Conviction that leads to pursuit of Fool’s Gold

CHENNAI: Stories about an individual’s conviction leading to a desired result are dime a dozen in the world of politics, business and sports. Told with the benefit of hindsight, such tales are an important component in the arsenal of raconteurs and public speakers.

Unfortunately, political commentators too seem to swear by personal convictions, rather than objectivity. On issues of societal interest too, their conviction seasoned with their wishful thinking make for a nauseating recipe. In a recent incident of a top politician’s alleged antics inside an aircraft, prominent political commentators were hell-bent on defending the politician in question, despite several news articles. The unimaginative politician claimed it was a hit job.

However, social media trail is non-erasable and several pointed out the eagerness of political commentators to portray a young student’s sloganeering inside a plane as a matter of passenger safety.

Unfounded convictions seem to be a national pastime. There were instances where legislators have advocated consuming cow urine to cure covid. Many observers point out that the verbal excreta from our spokespersons is aimed at a berth in the parliament.

Perhaps, nothing explains that conviction is fool’s gold than this 17th-century science experiment to make gold in a laboratory. German scientist Hennig Brand was convinced that gold could be distilled from a liquid.

He collected 50 buckets of the liquid and stored it for months. It never yielded gold. The liquid in question was human urine.

— Srikkanth Dhasarathy, Chennai