TIME IS THE BEST DEALER OF PRINCIPLES

An interesting incident which amused me...i happened to see the movie "Blood Diamond"about a year ago....for those of you who haven't seen it,as the name suggests,it is a brutally violent description of the savage behaviour that goes on in Africa for diamonds...man kills man,gangs roam around brandishing guns and kill as they please...the gangs force men to work for them to find diamonds...and all this for the sophisticated diamond companies who buy cheap diamonds from Africa to makes exquisite jewellery for the upper class elite around the world...

well,a lady friend of mine too saw the movie and was deeply disturbed...she said she was off diamonds after seeing the senseless mad scramble the movie portrays...she also mentioned a particularly relevant dialogue mouthed by Leonardo di Caprio in the film,which is actually the essence of what the film-maker is trying to say...Caprio says the mad scramble and killings would not be going on if not for the massive demand for diamonds..he tells the petite heroine who is sickened by his greed for diamonds that if she cares so much she should stop buying diamonds....

my friend was deeply impressed by this line and said that she has sworn off diamonds....i was touched by her resolve because she is someone who can afford diamonds,yet she had made this decision..i was impressed by her sensitivity and social conscience(however tiny it may seem on the scale measuring social conscience!)...my making a resolve was meaningless,for the simple reason that i cannot afford diamonds but nevertheless i had kind of made the same resolve!

well, a week back this friend of mine enthusiastically asked me to go upto her flat,she wanted to show me something....i went wondering what it was...it turned out to be a shiny,crystal-clear,pure,radiant DIAMOND!!!!!!!...worth about a lakh and a half in indian rupees...she was beaming with the unadulterated,pure joy of a child!...no trace of the social conscience at all!...i praised her shiny new stone truthfully....was definitely worth praising...left her glowing with owner's pride and came home....

set me thinking and made me realise that time is the best healer...what affects a person with the intensity of an electric shock today can be shrugged off a year later like one would a pesky fly!...Time can smash your principles and make it shapeless like an automobile badly damaged in an accident...but let it be said,there are many people who stand by their principles too...for them even if their principles are put in a washing machine and spun round and round,their principles come out intact and cleaner!...

enough of philosophy now,i was left wondering if i would have the strength to resist that beautiful diamond if it were given to me..i narrated the incdent to my husband and he laughed and said "don't worry,you won't ever be faced with the predicament of making that choice,i'll never be able to afford a diamond big enough to tempt you away from your principles"...... how one can't fight with this kind of logic..?!!!so its still remains an open-ended question...hahaha...