Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Double lives and wives of public figures

The news of Roger Ailes, the CEO of Fox News, has been at center of the news charged with sexual harassment lawsuit from a female coworker didn't surprise me. And rumor has it - it's one among multiple sexual harassment lawsuits against him.

Nothing new in the Corporate world - except this Conservative News Network promotes Christian family values, when their CEO is caught literally pants down. Can't get more hypocritical than that.

Many politicians and celebrities have double lives and double (often multiple, though not legal) wives. Many Conservative Christian Evangelists, famous for their believes - "God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve" have been infamously caught with their gay partners.

Many regular Church going, wedding ring flaunting, believers in family values and virulent critics of the then President Clinton's debauchery were caught with their concubines. One was Georgia's Congressman New Gingrich a vocal votary of impeachment against Clinton, was caught having affair with his secretary.

Another was his colleauge Larry Craig, the Idaho senator who was highly critical of Clinton's moral was caught red handed and charged in Minneapolis airport for gay soliciting.

Many temple going BHAKTs (devotees) and PRAVACHAN givers (preachers) whose sermon espouses EKA PAT(N)IBRATA (belief in single spouse), siting the example of Lord Ram and Devi Sita, are known champion womanizers.

Khushwant Singh in his autobiography had mentioned about Moulana Azad, one of our founding fathers and freedom fighters. Moulana would spend evenings sipping Scotch in his privacy and would be curt if intruded.

Obviously he was very secretive about this habit, for it could have impacted his image in public, especially being from the Muslim community. Such public figures leading a double life is not something new. The list is endless. This inherent hypocrisy has to do with our tendency to do do something in private and preach something in public.

Often I wonder about the vagaries of life. A doctor who cures others from incurable disease, falls pray to mundane ailments. Many doctors who give lengthy lectures on bad effects of tobacco and alcohol are chain smokers, champion chewers of ZARDA (scented tobacco) and frequently get doused in liberal dosage of sundowners.

A great bowler who takes the wickets of great batsmen often gets out to ordinary bowlers. A great astrologer who can predict other's future can hardly control his own. Burglaries in a policeman's home are not so uncommon.

A 73 year old gentleman once told me, "I am perplexed by the hypocrisy of  the folks from my generation who now preach morality and abstinence to their children. The irony is, they never cared about these virtues when they were young, growing up.

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