Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Practise or preach

People who preach rarely practise. How many Urologists drink eight glasses of water a day? Would you know of several teachers who regularly invest in their own continued education? There are journalists who think nothing of going out on a limb to expose the world but are quick to cast the veil over their truant brethren. Of the Politicians who canvass the poor with a briefcase of Swiss Bank Passbooks, the less said the better! And there is no dearth of parents who complain about their progeny’s late night TV viewing while themselves not leaving a single serial to chance.


Gyan is easy to disperse, tough to follow. Little wonder that the country is crawling with preachers but dry of robust practitioners. Preaching is endemic in India. It is quite possible that the preachy gene came marked with a capital 'I'. Every Indian moralizes a bit just as they are sure to hum and sing a little. 
I have been the recipient of several gems: Why are you walking the baby in the rain? How come your kids do not speak their mother tongue all that fluently? You should not lose your cool! Are you not setting a bad example with your conscientiousness? Come on, don’t be so very serious!

No great qualification or experience is needed to practise this art. In every desi heart, there hum the ancestral echoes of the yogi. And heaven help us if these come supplemented with the robes of religiosity. I have never been able to make up my mind. Has my country suffered from a distracted start up because her people talked more than they actioned. Or, is it that all the prophesizing and the sermonising has in fact, kept them sane and free of the consequences of any actions they might have taken. 

Where would we really be without our philosophy of Kismet and Karma?

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