Compromise' is the word. Over the years, unable to bring about a change in mindset of the people concerned, we have reconciled ourselves to the prevailing situation—be it in the office, at home or in society. Gone are the days when we used to raise eyebrows at people buying edible stuff from vendors on the streets. Today, we have only happily joined them, lapping up all that is available, unmindful of the dust being kicked up by the passing vehicles or the insects swarming the area. With both hands busy, we ward off the flies sitting on our plate with our head much like the bovines, standing nearby.
A prominent speaker at a health forum recently commented in a satirical tone that our bodies, over the years, have become so immune to virtually all disease-causing-germs and bacteria. Thanks primarily to the polluted environment that we live in and the contaminated stuff that we consume in our everyday life, if we were to live in good clean sanitary conditions or be served with pure hygienic stuff, we are more likely to fall ill.
My colleague—happily married for over twenty-five years— had a tiff with his wife the other day, which picked up steam and nearly reached the family court for formal separation. The issue
basically started with a long grey strand of hair being found in the sweet porridge served to him by his better half as ‘prasad’, after performing the ‘pooja’. The presence of the alien ‘particle’ annoyed my colleague who promptly raised the issue with his wife. And strangely, his normally docile wife chose to confront him in a no-holds barred mode.
“Just one hair strand and you flare up,” she countered in a measured tone. “Remember even the government permits five pieces of rodent hair and rat excreta in all the food material made available to the common man, like wheat, maida, jowar, bajra, rice, mason, urad, moong, chana and arhar. If you don’t believe, read the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act 1954, where even the government has admitted that it is next to impossible to provide food items totally free from such alien stuff,” she asserted.
My colleague looked at her in disbelief. Enthused by the look on his face, she rounded off her reply authoritatively saying, “in such a scenario, you complain of a single white hair which has inadvertently entered your share of the porridge. Let me tell you, this strand, unlike rat hair, is devoid of all impurities having been washed with the best of shampoos available in the market, endorsed by the celebrities you idolize. So stop cribbing, just remove it and get going!”