Hobsbawm dies- our disputation thrives.

   The Fourth Century Buddhist Logician, Priyankachopra, once observed that no truly worthwhile debate ever really ends- it is merely interrupted. Such were my own feelings when I heard of the untimely death of the great English Marxist- Eric Hobsbawm.

  My doctrinal disputation with him dates back to 1971- the year of the Srikakulam massacre- when I pointed out to Eric that not sodomizing the eye-sockets of Class Enemies before decapitating them was nothing but sloppy Left Adventurism with Trotyskyite characteristics and not, as Hobsbawm, perhaps somewhat tactlessly, averred, a Right deviationist Popular Frontism of the Harry Pollit type congenial to the undeniable Bukharinist strain in the Vadadesi Vadamarxist Vulgate

 On that occasion, I regret to say, I threw Eric across the room and vowed never to play with him again. Mummy said 'without a Teddy Bear you have no chance of making it at Oxford.  Chellame, take Hobsbawm back to your bosom- otherwise we will have to send you to the L.S.E and the starving masses of Srikakulam will have to wait another generation to gain the sort of constructive leadership that will enable them to sodomise the eye sockets of all and sundry.'

   I sternly refused and though I did drink up all my Ovaltine, after Mummy removed the skin, I never again engaged in debate with my dear old teddy, Eric Hobsbawm, with the result that I had to slum it at the LSE while all the other great liberators of the Proletariat were swanning around Oxford, hugging their battered old Hobsbawms, quaffing Chateau Petrus and drunkenly getting gay with each other.

   Still, as news reaches me of a new generation of Anti Imperialist activists procuring fatwas condoning sodomy for the devout purpose of enlarging their own rectums to permit the insertion of a larger payload of explosives- I turn back to reading Hobsbawm's obituary and realize, with misted eyes, that our debate is still very much alive, indeed, it is the epitome of all meaningful Left-wing debate- and thus, though our paths parted in an act of violence- one supervenient Death forbids me undo- yet, it is but the body that dies, the debate survives.