Barbers of Seville, butchers of sense
View(s):The man who trims what little hair there is left on my head has no good sense of either time or truthfulness. He habitually breaks our appointments, and has a bad habit of stretching my incredulity to snapping point with a string of excuses. We used to have a pretty fair understanding that the excellence of his courtesy, service, and punctuality would be met with just approbation and due reward by way of gratuities. (In English, I would tip him handsomely if he was good, on time, and didn’t bother me with banalities while he tended my balding thatch.) That was until he reneged on pledges made and promises intimated for the very last time this week. No longer will I darken the doorstep of Salon Savile Row (not its real name) down Dehiwela way any more…
Now some of you may be prone to assume that I’m exaggerating fussily or being egregiously fastidious. But if you were privy to some of Baron Munchhausen’s more jejune pleas for latitude, you would sympathize with the injured party: viz., me! Here are some of the colossal lies, classic dissembles, and diabolical corkers he has tried out for size and a lark over the many moons that he has had my until-recently-loyal custom:
“Have to go Anuradhapura pilgrimage for one month, mahathmaya, maybe three month time.”
“Aiyo, Tuesday! Not Thursday, no?”
“I know said would call in one hour time to tell if can come, but grandmother my she died…” (Substitute dog, dearly beloved, distant cousin three times removed, et al.)
“When saying seven, sir, I thinking you meaning eleven.”
“Sorry, can’t cutting hair today, shop has burning down last night only.”
“Thank you for the calling now, sir, I freeing will be in fifteen minute time, or about half an hour, and wait… I telling one, two hour time, come! Or tomorrow even if, or again day after how about, sir?”
You will agree that this kind of prevarication and procrastination has a precedent on the larger stage of national life. You have heard it all before, those lame excuses and incredulous explanations:
“There is no mistake at all which has been made by the minister/ministry/academics/administrators in the setting/marking/remarking of the A Level papers and/or the calculation of the Z score.”
“The bodyguards were compelled to open fire on their attackers to avoid any violence and prevent further bloodshed.”
“Inflation is under control, and under 10 per cent, and also understandable in the circumstances.”
“Cost of living (substitute price of petrol, big onions, beer, bread, butter, bananas, brinjals, buriyani) will not be increased by this government.”
“We will be able to sell electricity to India, even…”
“The country is crawling with tourists: millions of them!”
“Boys will be boys!”
“He is a sleepwalker, that’s why that happened.”
“He can’t remember, that’s why he forgets what happened.”
“He is the best man for the job, that’s why, not because he’s my friend and/or my relative.”
“He tied himself to the tree… he beat himself up”, etc.
“We don’t know where that journalist/cartoonist/editor is, or who kidnapped/killed, etc., them…”
“The witnesses are lying, the evidence was faked, the footage has been doctored.”
“There is no cover-up. There is only an international conspiracy.”
“I will never crossover, change parties, betray my country.”
“I crossed over, changed parties, etc., in order to serve my country and the people better.”
It appears that in times of peace as well as in times of war, truth is the first casualty. And politicians and leaders of every other ilk are impacted and influenced by the culture of economy with facts, figures, verity, reality, truth. Also civil society! Which means you and I. Heard these?
“I will be there at sharp five…” (Well, give or take fifteen minutes at best; an hour or so at worst; or not at all in extreme cases.)
“I was just going to call you when you called me.” (I totally forgot. Er, what’s your name again?)
“But because today is my sick old aunt’s 100th birthday, I can’t come…”
“Hope you will excuse me from work today as I am down with dengue.”
“Shall be happy to oblige.” (As happy as a kite-in-a-hurricane?)
“Won’t it be a good thing if we kept those imported super-luxury cars for ourselves after the conference is over?” (Oh, sorry, this belongs in that other category above!)
“Don’t worry, I’ll do it on time… Er, what’s that deadline again?”
“Can’t be helped, aney, had to take my cousin’s cat to the vet.”
Call me a wet blanket and hang me out to dry; but we’re a nation of intentional liars, unselfconscious exaggerators, and liberal truth-stretchers with no intention of giving and keeping our word. From barbers of Seville to butchers of sense and sensibility, the culture of personal face-saving self-interest-promoting propaganda is our maxim, motto, and watchword. I would have told you what the solution to our problem is, but I had already emailed this article off to my editor!
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