Slogan of the jingoist

Bleary eyed, rubbing the gummy gunk from my eyes one early Sunday morning, I was grumpily dropping the prodigal son to the cricket grounds. I couldn't understand why my sleep had to be sacrificed at the altar of his sporting ambitions.

Just as I was turning the corner, I came across the most horrific sight. I almost crashed my car into an ordinary cyclist. By ordinary cyclist, I mean the non-flamboyant, non-sporting gear type. The thoughtless type who wears checked shirts without a care in the world and who sports a bare head instead of helmets which are pointed at the front like an eagle’s head. Such cyclists in my opinion should be barred from cycling. Don't​ they realize that cycling is a sport as much as a statement? These plebeian cyclists just merge with the scenery and one is prone to hit them. I do think a credible argument in front of a judge would be, that “the guy just blended in. It was his fault. If he had worn fluorescent dry fit T-shirts with cycling shorts and a jazzy helmet on top, I would have felt duty bound to give him right of way.” It's clear, does one care about a pigeon except when it craps on your porch or windscreen? But sight a kingfisher (the bird not the beer) and don't we all go into paroxysms of delight and try to capture an image with an intent to share our bird loving warmth with fellow Facebookers?

To get back to the horrific sight. I do tend to digress, but I will blame my schooling for that. I need to fix responsibility for my quirks and it's clear that it rests with my English teachers. To give an example, if the question asked was “Who killed Peter?” If I were to answer “Tom.” Even if the answer was technically correct I would get a half mark but if I were to say “Peter had, during the course of his life, sheltered Tom. However the ingrate that he was, the latter preferred to lead a life of extreme dissipation. His profligacy made him incur a high degree of debt. Peter's unwillingness to step up for him resulted in the ungrateful wretch plotting his elimination.” Now this answer would get me full two marks.

Basically one can't blame me for adding a sentence or a paragraph or two to my original line of thought.

Anyway, as I turned the corner I saw a couple out on a walk. You might wonder “What's so horrifying about that?” And you would be right to wonder except that you didn't see what I did, which is that the man was wearing multicoloured floral printed pants. It had four colours. I know; for I turned back to look at him which is when I almost had the collision.

His orange, blue, white and yellow pants might have been a sight for sore eyes for butterflies looking for nectar but it gave me a nasty jolt. I believe it was thoughtless of him to do so especially when I had not even been fortified by the morning cuppa.

One of my friends once confessed to me that the exterior of their home had been painted that strange colour of pink that people in the neighborhood always remark on and wonder “What on Earth were they thinking when they painted their house that colour?” Apparently the sample paint swatch did not enlighten them as to how ludicrous the whole house would look. Having paid for the entire thing, it was too expensive to reverse the look and so they decided to accept the derision of the locality and cover themselves with notoriety of a type.

As a proud and super patriotic (some might even say jingoistic) citizen of this country, I feel duty bound to guide the nation on these critical matters, namely aesthetics. I would put it to the man masquerading as our Commander-in-Chief (The President, who I doubt can even pluck a flower from the Mughal gardens without consent), to publicly address the nation on this critical issue. Hopefully he will sway public opinion enough that the Prime Minister can switch from his 'Swachh Bharat' campaign to a 'White Wash Bharat' campaign. One of the salient points of this would include insisting that country men paint their houses white. If the person concerned insisted he wanted to paint his house a lurid blue he would have to pay higher taxes; in a way compensating other locals for putting up with a mood buster. If he were to select a colour approved by a committee, after giving applications in triplicate, each copy attested by a police officer, a government doctor and a retired judge then he might be allowed to paint it an alternate colour without paying higher taxes. This way we can maintain an illusion of diversity of opinion whilst making it impossible or at the least cumbersome to do so.

In addition, men should be allowed only a few choices in pants: black, blue, grey, beige or a muted brown. There is enough variety in that for them to choose from.

I have even thought of a slogan  for this campaign: 'Uniformity in diversity.