Role Model

The other day a student asked me who my role model was. It’s a dangerous question if it comes from an intelligent person and this student is indeed intelligent. Donkey years ago, when someone hurled this question at me – with a lot of malice – my answer was Mahatma Gandhi. The questioner laughed uproariously. He had reasons to. I was a clownish alcoholic at that time. The questioner was trying to be my well-wisher. Those were days when the entire town of Shillong became my collective well-wisher. One of the best things that people love is to see you as a patient etherized upon their counselling chair. Almost everyone I know in my life is a counsellor. They tell you what to do and what not to. They tell you what a catastrophe you are and how you can be much better with their help. They have all the answers to the rigmarole that you are to yourself.

I was not really joking when I foisted Mahatma Gandhi upon that well-wisher as my role model though I was an alcoholic and I ate all kinds of food including beef. Rice and beef was staple food in Shillong where I worked in those days. Gandhi wouldn’t have bothered about what people ate though he would have suggested the merits of eating potato instead of beef. Potato was the only edible thing that grew without too much fuss in the Khasi Hills. But potato won’t keep you healthy on the cold hills. Gandhi would realise that and let the people be healthy. People mattered to Gandhi as much as cows did, if not more.

When I raised Gandhi on my personal holy pedestal before my well-wisher, what I meant was that I loved Gandhi’s ideological non-violence, his concept of truth and integrity, his idea of tolerance which let people be, his attitude towards religion...  My well-wisher thought Gandhi was all about being a teetotaller. That’s not surprising. He is a good Christian. He thinks Christianity is all about singing Alleluia to Jesus and preaching morality to others.

Gandhi and my well-wisher are thesis and antithesis. Gandhi pursued truth unlike his killer’s fans who now rule India with the conviction that truth is a fabrication of a gang like those who wrote fabricated the caste system or fascism or Nazism or anything of that sort. My well-wisher is now a fan of Modi. He thinks Christianity in India can be saved from Islam today only through Modi.

When my student asked me who my role model was, Modi’s name came on my tongue instinctively. Modi should be everyone’s role model in the post-truth world. You create truths. There is no absolute truth. Everything is god’s leela. Maya is the only truth. Whatever. Go on. Don’t forget to look at the teleprompter. Otherwise your truth may be lost.

“So the teleprompter is your role model?” My student asked.

I smiled. There was no teleprompter to give me an answer. That’s why I don’t ever dare to give a press conference.

“Shouldn’t you be a role model to your students?” My student persisted.

“Can I be a better role model than our Prime Minister?” I asked.

The conversation died. One good thing about role models is that they kill honest conversations.