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The Wisdom of Pritam

 

No man is a hero to his barber and I certainly am not. I’ve known Pritam since my late teens and over the decades I’ve learnt to listen attentively when he talks. He’s by no means garrulous. Nor is he taciturn. As he snips and cuts, he enjoys talking but it’s a measured well thought-out flow.

“Apne Bangaruji ko bahut khichaya.” Pritam admonished when I dropped by on Monday. We meet every three weeks and over the years, I have become a regular. He, in turn, watches most of the interviews I do.

“Lekin yeh bhi hei ki unke paas kuch kahne ko nahin tha. Bechara, kahe bhi kya sakta hei!”

But after this opening remark on Monday, Pritam was silent for a disconcertingly long time. He cut my hair in friendly silence. I was intrigued by his manner. Had I upset him? Had he misunderstood the Bangaru Laxman interview? I wasn’t sure but I waited patiently to find out. After a bit Pritam broke his silence.

“Such poocho to bahut hi kum log chor hein.” He said. “Asl mein chor banaiye jaate hein. Ya moke ke karan ya majboori ke.”

His comments made me sit up sharply and think. How would I have reacted if someone came to me with a brown paper bag full of old hundred rupee notes and asked for a favour that was well within my powers to do with little risk of being caught out or embarrassed? Would I agree?

After all, the money would be tempting and if I was confident I could get away with it I might be foolhardy enough to say yes.

The thought was so shocking I started to sweat. The barber’s shop at the Taj Mahal Hotel is usually over-cool but suddenly I was feeling distinctly hot. I realised I was scared of myself, unsure of my response and worried by what I might do if thus tempted.

“Kya hua?” Pritam asked. He had noticed that I was strangely disconcerted.

“Kuch nahin.” I replied and immediately started chatting aimlessly to fill the pause and change the mood.

After a while, my confidence returned. No, I said, forcing myself to forget the earlier experience, I would be certain to refuse. I have everything I want and I would not be tempted by a little more no matter how easily it was offered. Men like me, I said to myself, feeling comfortable once again, don’t do such things.

But Pritam’s innocent remarks had set off a process that could not be stopped or easily calmed. Is it right to tempt merely to test? Is it fair? Would it be a legitimate test? And if so, of what? Of resistance to temptation? Of bribery? Of character?

I don’t know the answers and let me not pretend I do but I do think this is one of the issues that arise out of and demand attention after the recent Tehelka revelations. Sadly, no one seems to be raising it. That’s probably because we’re all feeling very comfortable this Sunday morning. But I’ve come across a paragraph from a Madras High Court judgement of 1952 that seems to put the matter in some perspective. I read it in The Indian Express. I think it’s worth repeating.

“Where a man has not demanded a bribe and he’s only suspected to be in the habit of taking bribes and he’s tempted with a bribe just to see whether he would accept, that would be an illegitimate trap.”

There’s a lot of truth in that yet this paragraph can’t by any means be the full answer. When arms dealers seek to bribe to get their way, it is temptation that they rely upon. Men and women in government and the bureaucracy don’t have a stamp on their forehead that reads ‘I can be bribed, please try me.’ It’s a hit and miss process. Yet when arms dealers score, it’s entirely because they have struck a rich vein of temptation. So if arms dealers can seek to tempt to bribe, why can’t Tehelka seek to tempt to catch out those who can be bribed? What other way could Tehelka have used?

If this suggests that the debate about the ethics of the Tehelka approach is a difficult one, it’s not because the issues are difficult but because human beings themselves are complicated and difficult – no, impossible – to simplify. I don’t know how I will respond till I am tested and, quite frankly, I hope that will never happen. I’d like to live with the belief that my answer would be no.

Till then, of course, I have the right to cast the first stone and as a journalist I usually do. But now each time I aim and throw Pritam’s wretched words echo in my ears : “Such poocho to bahut hi kum log chor hein. Asl mein chor banaiye jaate hein. Ya moke ke karan ya majboori ke.”

Oh dear, thank god, I don’t have to return to Pritam for a haircut for another three weeks. What will he say next time to disturb my comfortable and easy assumptions? And does he ever realise how deep is the impact his passing words often have?

May be I’ll let my hair grow long instead.