Skip to main content

My scepticism is still chaste



“Skepticism, like chastity, should not be relinquished too readily,” ordained American philosopher George Santayana.  Santayana being a Catholic atheist, his obsession with chastity is understandable.  I relinquished my chastity one evening with the ease with which I had the first taste of whisky.  But scepticism has continued to be a loyal companion till date. Not even litres of whisky could defrost my scepticism which is more deep-rooted than a contemporary right winger’s bhakti.

Source: Newsclick
Right from venerable Advani ji’s Ram Rath Yatra in 1990 to the present day clandestine yatras made by cash from Indian public sector banks to foreign countries, almost everything that the right wing of my country has achieved made my eyebrows arch though without drawing attention like Priya Prakash Varrier’s arches.

From the time the right wing ascended the throne in Indraprastha four years ago, my scepticism is longing for relinquishment.  Catholic atheists find it difficult to let certain things go, however. 

The amount of money that a few capable Indians looted from the nation’s public sector banks before finding their safe heavens abroad is beyond my understanding though I am quite good at mathematics.  How many zeroes are there, for example, in the amount that Nirav Modi alone looted?  I can’t count when you say ₹12700 crore.  Then there are the others like Vikram Kothari.  Who can ignore the classical Vijay Mallya who pioneered the way?

The non-performing assets (NPA) of the country’s public sector banks rose from ₹2.3 lakh crore in 2014 to ₹6.8 lakh crore in 2017 and it keeps rising.  Lakh crore.  Do you know how many zeroes are there?  I don’t. The figure is beyond my imagination.

All that money with countless zeroes was given to just a few individuals in the country.  The Ambanis, Adani and the Vedanta guy, whose plants and factories were set up by grabbing thousands of acres of land belonging to farmers and tribal people, were the chief beneficiaries.  The people whose names appear in the Forbes list of the richest persons of the world owe the largest amounts to Indian banks.  And what do the banks do to recover their debts?

The banks impose fine on the poorest people in the name of minimum balance, ATM charges, non-payment of agricultural loan instalments, and so on.  Then there are the ever escalating prices of essential commodities and the hydra-headed taxes.

Maybe, we will see more and more rich people leaving the country soon to settle down comfortably abroad.  I hope our politicians also will do the same.  Will the country be able to begin anew then from the scratch, even with ‘cleaned up’ banks, after all the vanishing acts perpetrated by our prestidigitators?

The questions keep rising irresistibly. That’s why I wish my scepticism had given way to bhakti.  Without blind bhakti you can’t survive tough times.




Comments

  1. जितेन्द्र माथुरMarch 1, 2018 at 8:22 AM

    Said right. That's why the BHAKTs (either blind or pretending to be blind to suit their own interests) are surviving these times (as well as inspiring us to survive like them).

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Yesterday

With students of Carmel Margaret, are you grieving / Over Goldengrove unleaving…? It was one of my first days in the eleventh class of Carmel Public School in Kerala, the last school of my teaching career. One girl, whose name was not Margaret, was in the class looking extremely melancholy. I had noticed her for a few days. I didn’t know how to put the matter over to her. I had already told the students that a smiling face was a rule in the English class. Since Margaret didn’t comply, I chose to drag Hopkins in. I replaced the name of Margaret with the girl’s actual name, however, when I quoted the lines. Margaret is a little girl in the Hopkins poem. Looking at autumn’s falling leaves, Margaret is saddened by the fact of life’s inevitable degeneration. The leaves have to turn yellow and eventually fall. And decay. The poet tells her that she has no choice but accept certain inevitabilities of life. Sorrow is our legacy, Margaret , I said to Margaret’s alter ego in my class. Let
30 comments
Read more

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
37 comments
Read more

William and the autumn of life

William and I were together only for one year, but our friendship has grown stronger year after year. The duration of that friendship is going to hit half a century. In the meanwhile both he and I changed many places. William was in Kerala when I was in Shillong. He was in Ireland when I was in Delhi. Now I am in Kerala where William is planning to migrate back. We were both novices of a religious congregation for one year at Kotagiri in Tamil Nadu. He was older than me by a few years and far more mature too. But we shared a cordial rapport which kept us in touch though we went in unexpected directions later. William’s conversations had the same pattern back then and now too. I’d call it Socratic. He questions a lot of things that you say with the intention of getting to the depth of the matter. The last conversation I had with him was when I decided to stop teaching. I mention this as an example of my conversations with William. “You are a good teacher. Why do you want to stop
15 comments
Read more

X the variable

X is the most versatile and hence a very precious entity in mathematics. Whenever there is an unknown quantity whose value has to be discovered, the mathematician begins with: Let the unknown quantity be x . This A2Z series presented a few personalities who played certain prominent roles in my life. They are not the only ones who touched my life, however. There are so many others, especially relatives, who left indelible marks on my psyche in many ways. I chose not to bring relatives into this series. Dealing with relatives is one of the most difficult jobs for me. I have failed in that task time and again. Miserably sometimes. When I think of relatives, O V Vijayan’s parable leaps to my mind. Father and little son are on a walk. “Be careful lest you fall,” father warns the boy. “What will happen if I fall?” The boy asks. The father’s answer is: “Relatives will laugh.” One of the harsh truths I have noticed as a teacher is that it is nearly impossible to teach your relatives – nephews
15 comments
Read more

Victor the angel

When Victor visited us in Delhi Victor and I were undergraduate classmates at St Albert’s College, Kochi. I was a student for priesthood then and Victor was just another of the many ordinary lay students. We were majoring in mathematics with physics and statistics as our optionals. Today Victor is a theologian with a doctorate in biblical studies and is a member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission in the Vatican. And I have given up religion for all practical purposes. Victor and I travelled in opposing directions after our graduation. But we have remained friends notwithstanding our religious differences. Victor had very friendly relationships with some of the teachers in college and it became very helpful for me towards the end of my three-year study there when I had quit the pursuit of priesthood. The final exams approached and I needed a convenient accommodation near college. An inexpensive and quiet place was what I wanted during the period of the university exams. “What a
10 comments
Read more