Editorial: Season’s greetings: Ho ho ho

Christmas is a good time to remember that the world would seem less nasty and cheerless if we wore a smiley when we went out the door every morning. Justly is it said in the good book that “a merry heart doeth good like a medicine”. In modern times, doctors prescribe that laughter is the best medicine, and we would do well to go and buy it pronto. The laughter club grandpas who for no particular reason guffaw to their heart’s content in the park every morning seem to be doing a lot better than the WhatsApp uncle busily consuming the Top Ten Hate Videos of the week on his smartphone. Alas, we live in skewed times. We’d much rather fall for the righteous indignation dispensed by IT Cell trolls and influencers on social media than delight in the newspaper cartoon of Santa looking suspiciously like our beloved PM with a 56 inch midriff.

So many controversies and snarlfests could have been avoided had the personages involved in them laughed off whatever forgettable thing it was that caused them offence? Who remembers now that the genesis of Ms Mahua Moitra’s expulsion from the Lok Sabha began with the bitter seed of vengeance sown in BJP MP Nishikant Dubey’s heart when she said he bought his PhD in the Chor Bazaar of Delhi? Why could he not have taken it on the chin and said, truthfully as well as mirthfully, yes, indeed, his degree was not a university degree but a flea market degree, but what difference did that make? Or what difference was there? Don’t both university and touts get their degrees printed by the same Lithotype printer?

Or take the spat between Ms Moitra and her ex-partner that led to India’s most eloquent MP losing seat in Parliament. It was about the custody of a dog! Why did they need to quarrel over whose pet he was? The question who is the rightful owner of a dog is easily answered by the tail of the said creature. Henry ought to have gone to whoever he wagged his tail to. Instead, the partners fought it out and are none the wiser. The MP lost her seat and the ex-partner will probably never find another partner again, having been such a snitch. Whether it is the current kerfuffle over Trinamool Congress MP Kalyan Banerjee’s mimicry of Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankar, recorded by Rahul Gandhi, or the International Cricket Council’s indignation over a message worn by Australian cricket Usman Khwaja, the offence taken is disproportionate to the offence intended. This skewed math is the idiom of our time.

In the ICC-Khwaja case, it is also the idiocy of our time. Cricket’s governing body has puffed itself up against Khwaja for wearing the truly revolutionary slogan “all lives are equal”. Yet the same humourless ICC has no equivalent objection to Marnus Labuschagne’s bat, which carries a reference to Isaiah 48:31: “For those that hope in the Lord, he shall renew their strength. He shall soar on wings like eagles. He shall run and not grow weary and talk and not be faint.’ So, what’s the principle at work here? Mammon, perhaps? Sports authorities, having sold their souls to advertising, see sportsmen’s foreheads, biceps and bosoms as advertising real estate and would not brook the use of such spaces to express a beautiful sentiment. But this is Christmas. Let us forgive that also and be merry for a moment.