A LOVER was writing to his beloved in the usual and effusive terms, “I shall die without you,” “I can die for you,” “ You are my temple where I shall worship you.” In the postscript he wrote, “I shall meet you on Sunday evening provided it is not raining.”

Hypocrisy, it has been said is the tribute that vice pays to virtue. The belief in the existence of god and cardinal virtues is fostered on us from our childhood days. But the pleasures of life have an irresistible appeal on us. We make best of both the words by paying lip service to god and heart- service to the devil.

Our morning begins with prayers in the temple, mosque or church and debt to god is paid. The rest of the day is given to deceit, corruption and lies. Satan gets the lion’s share of our attention.

Religion has been particularly the happy hunting ground of hypocrisy. Jesus Christ laid stress on two things – ’whosoever shall smite thee on they right cheek, turn to him the other also’ and ’it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into a kingdom of god’.

In politics as in religion, there is abundance of hypocrisy. The politician is an acrobat. He keeps his balance by saying the opposite of what he does. To secure the votes, these acrobats will go to any length, make tall promises, which they never fulfill.

Hypocrites are everywhere. People pretend to be wealthy when they do not have a six pence in reality, assuming knowledge, of which they are ignorant, shamming a culture they are far removed from and adopting opinions they do not hold. The fact is that it is easier to pretend to be what you are not, than to hide what you really are but he that can accomplish both has little to learn in hypocrisy.