There are those who suddenly quit eating garlic and onions. There is usually a religious prompt at work here, as in with vrats and fasts. But the logic seems to boil down to this: The more we deprive ourselves of pleasure, the better it is for our mind, body and soul. There are many such instances I can cite. All of them are essentially exercises in willpower. Exercising willpower, it seems, is a national obsession.
I go to my chain-smoking chemist to pick up some paracetamol and find that he’s stopped puffing. I ask him if he chewed some of his own nicotine gum as an aid. He’s offended. ‘No, nothing. Only willpower,’ he says, handing me my Dolo. I go to the park for a morning walk and people are walking backwards. The same folks go home and drink strange vegetable juices that have no describable taste. Like the hit smoothie called ‘The Karela Story’. This, too, is an exercise in willpower.
The Hindustani word for it is ‘parhez’. This parhezing has its limits. I’ve never met an Indian who voluntarily does No. 2 every alternate day, or only on weekends.
Now for the next step. We are not happy depriving our individual selves of simple pleasures. We want to extend this privilege to all of society.
I live in Dehradun, a town in the middle of a bar boom. The cities are saturated. All their chains are coming to us: Social, Turquoise Cottage, Pyramid, Sly Granny, Farzi Cafe. The in-crowd is there, raring to go. Then the local administration decides that all bars should have a lock hanging on their doors at 11 p.m. sharp. Which means last orders at a quarter to ten. Everyone should be out of the bar by 11, including the staff and manager. This qualifies as an example of social collective parhez. A few years ago, when the scene was just forming, places would be open till beyond 2 a.m.
I am okay with all this, but draw the line when I’m unwittingly drawn into other people’s exercises in willpower. Like the time when my friend who’d gone cold turkey vegetarian, ordered his favourite kebab for me. I don’t like malai in my kebab. I was forced to eat it, while my friend oohed and aahed about the good old days when he could eat all this, until he himself put a lid on it. I realised I’d become a guinea pig in his parhez game. I will eat the kebab, so that he can test and maintain his willpower integrity. It’s like getting someone else drunk while you sit and watch. Manifestations of abstinence, willpower, parhez are also tied up with matters of life and death. Years ago, a neighbour quit listening to Western music after his mother passed. Once the last rites were done and the mourning period over, he switched to Indian classical. This one worked out for me, since I inherited his collection of 500-odd tapes: Dream Theatre, Shakti, the Grateful Dead, JJ Cale…
I know someone who quit drinking for 20 years after his toddler survived a life-threatening condition. The two events have no causal connection, apart from the fact that parhez, sometimes, is a promise one makes to oneself.
But listen. We are Indians. We are good at spiritual jugaad. In 2000, while a student at Oxford, I spotted my Hindu veg friend tearing into some fried chicken at KFC. We were eating in a big group. Later, when I asked him, he justified it by saying, ‘But if you noticed, I didn’t pay the bill. So, the transgression doesn’t count.’
Always remember: Desi willpower is one thing. But where there is a will, there is also a way out.