The man who was too late to admit

Are you always the first one to admit a cock-up? Are you the last one to deny it? What if you were always too late to admit that you goofed up?

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 errors.

There 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 women’s fashions, COVID-19 and the future of remote working. His tell-tale opening sentence is usually: “Take it from me. . .” or “Let me tell you. . .” 

The 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, “I am the first to admit. . .” or a minor variant, “I will be the last to deny. . .”

Thus, even when he loses, this armchair know-it-all wins — by being the very first in the business of admitting that he laid an egg. Jagdambi’s 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 could.

“All my life,” he said, “I have been the third to admit. I cannot tell you the agony and the humiliation it has caused me.”

We met on the slow train to Vikhroli. “When did it first dawn on you that others were beating you to the draw as far as admitting mistakes go?” I asked him. For the rest of the journey, I heard the strange and moving story of this loser among losers.

Till 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 dates.

“In the beginning, I had a run of luck and was right an unusual number of times,” he said. “I was the Rain Man, popular with anyone who wished to date a girl. Then my luck ran out.” 

Jagdambi’s lifelong run of disastrous judgement had started. “The first few times I was embarrassed but confident that it was a passing phase,” he said. To save face when he’d made a blooper, he began starting disclaimers with, ‘I will be the first to admit that. . .’

But even here, fate played a cruel joke on him.

“I 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 me.”

After that, there was no looking back.

He claimed that the brassiere had been invented by a Frenchman called Monsieur Soutiens. He was dead wrong.

He assertively stated that Telugu was the strongest contender after Hindi for being a national language. Wrong again.

He believed that desktop publishing was only a passing fad. Utterly, tragically incorrect.

He developed a theory that atoms had tiny souls that could be apprehended through intense concentration. It was absurd.

In 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 humility.

One of Jagdambi’s 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 neared.

I made a suggestion to him before we exchanged emails and parted.

“It is clear, Jagdambi,” I said, “that the solution lies not in being the first to admit but in finding a job where admitting anything is unnecessary, perhaps even undesirable.”

I 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 nation’s capital. I recently received a letter of thanks from him. I quote from it:

“Thanks 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 nautankis.

“Yet 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 deal.

“I have so much to learn now. I am at last with people who know everything about making mistakes

“And I am the first to admit that.”

Here, 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 cygopi@gmail.com. Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com

The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.

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