Opinion Depressing scene

I hardly miss a book fair. However,I decided not to visit the annual book fair last year in order to keep my resolution of not buying any more books. Instead,I browsed in my library and revisited the books whose delight I have savoured. Essays are my favourites: Addison,Charles Lamb,Hazlitt as also Lucas,Robert Lynd and GK Chesterton with his paradoxes. Two essayists relatively unknown: Irvin Edman,especially his exquisite essay on leisure and AG Gardiner’s charming essays under the title Alpha of the Plough. Next anthologies of poems. Palgrave occupies pride of place,especially the Oscar Williams edition which has small snapshots of the poets in the volume. Of the war poets whom I enjoy,especially of World War I,Rupert Brooke is moving,Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon poignantly bring out the futility and horrors of wars.

Now I must stop because I have painfully realised that there are several books on the shelves which I have hardly read and they are angrily staring at me for neglecting them. This lamentable state of affairs must be remedied. I gave myself five more years on the planet with eyes,ears and teeth in order. I made a rough calculation of how many books I would be able to read if I spent eight hours every day despite the SLPs and pending opinions. The result was terrifying. Half the books would still be untouched. It was really depressing and to get over it,I listened to my perennial favourite,Moonglow,by the Benny Goodman quartet which buoys me up and then I feel with TS Eliot in his Four Quartets,that “All shall be well,and All manner of things shall be well”.

Many may wonder: Who briefs this crazy Parsi to argue their cases in the Supreme Court. I don’t at all blame them because I too have wondered.

Atrocious Iranian justice

Under the Islamic Republic’s eye-for-an-eye justice code,an Iranian court has ruled that a man must lose an eye and an ear after he blinded and burnt an ear of another man in an acid attack. The judge also ordered Hamid to pay blood-money for the burn injuries suffered by Davoud. Iran is a proud signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 and other human rights instruments which forbid cruel and unusual punishment. Obviously these are honoured more in breach than observance.

Amorous oldies

One wonders why old men turn amorous and marry girls far younger than their age. The latest example is Hugh Hefner of Playboy fame,aged 84,marrying a playmate in her twenties. Justice Douglas of the US Supreme Court in his eighties married for the third time a young girl in her thirties. Coming nearer home,a Parsi solicitor,aged 66,married a young woman of 33. Thereupon he earned the nickname of 33×2 is 66. Ramjit Raghav,a Haryana farmer has surpassed them all. He has become a father at 94 living with his second wife,Shakuntala,whom he married 10 years ago and who is in her mid-fifties. Love knows no bounds nor boundaries.

Chinese sex education

The Chinese have hit upon an innovative way of sex education which allows boys and girls to peep into each other’s bathroom in order to understand gender roles and observe what behavioural differences there are between the two sexes. According to Zhang Meimei,a sex education expert,the bathroom of the opposite sex can be a mysterious place. “I have known a lot of third and fourth grade boys who would sneak into the lady’s room just to see what it is like. Therefore,visiting the bathroom can be a good technique in teaching gender codes to students.” One wonders what is the take of our dynamic Education Minister Kapil Sibal on the Chinese method.