative caption) stood up to ask our Shashi a question. Only, in the guise of a question it was more of a gushing, blushing, over-the-moon young correspondent who could not stop wondering how her hero could be so good looking and at the same time so brilliant, so eloquent and so…well, she was so overcome she was almost lost for words. Thankfully, Shashi did not blush (or did he?), put his good looks down to his genes (‘Choose your parents wisely’) which drew laughter and applause. He attributed his oratorical skills to reading, hard work and constant practice which comes through addressing and interacting with live audiences. As opposed to admiring one’s debating prowess in front of a mirror. I am paraphrasing but that was the sum and substance of his response. Consummately handled, as you would expect from a former diplomat and a distinguished parliamentarian. I have seen Tharoor standing his ground against the likes of the late, magnificent polemicist Christopher Hitchens, and that is saying something.

Dear reader, if I have dwelt at length on Mr. Tharoor, it was only to make a larger point, and his being on our front pages and television screens in recent times was merely a logical opening to the subject. The moot point is, what has looks got to do with anything. If that sentence has not been punctuated with a mark of interrogation, it is only because I deem it to be a rhetorical question. This is where I leave Shashi Tharoor to happily wallow in his rarefied world of fandom and move on to other parallels.

Some years ago, my wife and I happened to be holidaying in the United Kingdom and we were staying in a quiet, pretty village in Somerset with an English couple who were very dear to us. While we scoured the bucolic scenes and historic ruins (how the English love their ruins) of the village surrounds during the day, evenings were spent chatting in front of a crackling fireplace and, at times, watching television. On one occasion, we were treated to a lively, civilised debate involving a couple of intellectuals on the subject of, and I am extrapolating from memory, ‘Does God exist?’ or something similar. One of the speakers was a lady who, let us face it, would not have won a beauty competition, not for all the tea in China. Alright, let me not be coy, mince words and hide behind British understatements. The lady was decidedly plain by any conventional yardstick – the archetypal Plain Jane. But here is the twist in the tale. She was an outstanding speaker, full of brilliant aphorisms, quoting Shakespeare, Chaucer and Blake at will and slipping in the occasional ironic put-down at one of her fellow panellists. At the end of it all, she won the debate hands down and was the undisputed ‘belle of the ball.’ Fair play to her, we agreed. Watching it on the telly at home, we were bowled over. Her looks did not even enter our minds. Until my English friend, in typical tongue-in-cheek fashion piped up with, ‘She’s not just a pretty face, you know.’ As the poet Keats, while waxing eloquent about an urn from Greece had it, ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty.’

Banter aside, here is where I come from. You can look like a handsome prince and yet be a total blockhead and nobody will give you a second glance. Come to think of it, are all princes handsome? William, Harry, Charles before he became King? The royals of Windsor were not particularly known for being dishy. Are they intelligent? Many, like the aforementioned Christopher Hitchens found that question eminently debatable. Think about it. Take Tom Cruise for instance. He is not a prince but he is good looking if somewhat vertically challenged. Blonde, brown or black hair depending on the role he essays, chiselled features, beguiling smile, kills six villains with just his fists of fury, kills six women with just a look and a smile, the man has it all. A latter-day James Bond. But do we really know if the man has brains? He memorises from a script or with the aid of a prompter and many of his daredevil stunts are done by stuntmen though he swears blind he does it all himself. Tell that to the marines, say I.

The moot point is, can the all-conquering Tom Cruise explain Pythagoras’ theorem? Is he familiar with Bach’s Goldberg Variations? Can he unravel the mysteries of the universe? Maybe. Maybe not. Take him out of his celluloid or digital comfort zone and he is no Jack Reacher or Jerry Maguire. He will no more be capable of taking on Mission: Impossible – all the 8 versions – than Bruce Lee can karate chop an entire villainous kingdom out of existence. And he is no more Top Gun than you or me. Mind you, I am not suggesting that Tom Cruise has no brains in real life. I am merely speculating that we do not know and therefore should not be taken in just by his looks. If I do come across the man, a highly unlikely prospect, I shall quiz him on Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. If he rattles off the answer, I shall fall at his feet and apologise unconditionally. And probably beg for mercy. Till then, I shall hold my horses. In any case, I have no means of knowing if he was right or wrong as I know nix about Einstein’s T of R.

All of which brings me right back to where I started from. India’s mellifluously loquacious and enviably articulate Shashi Tharoor, a man of many parts (author of several notable tomes) with a distinct penchant for the mot juste, who will not bat an eyelid when it comes to using ten words where two might suffice, who has been satirised to death for his verbosity by all and sundry, including by himself but in the final analysis, is much loved and respected amongst a vast majority of Indians and foreigners across all age groups. Clearly the Prime Minister and his closest advisors saw fit to rope him in to ‘speak the speech trippingly on the tongue’ to international audiences in a way that they will understand us better and, hopefully, put Pakistan’s ridiculous, and largely successful, propaganda to shame. A task that has thus far proved beyond the capabilities of Mr. Modi’s current crop of spokespersons. Shashi Tharoor is handsome. Let us not hold that against him. After all, handsome is as handsome does. And the man is doing plenty while displaying admirable party-agnosticism. And to those not sitting in the treasury benches that find his being pitchforked into this exalted level by a ruling government distasteful, all I can say is, ‘eat your hearts out.’ As I close, I am reminded of the words of the world-famous classical violinist Niccolò Paganini who said, ‘I am not handsome, but when women hear me play, they come crawling to my feet.’