The rites of passage and a passage on Rights.

The transition from class VIII to class IX marked a sea change in my life. For one I was now a senior student, entitled to live in the Senior House, secondly, I had now gone from a gawky pre – teen to a gawky teenager, complete with a voice that was squeaky one minute and a deep bass the next, and as a student of IX ISC., I was entitled to select the subjects of study for the board examinations.

   Important decisions had to be made to chart out my future career.

Some subjects were easy; they were compulsory and therefore easy to select.  Tougher choices ones were the optional subjects.

  I eventually chose Sanskrit which I had a nodding acquaintance with, and one I considered a piece of cake, and CIVICS.

  I didn’t know much about civics then. The main reason I opted for civics, was that it was taught by Mr. A.S.N.Sinha.

  Mr. Sinha was a gentleman of the old school with a hail fellow well met mien, always impeccably dressed, a bottle brush moustache rather like Terry Thomas, and always was contagiously happy. He was very popular with the boys; good enough reasons for taking up Civics. Of such trifles are earth shattering decisions made.

  Civics I found was a very dry, dismal subject. Even the pages were filled with long paragraphs, so long that they were unreadable. And there were no pictures at all. What use is a textbook without pictures, I ask you!

 Furthermore the civics classes were usually held after the lunch break when our minds were in a state of post prandial torpor.

  But we had Mr. Sinha to breathe some semblance of life into an otherwise dull, dreary subject. Mr. Sinha could infuse humor into everything, even the chapter on Rights and Duties. And what is more his jokes were on the risqué side.

  Till quite recently we used to find toilet humor excruciatingly funny; almost as good as Sardarji jokes, but Mr. Sinha’s jokes were different. We giggled nervously and were deliciously scandalized, without usually understanding the import of the jokes. It was sufficient that the older boys looked knowingly at one another, and told us that theses were *dirty jokes*. We felt we were all grown up and men of the world and debonair and sophisticated.

  So we spent the next two years eagerly waiting for his lectures more for the ribaldry than for the civics.

  Consequently, I know as much about the subject now, as I knew before I started studying it.

Yet, in that all encompassing Stygian darkness of ignorance, a few residual nuggets of knowledge occasionally glimmered like glow worms in a summer night.

 One of these scattered bits includes the Constitution of India. Not the whole thing of course, but the beginning or what is better known as “the Preamble”.

 Mr. Sinha drummed it into us that the Preamble is a very important thing and at the very least, we could expect a short note in the examinations. So with due diligence I read it over and over again. It did not come in the examinations, which I thought was very unfair, but the result of this exercise was

a)     I developed an abiding distaste for people who can’t get to the point and waffle around like Congress spokespersons. You want a constitution, go ahead; why go for the preliminary things like preambles? It’s like being forced to eat your veggies before you get to the main stuff.

b)    I also got a vague understanding that under the constitution every one was equal.

I mean it quite clearly says in the preamble that all are equal and one cannot be nasty to another on the grounds of caste, religion, creed, sex, color, language, or whatever.

It would also mean that one should not selectively boost up the next person on the grounds above.

Right?

Or, to put it in a nutshell, there should be no discrimination between me and the next person on the grounds mentioned above and if you think I am going to type all the grounds again, you’re a monkey’s uncle.

 The corollary to that is anyone who discriminates between different groups of people is being very naughty, and deserves to be punished; certainly not be elected.

 What brought this diatribe up are the impending elections and my quandary is who to vote for.

Party A tells me that Party B and Party C are stooges of Mr. Moneybags, and are partners in crime.

Party B claims that Party C is corrupt and Party A is all hot air and incompetent; they are also the B team of C.

Party C informs me that Party B is communal, i.e. for the Hindus and against the Muslims and so shouldn’t be considered. They themselves are of course pure as driven snow.

Party D reminds us that they are totally secular and are not for or against any religion. Caste of course, is another matter. They claim to represent the castes that have been trampled over by society for the past millenia and now, by George, they are going to give the other castes their comeuppance, for the next millennium.

And so on for the rest of the alphabets.

Every one of them seems to have an axe to grind against some group or the other. The entire political spectrum seems to be raddled and ravaged by this pettiness.

Except for Party T, which is hell bent on ‘Poribortan’.

They have several axes to grind.

I really wonder if I should bother to cast my vote at all. The alternatives I am offered are all so unpalatable.

I think I shall sit and contemplate my navel, if I can locate it.

My paunch is getting in the way.

