Do it in the morning

Oscar Wilde, in his life of written genius, once said and I quote “all good things in life are illegal, immoral, or fattening”. Let’s get it up to speed with 21st century freedom of expression and append it. All good things in life are illegal, immoral, fattening or gay.


It hurts, I know ladies but it is true. Now we can either deny it, ignore it, or we can suck it up and find a way to well, have our cake, and it eat too. In a manner of speaking. No, cross that. In a lip smacking, for real, twinkle in your eye kind of way.

Let’s take a look at the view. It’s a rough world out there, and we all deserve an occasional break. It’s not a sin if you’re able to figure out an easy penance for it. The wise folks at any diet wellness shop will tell you if you can not get that piece of death by chocolate out of your mind, well, then go ahead and do it. But make it small. And make it early in the day. Science will tell you that the remaining day helps you digest the sin better, and there’s lesser chance of it resting for good on your hip.

Very well then. Here’s my corollary:


The forbidden fruit is forever tempting. The wee bit of devil inside us does push us to the wanton, slightly wicked verbs here and there. To want to steal a kiss from the one who already has a ring on the finger? To covet your neighbour? To, just once, not wait for the slow pedestrian to cross the road (a bit o’ Swiss humour here, my friend) and drive on? To concede the half truth only perhaps?

Is it always so abominable?

Maybe not if you do it early in the day. A little bit of, even if ostensibly so, undeserved pleasure, just for your selfish self, can go a long way if you let the rest of the day digest it. Like the man himself said, the only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.

Do what you desire. Just make sure you do it in the morning.

Of novels and politicians

A blog piece by Jug Suraiya (Shashi Tharoor and the Nehru-Gandhi family) sparked a piquant feeling. Here’s the original article. And I quote some bits from it:

“…However, way back in 1989 - long before he entered politics - Shashi took India's First Family to task in his The Great Indian Novel, in which he retold the story of the Mahabharat in the idiom of modern India's political history…”

…

“…Did you really write that, Shashi? Or are you again being misquoted by the media?”

It is easy to fault public figures, ones who dabble in politics even more so, for their past, their present, for them speaking their minds and more.

And it is paltry to pick up their past work and vilify them with it in the present context. For the lack of exclusive news, this is a trifle target for lazy co-relations.

It is not for me to judge whether Mr Tharoor was misquoted. I would like to mention, though, the bit about freedom of expression, literary or otherwise. What Mr Tharoor penned down a couple of decades ago, was his prerogative, irrespective of his current occupation. The Great Indian Novel still qualifies as a piece of fictional work, irrespective of it mirroring the Indian independence movement and the years thereafter. Last time I looked, as Indians, we are still allowed creative licensing. You probably earn a small chunk of change yourself from it, I’m sure.

Because one is in service of an organisation, be it even the state, does not mean one needs to be servile to all advocacies. Is evolution of thoughts and ideas somehow not expected from our leaders? Or do we prefer stagnancy of opinions?

After all, debate was one of the basic foundations of Nehru’s democracy, was it not Mr Suraiya?