------------------------------------------------------------------------ Remembering Aquino Braganca (b. 6 April 1924), who fought for freedom of the former Portuguese colonies in Africa. An online tribute http://aquinobraganca.wordpress.com/ (includes many historical references, some photographs and documents)
------------------------------------------------------------------------ Simple White Sins Introspection on the nature of sinning By Cecil Pinto Despite being a certified lapsed Catholic the season of Lent always gets me thinking about the nature of Sin. What helps, of course, is reminders all over the place. I ask for my favourite brand of sausages at a shop and have to make do with some lesser brand because the lady at the counter explains to me reproachfully that, “In Lent season people don’t buy sausages no Baba, so we not bees stocking.” At home I have my wife putting down the volume of my stereo speakers, especially on Fridays. My kids have already been trained into giving me guilt trips about not going for Holy Mass. And what cruel God is this that made Urrack season coincide with abstinence season? Fortunately the robust religion of my parents allows safety valves for our guilt ridden existence. Sins are categorised into Original (not duplicate!), Mortal and Venial. The last mentioned type is a lesser sin that does not result in a complete separation from God and eternal Damnation in Hell. The concept is similar to ‘white lies’ which don’t have major repercussions and are sometimes beneficial to the hearer. For example telling a young child that a stork brings babies is better than explaining the whole human reproductive process. And telling a particularly unattractive woman that spending half a month’s salary on merely straightening her hair does not improve anything, can be pretty mean. So we take the easy way out and lie. Simple White Sins as I call them are often culture and gender specific. Go through the examples below and examine your conscience. Ok, sometimes it is difficult to hold in but farting in a crowded social situation, especially in an elevator, is definitely a sin. Not so much the act of farting as the act of looking around for the culprit when in fact you are the offender. Which of us, when given extra change by a shopkeeper will actually bring it to his attention? Of course we use all sorts of justification, involving how much money he makes anyway, but very few of us will admit to the fact that we are cheating whereas he is running a business. This sin is almost in the same category as petty shoplifting. Exaggerating the price of an item one owns, to impress a friend, is a common enough tactic. The opposite of course is to vastly reduce the price one paid just to impress upon the other that you are more knowledgeable about where to shop for bargain items. Its’ not unlike cheating on your income tax returns, but that too is accepted worldwide as the done thing. Some sins are universally condoned. Throwing your accumulated home garbage into a non-waste area is definitely a mortal sin. All the justification about “They’ve not collected it for a week” does not justify this heinous act. Lower on the list is the sin of littering. The drinking straw, the little plastic covering the drinking straw on a tetra pack, the tetra pack itself, the paper napkin, the cigarette butt, the plastic bottle… All litter my friend, that’s choking our Goa. Feeling guilty already? No? Like farts, lice is something that we can never admit to. We all had lice in school, and sometimes as adults we pick up lice somehow. But nobody will ever admit to having a lice problem even while they are scratching their heads in that peculiar way. When passing through rural Goa I see women sitting in a row, normally on steps, removing each others lice. I think how honest they are about such matters as opposed to us urban people. Copying in exams is considered acceptable. In fact the few of us who have never copied are that way because of a fear of getting caught rather than any real ethical problem with copying. Of course that applies to most sins. It’s like traffic rules. We follow them because of a fear of getting caught rather than any inbuilt acceptance that breaking traffic rules could cause danger to ourselves or others. “Tell her I’m not at home”. Not answering the phone on a false pretence is a sin in itself but making another person lie on your behalf compounds the offense. And what about on the street when you avoid a person you know, or pretend you didn’t see or recognize him? Isn’t your time and energy also important? Is ‘derecognition’ a sin or only a word used in electoral politics? What about food buffets? Just because the food is unlimited does it mean we have to stuff ourselves silly, often with food items that are mismatched? In this case at least the stomach upset the next day is immediate enough punishment. But we never learn. And because we have unlimited broadband Internet we send unnecessarily huge files to all and sundry. Which of us can state that we have never visited a pornographic Internet site, even unintentionally? How often do these unintentional visits happen and how long do they last? Which of course leads into the most controversial of all Simple White Sins - petty lust. Is there any male who can honestly say that he has never looked down a cleavage? And how many of us have not copped a feel in a crowded situation? Or sometimes remained in a particular location or position for some visual or tactile advantage – if you know what I mean. Lustful thought, sometimes even when in a place of worship, about one’s neighbours, relatives and even non-Goans, are common enough. Although technically sins they are not given more than a passing thought. As far as masturbation, or even admitting to knowledge of masturbation, goes that is one hot potato that needs an entire column of its own. Or maybe many books! But sometimes something totally non-sexual can be misconstrued. In an emergency is using your spouse’s clean/new underwear a sin? If you never got found out can one deny ever having done it? What if there was an accident? And caste? All of us relatively educated people claim to be anti-caste. But in private we often discuss an individual’s caste. Is it sinful? Would it be better to discuss such matters openly? Or would that be a bigger sin? Simple White Sins; life would be boring without them. -------------- The column above appeared in Gomantak Times dated 9th April 2009 =======