Notes to my Students # 16: Please do the needful

This is an Indian English expression we use at the end of almost every business email / letter. But sadly, the rest of the world doesn't understand it. I always thought there is hardly any other more self-explanatory phrase in English than this, particularly in the context of business communication. And I always believed it is just a matter of time before it became part of what is vaguely called Standard English.

But the world has started learning English from us! Please read this from wwwDOTgrammarilyDOTcom.

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WHAT DOES "DO THE NEEDFUL" MEAN?

"Do the needful originated in India, is commonly used in African countries, and was once heard frequently in the United Kingdom as well. After the Victorian period, its usage in the West died out, but with the increase in outsourcing to and from India, it started catching the ear of English speakers in the West again.

"Do the needful means do that which is needed. It’s mainly used in formal written communication, especially when dealing with bureaucracy. It can be preceded by the words “kindly” or “please.” Ideally, it should follow an explanation of a problem that needs to be fixed or a request that is being made. It’s important to provide enough context about what “the needful” actually is, because the phrase itself doesn’t specify.

"There are many other phrases you could use instead of do the needful. “Please do what I asked” or “could you please fix this” might suffice, although “please do what needs to be done” or “please do what is required” are the phrases closest to the original meaning."

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Here are a few illustrative sentences that I could think of:

1. "Madam, Of late, your dog has been using our porch as a free open-air toilet, with particular focus on my car tyres. I would request you to please do the needful."

2. "Sir, Raghu has started a side business of exchanging high-denomination notes at a discount. And unfortunately, he is doing this during office hours. Kindly do the needful."

So, if you think you'd like to use this phrase, please do the needful. That is, jot it down in your word book, frame a few sentences around it, and say the sentences in your head, and finally, look for an opportunity to use the expression. Cheers!

Bengaluru
20 Nov 2016

The end of the world? JK!!!

A pathological liar, a disgusting dunce 

Who knows nothing about

Things beyond the borders of his country,

A dishonest businessman, hasn’t paid taxes for ages,

And cheated his contractors time and again,

A shameless racist who reminds us 

Of the USA a hundred years ago,

A sexual predator who 

On TV measured women’s bodies on a scale of 10 to 1,

Who routinely walked into women’s changing room because 

The hapless youngsters were participating in a pageant owned by rogue,

An employer who regularly assaulted his women employees sexually. 

A first-class passenger who browbeat / bribed flight attendants to 

Upgrade an economy-class lady passenger to his next seat 

So that he could attempt to rape her.

And to cap it all,

Bragged about his exploits.

…

…

…

Has just been elected the president of the US of A.

Because the so-called disenfranchised white Americans,

Including a majority of white women,

Many of whom university graduates

Voted for him. 

SHAME ON AMERICA.

SHAME EVEN MORE ON THE AMERICAN WOMEN. 

It happened because

Once upon a time

A white immigrant’s children 

Could enjoy a lavish life-style 

By a lot of real hard work 

Without any real education.

A school drop-out 

Could drive a truck 

And own a bungalow with a garden and two cars,

Could have six children, 

And send all of them to college if they qualified. 

IT WAS WONDERFUL EXCEPT 

THEY BELIEVED IT WAS THEIR BIRTHRIGHT UNTIL ETERNITY,

WHICH IT WASN’T. 

Because, there was a time when they had to open their doors 

For qualified non-white immigrants who could 

Fill in the gaps 

That drivers and tradesmen with enviable life-style couldn’t.

The next generation of these new imports became 

University profs, and some even Nobel Laureates.

And the uneducated well-off just couldn’t compete.

But more importantly,

BECAUSE IN THE MEAN WHILE,

THE WORLD HAD CHANGED.

It refused to be bullied.

And brutal American businessmen 

Could no longer run banana farms in Columbia,

Or drug cartels in Venezuela.

Local thugs took their place.

Because the new tyrants in the Middle East 

Refused American Corporations to

Take their liquid gold for a pittance.

Because it was no longer possible 

To set up a cyanide plant in the middle of an Indian city,

Ignore safety rules completely,

Murder 30,000 people,

Maim many more,

And get away scot-free – no criminal charges at all –

And wash their sins

By paying a holy $750 for every human life they extinguished.

Because in the mean while

The world had become a lot more competitive.

Chinese workers produced computers,

Bangladeshi women stitched shirts,

And Indian engineers wrote codes

At a fraction of what it would cost in the USA.

But the stupid white Americans,

Who hate people who can read and “think”,

And don’t read the superb American newspapers

Produced by brilliant white, black, yellow, and brown Americans, ….

World affairs have never been their strong point,

Staunch anti-communists who’ve painted their country “red”

Had no clue, didn’t know, couldn’t believe that

AMERICA CAN NEVER BE “GREAT” AGAIN.

And chose to elect the stupidest of their lot

Who happened to be a crook too,

and had promised them the moon.

SO WHAT?

The world has survived many dirty wielders of power.

It will survive Donald Trump.

Because for every dirty Donald Trump

There is a decent Barack Obama

Because for every Hitler,

There has been a Gandhi.

For every Mussolini, a Nelson Mandela,

For every McCarthy, a Martin Luther King.

So Cheers! 

This is not the end of the world.

[With thanks to Moumita for opening my eyes to some of the facts.]

