The importance of hypocrisy

It is customary, I know, to pick a dictionary and define the word before you go ahead giving out your unique ‘wisdom’ about it. Since, however, I have this irresistible urge to find out whether I have a common-sense, let me go ahead based on the common-sense definition of hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy is understood to mean behavior that is at variance with the stated moral position of a person. We consider a person a hypocrite when his thoughts and actions do not match his words. In other words, a hypocrite is a person who does not ‘Walk the Talk’. A further exception to this definition is that we are not outraged by the hypocrisy of a person who talks like a sinner and behaves like a Saint. You accuse someone of Hypocrisy only when the reverse is true. 

All of us hate hypocrites and want people to shed their hypocrisy. I am afraid that this feeling that the world would be better off if people were not hypocrites is erroneous. We tend to tacitly assume that if people were not hypocrites they would end up ‘Walking the Talk’ i.e their behavior would be as moral as their words. What if they started “Talking the Walk’? 

I know you tend to feel that, even if they did speak out the immorality of their thoughts, you would be better off since you would know where you stood with them. If that were all there was to hypocrisy I would agree with you. The thing is there are a lot of things that get done because of hypocrisy which would never get done otherwise. 

Assume that most of the Companies in a sector actually care more for their bottom-lines than for customer service. As long as everyone keeps mouthing ‘Customer is King’ and does not vent their true feelings, they would not even know that the majority of the Companies feel this way – and the fear of losing market share to competitors keeps them paying lip service to customer care. What if this veil of hypocrisy is torn and someone speaks out about it? Your customer care service – if there is still one – would probably return an answer like this 

Do you think we can hire an army of people to run around at your beck and call? We are in this for profits and are not a Social service. Our people are busy and will get around to your complaint in five or so years time. 

I know everyone is very worked up with Khap Panchayats and their diktats about women. Whatever you may say about them, they are people who ‘Walk the Talk’ – their morals and actions are in sync. Assume that most of the political classes think and act like these people. Now, please tell me, would there even be a discussion on reservations for Women in Parliamentary seats? Would it be better for you to hear the political classes say, “As per our culture, the place of a woman is in the home. It would be against our culture to allocate seats for women in Parliament”? 

I mean, it is only the fact that they need to pay lip service, at least, to women’s rights that is still keeping that Bill alive. If, once, that veil of hypocrisy is torn and they all start talking with no hypocrisy - like the Khap Panchayats – bang goes any miniscule chance of getting that Bill through. (Ah! Do not talk of their being voted out and all that rot. That assumes that there is, at least, one party which honestly believes in Women’s rights or has continued to be hypocritical! In the latter case, it would be hypocrisy that won the day for you) 

Take this burning issue of corruption. Once again, it is hypocrisy that is enabling the legislation that, at least, can attempt to curb it. Assuming that most politicians take the sub-rosa earnings as their right and assuming that they feel free to talk of it, would you not hear them say things like, “You get your stock options and bonuses. We take it by allotting de-notified land to ourselves and in kick-backs. So what is the big deal?” If they started talking like that, do you really think that the RTI act could ever have been passed or would they have shot down the idea saying, “What nonsense! You guys keep your salary details confidential and you expect us to hand over the details of our sub-rosa earnings to the first-comer?” Need they even have thought of paying lip service to the Lokpal Bill? 

The great service that hypocrisy is doing to our social set-up is immeasurable. So, till the time you can ensure that the elimination of hypocrisy will only lead to people “Walking their (current) Talk”, long live hypocrisy.

Disclaimer : I make no claims about the validity of the assumptions in the examples above!

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Coincidences

Life, they say, is full of coincidences. A truth that manages to catch my fuzzy attention all too frequently at various points in time. 

Now, if you think I am about to start on how my boss used to pick THAT day when I wanted to go off and watch an IPL match to keep me in office with urgent work – think again! That sort of thing is too commonplace an occurrence – bosses exist for the purpose of raining on subordinates’ parades. What would be worth mentioning is a boss who is also packing up for the day in order to watch the same IPL match. Oh! And, by the way, do not exult if your boss is packing up soon – it only means that he is going to load his work on you so that he can go off and enjoy himself! 

These days, one of the major coincidences that I experience is phone-calls. By and large, my friends and family strive greatly to avoid any reminders of my existence and, thus, hardly anyone calls me up. Every now and then, however, they get this sudden optimistic hope that I have shuffled off my mortal coil and ring up with expectations of finding their happy daydreams confirmed. What surprises me is that fact that almost all of them get infected by this unwarranted optimism on the same day. A fortnight passes without my even having to remember that I have a phone and, suddenly, on one fine day I am juggling phone-calls - and grabbing bites in the infrequent intervals - like some Bollywood caricature of a busy tycoon. 

The Suresh-Ramesh sort of coincidence – meeting an old friend by accident – I have mentioned before. I walk down MG Road in Bangalore and, presto, my old school friend walks out of a coffee shop and literally bumps noses with me. What set the icing was that the same chap was standing outside the door of an acquaintance in Delhi and it turned out that the acquaintance was his brother-in-law. Meeting the same guy twice over by happenstance was, I think, a sufficiently astonishing coincidence. (By the way, how many other coincidences of this sort I had missed out because the others ducked out of sight the moment they espied me, I will never know. This chap was caught both times with no means of escape) 

The coincidence that set off this post happened recently. I, normally, visit Delhi around the May-June period enroute a trek in the Himalayas. This time, I had planned a meet with Zephyr. Akanksha Dureja had also fixed up a meet. (The friends who have met me put this enthusiasm to the fact that they had, hitherto not met me in person!). 