  

  

APOLOGIES

         Apologies are statements that are made when you, for the moment, can’t think of a better way of getting out of the hole you have got yourself into. They aren’t to be taken too seriously and are just contrivances for giving brownie points to your interlocutor, and cost you nothing more than momentary discomfort.

         As a veteran of several decades of marriage, I can be considered an expert in the art of apology. In fact I know more about apology than I do of Zoology, Physiology, toxicology, Pharmacology, and sundry other logies I have studied. Much of my married life has been spent in apologizing for things I did, things I didn’t do, things I was told to do and forgot, things that I was specifically told not to do but forgot. I have become so fluent in my apologizing that I often find myself apologizing for something I did even before I have actually done it. This saves time and has the added benefit of confusing the apologisee.

       Consequently I was rather bemused when in a recent TV interview some one was being badgered about whether he would apologize for something that happened three decades ago. He looked flummoxed. Apparently he had never been asked to apologize for anything in his life before. Then he dimpled and talked about women’s empowerment. It looked cute but was apparently not the right answer, as the question was repeated. An earnest look and the appeal that the system needs changing evoked the same response. He looked aghast, and ready to burst into tears. There was no way out of this one.

    In his place I would have immediately apologized. Like most of my apologies it wouldn’t mean anything anyway.

    I do believe that there should be a statute of limitations on apologies.

If my wife asks me today to apologize for not taking her to her maika in June 1982, I would apologize of course, out of sheer habit, but it really makes no sense.

 Not that I expect her to make sense (ok I apologize for that).

    This tendency of asking for an apology for things past may open the flood gates in the future.

The Congress is expected to apologize for 1984, Namo for 2002, the firangis for the Jallianwala Bagh tragedy.

      If this goes on, there will be hundreds of messages flying all over the world demanding apologies.

      A message would go to the Govt. of Mongolia asking them to apologize for the murder of 100000 people and subsequent sack of Delhi by one of their erstwhile citizens, Timur. Ditto one to the Republic of Iran for the depredations of Nadir Shah. A missive will go to the Afghans for the actions of Mahmud of Ghazni, along with a request to compensate for the loot of Somnath.

      On an international scale, the United Indigenous Inhabitants of America will ask for an Apology from the Governments of Spain, Portugal, and Great Britain (including Ireland) for willfully and with malicious intent invading their land.

      Israel will ask for an apology for the Holocaust from Germany, with copies to Poland and Russia where similar pogroms happened.

 On a local level the people of the Deccan will demand an apology from the people who claim Aryan descent, for displacing them and destroying their way of life.

     People of Odisha and Bengal will fire off a letter to Maharashtra expressing the actions of the “borgis” and demanding an apology.

   The descendants of the people of Mohenjodaro will demand an apology from everyone, and the Harappans will add on a clause asking for an apology for the theft of their cuisine, including tandoori chicken which as everyone knows, was invented there.

    And the British will send a demand to the government of India asking for an apology for the deaths of Mrs. Kennedy and Miss Kennedy. The Aussies for the deaths of Graham Staines and his sons…..the list of Man’s inhumanity to Man is endless, and there can be no end to occasions for which an apology is required.

    Of course you can dig in your heels and like a Petkoff (or RG) refuse to apologize. (for those of you who have missed the reference, read ’Arms and the Man’).

    Or you can follow the example of Zeus.

Zeus, king of the Greek gods, ruler of Olympus, wielder of thunderbolts, used to chafe under the supervision of his wife Hera Boopis (the cow eyed). He also suffered from the seven year itch, though in his case it was more frequent than that, and often went walk a bout.

    In the course of one of these travels his eye was caught by Alcmene, wife of Amphytron, and a beauty beyond mortal compare. At that time Amphytron was away on one of the frequent battles that the ancients kept having. to pass the time. Zeus changed his appearance to that of Amphytron and went to Alcmene who was mildly surprised by the return of her ‘husband’.

“Back so early, dear?” she asked.

 In Greek.

To cut a long story short, Zeus took the advantage of her husband’s absence to have a wild time.

     This did not escape the attention of Hera who was not only cow eyed but also eagle eyed. She came charging up and demanded that at least Zeus must apologize for what he did.

     Zeus’ answer was a classic. He said “I may apologize, but I’ll never be sorry.”

  

      

   

    

Saurav's "attitude"
Now that SG has found a place in the cricket team, he should show a bit of gumption and tell the selectors, Thank you, but no thank you".
After the humiliation he has been exposed to, he should tell the "experts" where they get off.