Chase Him for Phrases

 Chase Him for Phrases 

Till now, I don't know with what confidence English Literature was opted for as a UG degree. It all started from scratch with the dream of reaching the zenith - speaking English fluently. At that time, call centers in Chennai were fishing out candidates with “fantastic English.” The prospect of earning twelve or fifteen thousand per month was a great promise for UG literature graduates. Chetan Bhagat’s One Night at the Call Centre can be read from this context. I haven't read the novel; I saw my seniors reading it on the local train. Working in call centers was a promise only for city-based girls and boys who spoke English at the tip of their tongues. If it is contemplated from the present, such jobs were ephemeral by nature, like mushrooms meant for living a short period of time. BA English graduates were hunted for it. Our super seniors were the last generation of victims to those dreadful bloodsucking monsters. Yet, that was the covetous promise for literature students: if you complete your degree, you can earn fifteen thousand per month. Dear reader, imagine a sum of fifteen thousand at a time when buying a cup of tea costs just fifty paise! That is great money indeed. We were so desperate to acquire English that we couldn't match the expectations of the job industry outside. Soft Skills was a new avatar that invaded academia to train the unbridled minds and tongues of rural students. In Tamil, there is a saying—what can be consumed to alleviate the effect of yellow bile caused in the body? That was the same case with us. What could we do to fill our empty minds with something of English to speak it fluently?

There came a suggested solution for it, "novel reading can help you to acquire good English". The problem is that if Tamil-medium students struggle to read a single sentence to get the meaning out of it, then imagine the possibility of reading a full-length novel. It is ironic to say that the process of hunting materials on how to read in English itself led us on the path of acquiring English. To propitiate all these troubles, a senior from the second year was roaming the campus by holding an advertisement brochure promoting one particular spoken English coaching center from Kerala. In that content message, there was a suggestion to aspirants of English to pick up materials for reading practice. It was the first time I came across the terms “light novels” and “light reading.”

The recommended novelists from that brochure were Erle Stanley Gardner and James Hadley Chase. Now what I could guess is the hint of the message - indirectly - was targeting students to forget Dickens and Hardy and cling to Chase, Gardner, and Sidney Sheldon for the industry's benefit. Within academia, there was the term vehemently used by English professors attacking light novels, ‘trash’. The industry from outside created the mindset that it is sufficient for us, you, to read just light novels. On the contrary, within academia, the slogan “abandon the trash, embrace the serious” was a really intimidating one. Research scholars fondly call this popular kind “pulp fiction” meaning ‘cheap’. Due to its holding factor - reader in its grip - the term ‘pulp’ also can be translated as juicy.  

Whatever the situation may be, Hardly Chase was flamboyant in the reading circle of the masses in the 70s and 80s. In the millennium, to find a single reader of him was scarce. But I got hold of Chase steadfastly. One reason to cling to Chase may be that old man Raji Thatha. If you want to know who Raji Thatha is, you can visualize him after the visage of an Indian thatha’s white hairstyle. His grandson is a friend of mine. Through whom our acquaintance was developed. He was the only companion for me with whom I could discuss Chase. Of Chase, his favorite was There’s a Hippy on the Highway. He told me a very interesting story of selling pirated copies of Chase in the 70s and 80s. He was in Macmillan. I may recount that tale in the next series. For me, Chase is still for English alone. One can catch hold of phrases and idioms aptly from Chase. Of course, vocabulary building is also very effective in reading Chase. In the millennium, students were rushing towards Chetan Bhagat. I don't know what vocabulary building can be possible in his writings. But in my General English classes, persuading students to read Chetan Bhagat himself is an unachievable task. One week before, on the eve of the even-semester, I started lecturing on the level of English that we need to acquire. At that moment, I was holding Chase’s I Hold Four Aces. I told them that a yardstick to measure the level of our English is our ability to enjoy one light novel. No one bothered to notice what I was hinting at. In fact, I was holding sixty one aces in that class, so desperate for the bell to ring. Let my lecture be the trumpet to the deaf.

More than Agatha Christie, Chase is suitable to catch phrases and idioms. Vocabulary—no problem. A hundred words are enough to fool the world. Our desperate need is to enrich our English with phrases. However, there are new sets of words that surprise us with unfamiliarity. In my present reading of this novel, at the end I encountered an unfamiliar one that, in my twenty years of pursuit of English, I haven't come across - “wraith.” In fact, it comes with the phrase “wraith of goddesses.” Beware, it is not the “wrath” but ‘wraith’.  Where is the pocket dictionary? No, let the search for the meaning be postponed. We can't stop such thrilling moment from completing this light novel. We have a lot more novels by James Hadley Chase in queue. Until then, we chase him for phrases.