A Confession, An Apology and An Opinion

Do not, O Brother, give me your opinion. I have more than enough of my own. And please do not consider me intolerant. My opinions may not be those of a genius, but at least they aren't those of a fool. About yours, I'm not so sure; and I don't have the time to find out.

The Diary, August 4, 502 BC

Unlike everything else on these pages, this is not a rant. It is a confession.

I'm a man of few principles. To be precise, I'm a man of two principles: I never steal other people's underwear and I do not express opinions. The advantage of having just two principles is that one values them and abides by them, even in the face of grave provocation. Even so, I have broken one of my two precious principles. It is but little comfort to think that the more important one still stands. After all, I haven't filched another's chaddi; I've merely expressed an opinion. Nay, let me not add dishonesty to my already-greivous sins. I have expressed not opinion, but opinions, probably a few tens. And I've done it all in the course of the last month.

Let no man judge me harshly. I did not give in tamely. I fought the good fight, and I lost. Better men than me would have.

The trouble with an opinion is that it is a bit like susu (which is known to some cultures as pee-pee and to some others as one-bathroom). To hold it back is to sample the most gruesome tortures of Purgatory; to release it is to savor the foretaste of Jannat. And yet all these days, I turned the burden of my countenance unto myself, as old Bill would put it. Not a soul got wind of the storms that raged inside me. Many even suspected that I feel the irrational happiness that one usually associates with North Indians and small-sized dogs. But let it now be said that I wasn't a man at peace. I had, and have, opinions on almost everything, and manfully I held them back. I bottled them up inside me till I would meet the next Bombay Girl. And when I did, I spent hours talking to her, expressing as many of my opinions as I could. For I knew that a Bombay Girl is completely unaffected by opinions, mine or anyone else's. (N~, I am referring to you. And there isn't a thing you can do about it. I am bigger than you. Ha, ha, ha! Die, vile fiend!)

As everyone knows, Bombay Girls sleep in coffins and come out at nightfall. They are not easy to find, even when one is a luscious young lad in distress. Before I could find a Bombay Girl to unload my opinions on, they formed in their gazillions. But bravely I held out. I even thought foolishly I had won, that I would go to my grave never more having expressed an opinion. Oh! what fools we mortals be!

Like all good things, my resistance had to end. Over the last month, I have broken my rule on multiple occasions; guiltily at first, with morbid pleasure later, and soon with perverse abandon. I've been expressing opinions like there's no tomorrow; and I've been doing it on other people's blogs, not my own.

Of course, the first question is why one reads strangers' blogs at all. I cannot speak for you, gentle reader. For my own part, it must be all the sex that I did not have when I was an extremely erotic five-year old. Freud says so, and Freud must be right. Well, there's nothing for it but to accept that I was a severely under-sexed kid, ergo I am now a reader of strangers' blogs. There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them as we will. But let me not explain everything away by pointing to the deprivations of my childhood, terrible though they were. Shit happens, but a man of character fights circumstance. And indeed so too did I. Before my Fall, I only left anonymous comments on people's blogs; and I did so only when I liked, or agreed with, the stuff that they said. After all, criticism and disagreements, like confidences, are for friends, not strangers.

And yet one day, without even realizing that this was the beginning of the end, I found myself leaving a comment on a bloke's blog asking him to read some rot to help him understand the deep significance of the Pale Parabola of Joy or some such rot. The next day, I left another comment telling a dudette that while her concerns were valid, they did not directly impact the Human Condition or some such fruity tripe. Yesterday, I shamelessly quoted Gandhi for no reason at all. These days, I am always spouting the vilest rot at the first available opportunity. I spout rot in e-mails, and I spout rot over the phone, and I spout rot in person, and I spout rot on blogs. I am now just a serial rot-spouter. I am pro-choice, anti-gun, anti-war, pro-conservation, anti-reservation, pro-tax, anti-WTO, pro-Palestine, anti-dam, pro-marijuana, anti-drilling, etc; and the whole world knows all this because I keep saying so.

The point is not that I no longer hold these opinions, or that I do so without conviction. The point is that there is absolutely no reason for me to go around saying what I think, even if it seems important and moral to me. An opinion is like the size of your jatti (known to some cultures as chaddi and to some others as undrawyer). It is entirely accurate information. It is extremely important for your well-being and indeed defines you as a person. But to the rest of the world, it is extremely irrelevant. The thing to do with an opinion is to keep it to yourself and at best to circulate it among friends. If you feel strongly enough about something, you will go do something about it, and then talk about it if you have the time. And if you don't feel strongly about it, why talk about it all?

I know this, but I cannot help but express my opinion. To acknowledge a problem is necessary, but not sufficient, to rectify it. Brown people know that they ought to use condoms for birth-control and not as baloons, but they don't. Black people know that they ought to treat their women at least as well as they treat their cattle, but they don't. White people know that they ought not to use brown and black people for target-practice, but they do. As it is with my fellow-men, so it is with me. The spirit is unwilling, but the flesh is too eager.

Since I cannot help sinning, let me at least abridge my sin with an open apology: Henceforth, if I sound like your aunt on a particularly preachy day, please note that the bad B. is to blame. The good B. (that's me) cannot rein in the bad B., but he apologizes for him, deeply, sincerely, profusely. Forgive him, my friends, for though he knows what he's doing, he perversely continues to do it.

And to all of you who read this, may I suggest that the next time you want to express an opinion on something you don't really care for to someone you don't really know, please go watch a Govinda movie instead. It is a far less stupid thing to do, in my opinion. There I go again.