An After-Dinner Speech

When the last crumbs were dutifully scraped off the last plate by the slowest eater Ozzy, and dinner was officially over as Ozzy's Dad (my uncle) said like he had been saying for the last 54 years:"That was a good meal," Ozzy & I got up, only to be told to sit down by his Dad whom we shall refer to as PA (Pompous Ass). PA was to make an after-dinner speech - not unusual of the old man but an awful habit of his which we had forgotten, though we realised he hadn't. He looked with a strange warmth at my aunt, Dot, Ozzy & me, which meant he was going to announce something really, really trivial. Shucks! At this goddamn place, one can't hit the sack in peace after some grub!

PA stood and said in his customary manner: "It'll be a short speech. And it's about food." I wondered whether he was going to thank my Aunt for the excellent dinner when as an afterthought he added: "About the food crisis, to be precise. Economics - the dismal science. So lend me your ears." Ozzy looked stunned. 'Economics' was one of those hazy words which when uttered with the solemnity of a butler announcing the arrival of an important personage would hardly make Ozzy get up and offer his seat, leave alone his ears. In fact, if one were to write 'Economics,' 'The Economist' and 'The Economic Times' on three bits of paper and ask Ozzy which was the magazine, which the newspaper and which the subject, he would have stared right through you as if you had just asked him for the nuclear bomb's recipe.

Ozzy turned to me and whispered: "We do earn enough to keep our body and soul together, right? And I believe there's still all those money under the wooden floor and above the false ceilings, hmm?" I nodded to reassure him.
"Ahem..Any questions may be put forward to me...After the speech," twittered PA. I heard Ozzy say something about the Mad Hatter.
"Do I have your ears?" PA persists. We chorused: "Yeah, yeah..You do."

And thus was born the longest and most monotonous monologue four pairs of ears have been subjected to in the written history of mankind. I've memorised the speech for the benefit of my enemies; my friends shall only have to bear with the gist. PA spoke about the food crisis, how it was always around but only now had it become so enormous that people had begun to notice it and write about it (and as Ozzy snidely remarked:"And also give after-dinner speech about it"), how growing demand in India and China, subsidies of developed nations, export controls and the voracious appetite of US & EU for biofuels would result one fine day in all of us observing a minute's silence in memory of gud ol' food before our empty pots and pans. And again Ozzy drily said: "You would, on such a day, probably give a speech about that miraculous, now extinct, thing called food and then exclaim the speech was the dinner!" I, who often indulged my cousin's worst PJs, gave him a stern look to mean: "I can't go along with your sense of humour all the time as even I have my limits."

When PA suggested solutions like tweaking of trade policies and delved deeper into the mechanism of subsidies, Ozzy could take it no more. His soul shrieked at the injustice of it all, and he blurted out: "What is the point?"
To which PA said: "What point?"
"Where are you leading us?" Ozzy asked and at once felt like a lamb smartly asking the shepherd, if a sheep could speak the human tongue or speak at all, where indeed was he leading the flock. Others may be meek and blind, but not me, Sir, not me, Ozzy thought.
"Nowhere."
"OK? I get it now...Are you suggesting we cut down our intake of carbs?"
Silence, followed by more silence. Silence of the lambs, Ozzy can conceive of a PJ, even if he were to face a firing squad. And just when Ozzy opens his mouth to let out an audible word...
"No," PA says calmly, like a jury member pronouncing a verdict after much deliberation on being asked whether he favoured the death sentence for the accused.
"Are you insinuating that I trim my flab?"
"No."
"Are you hinting that from tomorrow am gonna be starved?"
"No."
"Then, what are you driving at? What? What? What?"
"Three whats are not going to make me answer you so fast, son."
"What the hell! What's the purpose of all these words you have been flinging at us?!"
At this point, Dot, who cannot begin a sentence without 'actually,' 'basically,' 'generally,' and 'simply,' turns to Ozzy : "Actually Ozzy, you can't talk to Daddy like this. You have a weak heart."
"Well, I just did."
"Basically, you need to relax. Take it easy. Chill. Relax. Chillax," Dot chants her favourite words.
"I'm not gonna let an old man ruin my after-dinner hours further unless he tells me why he held us captive for two hours...I demand an explanation like any rational creature...What's the P.O.I.N.T?"

Now that Old PA had everyone looking at him like he was an Old Testament prophet about to throw more pearls of wisdom their way, he said with great composure and a serene smile: "The point is I've got all the material I need for my forthcoming book 'Why BPL Families Jump The Ration Queue.' Trust me, the arguments I will put forth would hold true for Abidjan in Cote d'Ivoire as much as for India and I hope to deliver an after-dinner speech at a FAO meet and sometime in the future, perhaps a Nobel...Uh, I mean my noble endeavour might...."
At this point, Ozzy asks everyone to imagine that old PA had turned to stone, and so ignore him like we ignore the busts of Lord Clive or Lord Dalhousie on the streets of Calcutta and like a true man of the house, takes charge of the situation: "Everyone evacuate this room fast!" And as I narrate this to Mme on the phone, Ozzy begs -'Enough, Mimi. Lord! Either this old chap goes to the asylum or I go. Please don't give him too much importance by continuing with his story. Cut the crap right here, and go to sleep."And I obliged, as my poor cousin muttered something about why one can't choose one's dad...and Dot added her bit about how one can't choose one's mom or brother and I caught on and contributed by saying for that matter, how one can't choose one's uncle or aunt either and clever Mme thoughtfully followed our train of thought and supplied from the other end of the line how one can't choose one's grandpa or grandma...Really, everyone can go on...