Getting mad about anything

Comedians and actors had better not think of cracking jokes that have the words “stupid cow” or “beef” in them, for more than one reason now. Not that that the first reason of equating women with a cow is any less insulting, but the second reason is because in the last 16 months people have rediscovered the importance of the cow in their lives, and if offended they are willing to kill for it. In other words, killing a cow is inhumane, but killing a human being who ALLEGEDLY kills a cow is all in a day’s work for some.

Actually, in recent times, one has noticed this desperate urge by anyone to make a hue and cry about anything that gets his or her goat. Uh oh…

People killing a man who they thought had beef in his house is the most dangerous thing I‘ve heard in a long time. It basically means we are going to have vigilantes barging into homes on a whim and then getting away with murder. And it doesn’t surprise me when politicians support this kind of murderous behaviour and demand their release. After all, many of them have graduated to politics from the same ranks. So we will soon come to a stage in this county when we won’t be requiring the police and judiciary because summary justice will be meted out by vigilantes.

What surprises me is the new found affection for the cow, which roams the streets, sleeps on the footpath and scavenges the bins for food, does not include bringing it into your home and giving it a place to sleep, and nursing it. I guess that’s too expensive. So much easier to give it some food and push it out of the way as you leave for the temple or club for a game of tennis.

Here’s a quote from Mahatma Gandhi on the subject, whose birth anniversary falls tomorrow. I do not agree with all his views but here goes: “I do not know how this question (Will the Muslims be allowed to eat their national food-beef under a Hindu majority Government?) arises. For, whilst Congressmen were in office, they are not known to have interfered with the practice of beef-eating by Muslims. The question is also badly conceived. There is no such thing as Hindu majority Government.

“It is, moreover, not true to say that beef is the national food of Muslims. In the first place, the Muslims of India are not as yet a separate nation. IN the second, beef is not their ordinary food. Their ordinary food is the same as that of the millions. What is true is that there are very few Muslims who are vegetarians from religious motive. Therefore, they will take meat, including beef, when they can get it. But during the greater part of the years, millions of Muslims, owing to poverty, go without meat of any kind. These are facts. But the theoretical question demands a clear answer. As a Hindu, a confirmed vegetarian, and a worshipper of the cow whom I regard with the same veneration as I regard my mother (alas, no more on this earth!) I maintain that Muslims should have full freedom to slaughter cows, if they wish, subject of course to hygienic restrictions and in a manner not to wound the susceptibilities of their Hindu neighbours. Fullest recognition of freedom to the Muslims to slaughter cows is indispensable of communal harmony, and is the only way of saving cow.”

And to end that another line from the great man: “As a Musalman friend writes, beef eating which is merely permissible in Islam will become a duty, if compulsion is resorted to by Hindus.”

So is that what it is all about?

Now to get to the light side of getting mad about anything.

On Thursday, a national daily carried a story about a school that forcibly got a student’s hair cut from the school barber. I am shocked that the editor of a reputed national newspaper even entertained his reporter when he came to him with such an idiotic story. I would have asked him if he had a fever.

ALL school students know the rules of the school and some students keep long/spiked hair to defy those rules. So when they defy the rules they should get punished. My son had naturally spiked hair when it was cut to school standards, and he had a hard time explaining to his prefects that he did not use a spray to spike his hair, and he even offered to wash it and show it them to prove it.

The funny thing is this kid in the hair cut story is quoted as saying that he had gum stuck in his hair because he was chewing gum in school! The guy has no remorse whatsoever at breaking the rules and he is proud to say so in as many words, but is upset because his peers made fun of him after his haircut? I am surprised that parents don’t ask their children when they see them leaving for school that way.  My folks would order me off to barber every time they thought my hair was getting a little long. I remember being sent to the barber one evening when I was in the 8^th Class. My dorm teacher sent me packing all the way to East Street for a snip, even though my hair was short. I returned only to be told it wasn’t good enough and was sent off again. The second time the exasperated barber left little on the head. I had to grin and bear the jibes  of “aye Taklu” for weeks. I think back and remember and my exact views were “the bloody bugger thinks he’s still in the army.” I was too young to use ‘f*****g bastard’! If I had gone to the editor of a paper to voice my grievance I would have been laughed out of his office with a spank on my backside.