What happens? Zephyr shifts base out of Delhi to Mumbai. So, one meet out of the window. I console myself with the thought of serenading Akanksha despite her avowed dislike of music (Actually, that is OK since, when I sing, there are few who accept that what comes out is music). What next? Akanksha Dureja has to go to the UK. Bang go two meets. (Incidentally, I never knew people could go to these lengths to avoid meeting me) 

I am still coming to Delhi in June. Anyone in the National Capital Region hankering for a change of scene?

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Of Pride and Arrogance

“Don’t expect me to be rising up when the sun rises in the East” 

“The sun does not rise in the East. It is the Earth that rotates” 

From the tone of his voice, I felt for a moment that I had missed out on learning this valuable nugget of information at school. I delved into my mind and found, surprisingly, that this was one of those few bits of knowledge that was still clinging precariously on the slippery slopes of what passed for my brain. 

All of you, I am sure, must have met people like my acquaintance. People to whom every single bit of knowledge seems like a divine revelation exclusively granted to them which they bequeath to you with all the condescension that Moses could have felt in handing down the Ten Commandments. 

To feel proud of what you know is to acknowledge the fact that you are better than you were yesterday. If that pride needs to be bolstered by the assumption that others do not know what you know, then it veers off into arrogance. Arrogance, I have normally found, comes from out of a personality that is so lacking in self-respect that it has to look on the others as being inferior in order to feel worthy of existence. Pride, on the other hand, looks inward for self-respect. 

“I think that this word has been mistyped here” 

“You need to learn to properly spell words” 

When you prima facie presume that the other person knows what you know, you give him the benefit of the doubt and assume extenuating circumstances. This is particularly when you have no reason to know the capabilities of the other person yet. A person secure in his own accomplishments – a person with pride – does not feel the need to put down the other person. It is the arrogant that normally have to assume that the other person is necessarily at fault because it gives them that special glow of being better. In other words, a man of pride assumes the other person to be capable unless proved otherwise; the arrogant man assumes the other person to be incapable and would rather die than be convinced otherwise. 

“Look! We both had the same sort of education. Now I have twenty-four green marbles, sixty-seven yellow ones and even a large red one. What does he have? Two white marbles and a pair of tops” 

Change the numbers; put in cars, houses, stocks whatever for marbles and tops. That, in effect, is the arrogant man’s litany. It does not strike him at all that both of them may not have even been running the same race. 

That, probably, reminds most people of ‘Chatur’ of 3 idiots – the man with the car, bungalow and all and what had ‘Rancho’ achieved? Teaching A-B-C to kids! It does not strike the arrogant man that teaching was probably what the other man wanted to do anyway. And, yes, like Chatur, most arrogant people are weak – it takes a lot of lying to themselves about the inferiority of the others to keep their self-respect going. “Loser” is a word of contempt only in an arrogant man’s dictionary – a man of pride never feels the need to put down anyone else. 

Arrogance comes in many guises. It may show itself at the level of looking on other individuals as inferior. It may show itself as looking down on another gender, people of another community, color or nationality as inferior. The latter is even easier to do – since you can adopt received wisdom from others like you who came before and stick to it as true. 

Pride comes out of who you are and how you have grown as a person. Arrogance relies upon fables about what other people are and resolutely closes its eyes to any evidence to the contrary. 

When you feel a sense of accomplishment when you compare yourself today to what you were yesterday that is Pride and you should embrace it. When you get your self-respect out of comparing yourself to others to your advantage you are on the slippery slopes of arrogance. Keep away from me, please!

If you liked this you may like to check out the index of other posts of this genre or read a selection of similar posts.

F?@K Knows - A Book Review

I went through that phase of devouring self-improvement books by the dozen when I was in my teens and still under the illusion that personalities could be quick-fixed by reading a few books. By the time I had hit my fiftieth book in the genre I had come to realize that they said nothing that I did not know already. If my knowing had not changed me for the better it is only because I was unwilling or unable to work at it and reading a few more pages of the same advice was in no way going to push me any further.

The blurb for Shailendra Singh's book 'F?@K Knows' gives the impression of a self-improvement book and the author seems to have himself recollected that intention every now and then in the course of writing the book. But for those desultory attempts I would have thought that the book was a collection of blog posts. In fact, the best review of the book is given in the book by the author himself. "In my opinion, ladies and gentlemen, what you have just read is the most inconsistent, contradictory, non-articulate piece of writing that I have ever read" is what he has to say at the end of the book.

I know that a self-deprecatory person is unlikely to be too pleased by an over-enthusiastic endorsement of his views - though I certainly do not agree that he is inarticulate. To be fair to myself, I had formed the opinion already and was pleasantly surprised to realize that the author had recognized the fact as well. When a book in one chapter says, "Don't let THEM dictate what you should do" and in another says, "Who is considered a success - a carter or a CEO" there is an automatic element of contradiction. After all, you cannot tout the benefits of following your gut without regard to Society and, simultaneously, sneer about losers - who generally are so defined by the mores of Society - without laying yourself open to the accusation of being contradictory.

As for creating any clarity in the minds of youth about how to conduct their futures, the book is truly speaking no use. It is all fine to say "Follow your gut and not what lies below" but also touting hot cars and hotter girl-friends is not really a plug for ignoring what lies beneath the gut. The problem with any human being is that he is a mass of multiple desires - the passion to go for some profession; the passion for material success and/or the fear of material lack; the passion for social recognition and the passion for that hot Girlfriend/Boyfriend. In fact, what the youth mistake for a passion for a profession has more to do with the passion for the perceived rewards from that profession. Does the book provide any clarity on how to walk your way through these maze of passions? Heck No - the author has only one answer 'F?@k Knows!'

The book is probably what the author claims it is - an honest expression of what is in his heart. It is a readable book, well-peppered with humor and with celebrity reminiscences. Will the readers have anything else to take away from the book?

F?@K Knows!

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