Bangalore / 10 November 2016

Stephen Hawking on Donald Trump

I have been trying to follow the US Presidential elections, which is due in two days, because the outcome will have a bearing not only on the USA, but on the entire world. Donald Trump’s victory – which is still possible – will be a great fillip to the forces of lack of reason, illiteracy, and bigotry. A lot of countries in the world including the land of “Bharat Mata” are being ruled by such people, let’s not have any illusion about that. On a day when 1700 schools in Delhi have been shut down because children cannot breathe in the toxic Delhi air any more, our wonderful Urban Development minister, who looks and talks like a mawali, is busy defending shutting down NDTV’s Hindi Channel for a day. What sense of priorities! (Don’t know who a mawali is? You must, if you are an Indian. Please google for the word.)

The American election has been one of the nastiest political battles which would put even our Mamtas, Mulayams, and Mayavatis to shame. In a way, it’s good. It has removed the façade of the so-called “liberal democracy” of the West. When the times are bad and the chips are down, most preachers show their teeth and claws.

Another aspect, which has been generally overlooked by the commentators on both either of the Atlantic, is that this election has been singularly devoid of humour. Lack of humour is a bad thing, it indicates something is seriously wrong somewhere. But no problem, the world is fine!

Stephen Hawking, said to be the greatest theoretical physicist of our time, did the job. Please read this hilarious New Yorker report (31 May 2016).

LONDON … Stephen Hawking angered supporters of Donald J. Trump on Monday by responding to a question about the billionaire with a baffling array of long words.

Speaking to a television interviewer in London, Hawking called Trump “a demagogue who seems to appeal to the lowest common denominator,” a statement that many Trump supporters believed was intentionally designed to confuse them.

Moments after Hawking made the remark, Google reported a sharp increase in searches for the terms “demagogue,” “denominator,” and “Stephen Hawking.”

“For a so-called genius, this was an epic fail,” Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, said. “If Professor Hawking wants to do some damage, maybe he should try talking in English next time.”

Later in the day, Hawking attempted to clarify his remark about the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee, telling a reporter, “Trump bad man. Real bad man.”

In case you have missed the point, the USA is a land of native speakers of English. Political illiterates of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your ignorance.

Bengaluru / 6 November 2016

The deepest pit and Michelle Obama

As we moved from the innocence of childhood to the confusion of youth, our conscience was partly shaped by one of the most asymmetric conflicts of modern history – the war in Vietnam. Children were Napalmed, small-built, skinny peasants were facing the might of the most powerful nation on the earth for no reason at all, and defeating them as much on the battlefield as in the theatre of global opinion. There were other theatres too … Salvador Allende murdered … countless cruel dictators propped up by the CIA at the cost of their peoples. Paraphrasing Salman Rushdie, it is impossible for a non-American to love the United States of America.

That impression is still valid, particularly after Iraq, but I got to see another, totally different face of the “Ugly American” when I stayed there for several months, and isn’t it an impressive face?

I was amazed by their efficiency, total absence of corruption in day-to-day transactions, their immense capacity for hard work, their free press, and most importantly, their respect for manual labour. A plumber in America often has a more comfortable lifestyle than a university teacher, and certainly less insecurity about his career. So, if I have to sum up the USA in one sentence: it’s a land of contradictions.

And contradiction is seen in every aspect of the American life. Its universities produce Nobel laureates in science at metronomic regularity, yet a fair number of Americans are arithmetically challenged. Americans dominate business in far corners of the world, but an average American is often astonishingly uninformed about anything beyond their borders. I recall, once, when I told a shop assistant that the Long Island potato chips she sold were excellent, she asked me, ‘Do you make potato chips in India?’ And it was not an isolated instance.

And as the world keenly followed the presidential elections in the US in 2016, it was amazing to see the deep pits to which American politics has sunk. Bernie Sanders, the only untainted person in the race, was too much of a leftist to be tolerated by the American establishment. He had to lose out. But the two major parties elected such terrible candidates with questionable pasts … it's almost incredible.

And yet, as the race progressed, one of them, Donald Trump turned out to be an utterly disgusting specimen of humans and as a consequence, Hillary Clinton has turned out to be the messiah who could save America and possibly, the world. Her numerous sins like the questionable sources of funds for the Clinton Foundation and her snugly warm relationship with the thugs in Wall Street have been happily forgotten. Oh God! Anyone but Donald Trump and his goons!

But it is America. A counterpoint to the murky politics had to emerge, sooner or later. And it appeared in the shape of a few speeches by Michelle Obama. In particular, her speech in Phoenix on 20 October 23, 2016 was spellbinding, but more importantly, it was stirring defence of values in public life. It was a political speech in support of the lesser evil in the election, but it went much beyond, it would have touched a chord in every human being who believes in gender equality in particular and decency in general.

If you haven’t heard the speech, please do. The following link also gives the full transcript of the speech:

https://www.theguardian.com/…/michelle-obama-speech-transcr…

Postscript:

Annie Perkins writes in the Guardian: “When she speaks, Michelle Obama doesn’t stop being the wife of the president, but she transcends it. She becomes the personification of the best of her country. … Who in Britain can make that nonpartisan appeal to ordinary human decency? Last night she spoke for everyone who thinks politics can be better than this.”

Replace the word Britain with India, or any other country, the statement would be valid, wouldn’t it?

(650 words)

Bangalore / 23 October 2016