Don’t you worry, I am not going to make this post a political flumadiddle because it isn’t going to mention what Pappu did recently or where Feku is right now (though we know they’re both getting acquainted with the textual details of French wines).
So what else is there that the nation actually wants to know? I mean, look at the TV channels and you’ll think this is all that Indians did all the time. I’m sure the gora viewers must be disgusted at the amount of political flumadiddle (and I’m using this word again as this is the best replacement for now for the so often used ‘utter nonsense’). Politics is what we never understand and politics is all that we discuss all the time. Politics to us is what peppy is to those who love to follow fashion without knowing that Shantanu and Nikhil aren’t characters from Mahabharata but designers.
Now that I have mentioned the word peppy, I’m sure the nation wants to know what it really means. However, before I define what the word means to me, let me talk about what it should never mean.
What the word peppy should never be
Peppy is never ‘bunkum’ because it isn’t about insincere talk or claptrap or humbug. Bunkum is also ‘insincere speech-making by a politician intended merely to please local constituents’ and this not the sort of existence that peppy would ever adopt.
Peppy is hardly the sort of word that would ever get linked to ‘an awkward and unlucky person for whom things never turn out right’ or schlemiel. This word entered the English language in the late 1800s from the Yiddish word shlemil and I’m rather happy that it doesn’t have a lineage with peppy as one of the relatives down the line.
Peppy can never really be caustic as I’m sure it isn’t ‘capable of burning, corroding, or destroying living tissue’ and is hardly ever critical of any action.
This word can never walk along with words like boodle which talk about ‘a bribe or other illicit payment, especially to or from a politician’ or malarkey that exists to obscure, mislead, or impress.
So what does the word really signify?
Peppy is a word with just five alphabets and is a real derring-do as it befriends every emotion that is connected to badinage or ‘light, playful banter or raillery’ which simply means that it is full of zing and is zesty. Yes, I do agree that all its energetic moments also mean that it has to always ensure that it doesn’t tilt or lean towards the darker or murkier side of life. So the word has to be more like a funambulist or a tightrope walker at times.
‘So many associations for this pint-sized word?’
Well, the word surely is a pepper-upper, right? I mean the word is not a permanent solution or answer for all the cheerfulness that you may seek in your life… after all you need to also dump all the negative feelings and this is something that peppy alone cannot do. Therefore, peppy can provide a temporary period of energy and alertness as some pills and food items do but you need to reinforce its strength with a resolve from within you. Peppy is quite beamish or a born optimist but doesn’t need to be thrown into the turbulent seas of ill-will, dis-respect, irreverence, and an environment that is forever sneaky and crafty.
Well, that is probably the most extensive explanation of peppy that I could think of and if you need any shorter but an equally precise definition, you may need to search for what the word ‘zica’ is associated with.
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Peppy = derring-do, badinage, funambulist, pepper-upper, zica
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This blog post is inspired by the blogging marathon hosted on IndiBlogger for the launch of the #Fantastico Zica from Tata Motors. You can apply for a test drive of the hatchback Zica today.
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Arvind Passey
25 January 2016
