Forbidden fruit

It’s only human. What you should not even look at, you want, more than you normally would want it, if at all, when you have free access to it. Adam and Eve did it with the apple the serpent gave them, taking little bites (Do you think they knew what it was really all about? The papers tell me that an apple a day can keep your waistline down to enviable measures!), finally indulging in a little bit of sin that gave rise to the entire human race, or so the story goes. They were thrown out of the Garden of Eden for hobnobbing with the snake, but – especially judging by all the pictures I have ever seen of the scene – figured it was all worth it.

But sometimes what is forbidden is hardly fruity. Take various other kinds of sin, for instance, from eating too much chocolate to buying that astonishingly expensive pair of red suede stiletto heels that you know you should never ever have even looked at. Or flirting with your best friend’s fiancé at the engagement party, or trying on your sister’s favourite lipstick that you have been expressly forbidden to touch. Driving your father’s car for the evening without permission, or walking out of the library with a non-borrowable reference book. Sin comes in various shapes and sizes and intents, each classifiable as sin for different situations by different people. I got this interesting cross-section from various friends at work and beyond, who first demanded why I wanted to know and then came up with a range of ideas, all expressed with much enthusiasm. And that is exactly what sin needs: enthusiasm. You cannot sin without being intent on it, without being determined to enjoy it, without finding joy in it.

There are joys to be found everywhere, and it is always possible to transfer those joys into the realm of the slightly disallowed – as in allowed only under certain strictly controlled circumstances that may not exist at that particular moment in time when you feel like getting involved with them. Like eating an extra-large piece of mithai when you are on a diet. Or charging that fabulous outfit from an international brand on your credit card, the one that you promised you would not use again until you had cleared all your payment backlog. Or even going off to watch the latest movie release when you tell people at work that you are out on an assignment. In my book, if you indulge with verve, having fun with every pore of your being, knowing full well that you will pay for it later (literally and otherwise), but still going all out to do whatever it is you are not supposed to do, it is ok, allowed, permissible, however sinful.

There is ‘sin’, yes, most of it entirely enjoyable for the participant and frowned upon by society – which is what defines something as ‘sin’, if you think about the pragmatics of it all – but there is also ‘wrong’. Which is stronger than sin and often a lot less excusable and enjoyable for those wronged and those wronging. Like stealing whisky from your father’s bar when he is out and then driving off in his car when you can barely tell which end is up and so running over unfortunate pedestrians who have every right to be walking on the pavement you decide to wheel onto. Or stealing money from your mother’s purse to buy cocaine when you know she needs it to pay off the plumber or the maid or even the grocer. Or putting your sister up for auction with your college buddies for one night of whatever they have in mind. Again, real live suggestions from real live people.

Somehow what you should not do always seems more fun than what you are allowed to do, like Adam and eve reprised. If they (anyone, actually) say that you cannot drink alcohol, you want to do just that; if they forbid you to smoke, you will find ways to sneak a cigarette or any other weed you may want to inhale the fumes of; if you are banned from eating sugar, you will crave it; and if you are not old enough to watch movies labelled ‘A’, that is where you will single-mindedly head for. Is that being obstreperous, disobedient or antisocial? Not at all. It is just being human.