Wise and worldly? Or, other worldly? The Prequel.

Had we gone completely wacko or what? We almost ‘outsourced’ (as my friend Avinash laughingly described it when the Congress takeover drama was on a couple of years ago) our Prime Ministership – which my PC’s spell-check by the way insisted should be written as two words either ‘Ministers’ + ‘hip’ or ‘Minister’ + ‘ship’. At that time, we were also a search for India’s Child Genius. I had no problem with the former. (In my eyes, the erstwhile Italian au pair lady is a naturalized Indian citizen.) The latter in my book is sheer lunacy. The Hyperdictionary defines ‘genius’ as ‘unusual mental ability’, ‘a natural talent’, ‘exceptional creative ability’, ‘exceptional intellectual ability’ and ‘originality’. http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/genius. From the Child Genius Search promos I got the feeling that general knowledge and mathematical ability were the litmus test used by the ‘tele-hunt’. Genius cannot be hunted down, if you ask me. Like cream, it rises to the top. All by itself. The rest is Kaun-Banega-Krorepati clonemanship. What irked me most about the promos was the so-called kid genius wannabes strutting about hurling attitude with a capital ‘A’ at the viewer. Borrowing a turn of phrase from Dorothy Parker I would like to humbly submit that “This is not a show to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.” Like what the anti-incumbency wave did to the NDA! Huh? http://www.quotesplace.com/info/browse/Dorothy_Parker.