The man who was too late to admit

For you to understand the plight of the man known simply as Jagdambi not his real name I must first introduce you to the popular pastime of admitting errorsThere is a genre of Indian savant whose pride it is to have all the answers to everything You will find him in the back of the secretarial typing pool or sitting in a Cafe Coffee Day dispensing free conclusions about womenrsquos fashions COVID19 and the future of remote working His telltale opening sentence is usually ldquoTake it from me rdquo or ldquoLet me tell you rdquoThe best of these wiseacres keep a second sentence handy for those occasions when one of their statements backfires and they find themselves publicly challenged For such times they have a disarming statement that goes like ldquoI am the first to admit rdquo or a minor variant ldquoI will be the last to deny rdquoThus even when he loses this armchair knowitall wins mdash by being the very first in the business of admitting that he laid an egg Jagdambirsquos case was curious because according to him the coveted positions of being the first or the last to admit an error had somehow always eluded him Others had admitted the error before he couldldquoAll my liferdquo he said ldquoI have been the third to admit I cannot tell you the agony and the humiliation it has caused merdquoWe met on the slow train to Vikhroli ldquoWhen did it first dawn on you that others were beating you to the draw as far as admitting mistakes gordquo I asked him For the rest of the journey I heard the strange and moving story of this loser among losersTill age 18 Jagdambi had been diffident and introverted the sort of fellow you see at parties standing with a hand outstretched but finding no one ready to shake it In an effort to gain popularity Jagdambi began predicting rainfall usually for college friends planning datesldquoIn the beginning I had a run of luck and was right an unusual number of timesrdquo he said ldquoI was the Rain Man popular with anyone who wished to date a girl Then my luck ran outrdquoJagdambirsquos lifelong run of disastrous judgement had started ldquoThe first few times I was embarrassed but confident that it was a passing phaserdquo he said To save face when hersquod made a blooper he began starting disclaimers with lsquoI will be the first to admit that rsquoBut even here fate played a cruel joke on himldquoI found that Dhinchak Pande and Goofy Balasubramaniam had already admitted the very same mistake I was the third to admit it Everyone was laughing at merdquoAfter that there was no looking backHe claimed that the brassiere had been invented by a Frenchman called Monsieur Soutiens He was dead wrongHe assertively stated that Telugu was the strongest contender after Hindi for being a national language Wrong againHe believed that desktop publishing was only a passing fad Utterly tragically incorrectHe developed a theory that atoms had tiny souls that could be apprehended through intense concentration It was absurdIn every case Jagdambi emerged as a pathetic figure whenever he tried to ride the crest of failure Two other people would already have confessed the same misjudgment and been applauded for their ruthless humilityOne of Jagdambirsquos outstanding eggs was his prediction that Congress would win the elections He was wrong of course but it was this that showed me the way out of his problem just as my stop nearedI made a suggestion to him before we exchanged emails and partedldquoIt is clear Jagdambirdquo I said ldquothat the solution lies not in being the first to admit but in finding a job where admitting anything is unnecessary perhaps even undesirablerdquoI did not meet Jagdambi again but I read that he stood for elections from the small constituency of Kunjpura in Haryana winning by a landslide He rose meteorically within the party such was his natural talent for making one mistake after another Today he is in a powerful position in the nationrsquos capital I recently received a letter of thanks from him I quote from itldquoThanks to your brilliant idea sir I am finally surrounded by fellows who have made far more mistakes than I could ever dream of making They have incorrectly anticipated booms in areas where slumps occurred They have denounced the weaker sections and praised thugs and scoundrels They believe rape can be therapeutic They have dismissed massive farmer rallies as mere nautankisldquoYet when faced with facts they brilliantly maintain a stoic silence Some are hoping to be accused of being involved in some major scandal or kickback dealldquoI have so much to learn now I am at last with people who know everything about making mistakesldquoAnd I am the first to admit thatrdquoHere viewed from there C Y Gopinath in Bangkok throws unique light and shadows on Mumbai the city that raised him You can reach him at cygopigmailcom Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper