Ephemeral truths?

Talking about ephemeral truths and eternal lies.. I wanted to write about this truth test thing.

I personally find it funny/weird/childish for a CM to promise or ask someone to promise in front of 'God' about anything. Come on, even kids know how to lie.. Or in Hindu style, it is Kaliyug, for God's sake. Even if the CM had promised, I wouldn't have believed him entirely. But what he did in the end was funnier. He just dodged the issue entirely.

Huh?

He refused to take the truth test he himself devised and expects us to believe he is true? I hope he isn't as naive as that. But that brought me to another question. If you truly believe in God and if you truly believe God will punish you for misdeeds etc, isn't corruption a misdeed? Isn't trying to hide corruption a misdeed? If you are anyway going to be punished for all these, you might as well have promised. (Or) If you truly believed in God, why were you corrupt in the first place?

I have seen this kind of 'god-fearing' people a lot. (Like people who fast for one month thinking about Butter Chicken throughout!) People who spend their lives making black money, evading taxes, misappropriating funds, what not. ("Aisa nahi karoge, toh zindagi me kuch nahi kar sakte.." or the "Ner vazhi romba suthu kozhandai!"* types) And then they go and write off one crore to charity. I am honestly unable to understand if they think their God is that dumb- like he will forgive you if you pay him enough! It is like they believe in God in spurts when they realize he might punish them. And for the rest of their lives they continue without any morality. If I could be God for a day, I would spend at least some part of it ragging these people. You know, just keep arguing with them, until they accept they thought God was as big a fool as themselves.

Anyway, back to our CM. I was discussing this stuff with a friend and we came up with the theory that the CM thinks corruption is not wrong as such. But he knows lying to God is wrong. And that's why he didn't make the promise. That answered my confusion a little and the theory sounds OK to me, though I can't find for the life of me how anyone can think corruption is not wrong. I can imagine someone saying, "Everybody does it. Why penalize me?" or even "Without doing so, you can't become rich" but "NOT wrong"??? Honestly, either I am incapable of that level of self-deception or I am impractical by Indian politics' standards, but corruption IS wrong. Even to save your soul. 

And if you really think God exists, forget your double standards and better believe in him fully enough not to be corrupt in the first place. Or you will land up in this funny "God-promise I didn't do it" situation. And then, don't blame me for laughing!

*This was one of Sujatha's most awesome dialogues. I really really love Sujatha for this one! For those who don't recognize it, it came in Anniyan.