Fair and square

Fair and Square


My daughter and I were watching Noddy on the TV. All toy town people had just collected a bagful of berries and the toy-town baddies had sneaked around and stolen them. Noddy and the policeman Mr. Plod were after them. Finally they catch up with the baddies. Noddy shouts at them to return the berries. The baddies shout back that they will not only not return the berries but Noddy can’t make them give it back; then, they had stolen the berries “fair & square” and therefore the berries now belonged to them by right.

What beautiful logic! I was amused to see the resemblance to real life in this conversation. I go to the park with my child everyday and allow other children to play with the ball I carry with me. So the ball is either in play with some kid or the other or just lying there somewhere. Some time ago an old lady picked it up and kept it in her lap. I was watching her but did not say anything; later when it was time to go home I went to her and asked for the ball. She wasn’t very keen to return it thinking of it as an abandoned ball. I had to explain to her that I let other kids play but it was mine. She did give it back but not happily. Then some days ago when I was not looking, somebody took it away and I have not seen it since.

Now what was I to think? Why are we so keen to appropriate goods not belonging to us even if it is abandoned? You remember the story of the lamb drinking water at a stream and the wolf comes to him and says that he was dirtying the water for him. But the water is flowing downstream to me says the lamb. Oh that does not matter says the wolf; I am going to eat you anyway. “Any excuse will do”.

How easily we convince ourselves and concoct up proof to support our thoughts and thinking process to our advantage. We all know what is good and bad, correct and incorrect, right and wrong; that is by our society’s standards but yet when it is in our self-interest we look the other way without any qualm of conscience. It is not surprising that even after thousands of years of education, humanity still supports the evil in our nature and it is more in evidence than the good that we preach.

I would definitely like to know what in our nature and way of thinking makes us so. All of us read and expound sacred texts. We are regular goers to places of worship. We attend congregations for listening to advanced souls. We have prayers meetings at home and dutifully promote chanting and gatherings but for some reason all this remains acutely as part of other curricular activities. The philosophies we profess never become part of our active life and do not even scratch the surfaces of our real natures. Are we hard skinned or so insincere in our basic core that nothing can touch us our souls?

We do live a charade. One of the most horrific displays of this nature is the pious and virtuous show we put up in the form of artificial temples and copies of places of pilgrimages and the recent fashion of Chowki platforms to sing the praise of our Gods. The ridiculous is taken to an extreme with the populace rushing for Darshan and a glimpse of the Lord. The statues that are displayed are horrifyingly ugly; the singing is in bad taste by second rate artists and the volumes are designed to shatter all the glasses around. In some performances real theatrical groups are involved which is disgusting and a downright insult to any dignified “show” – definitely nothing Godly and what God would come in these surroundings? It is so downright a display of human stupidity and its ability to pull wool over its own eyes. The worst is that nobody has the courage to speak up although many in privately say how coarse they find it. The saving grace is the dinner that follows.

Why are we so easily swayed to accept the “bad” & and the “unacceptable” even by our own standards? And convince ourselves that all is alright!