Farrukh Dhondy | Why I don’t believe in NY resolutions… And why, if offered ‘honours’, I’ll say no

So, people know what’s true

The old, the young the entire

Village attempts to pursue

Me -- to hear what I have to say

So, when I greet them with ‘good night’

They all conclude it means ‘bad day’

And if I say ‘turn left’, they know they all should steer right….”

From Pun Ditteries, by Bachchoo

I don’t do turkey or Brussels sprouts at Christmas -- and I don’t make New Year resolutions. I avoid these conventional customs, not through compassion for turkeys, or vile vegetables but for reasons of good taste.

And the New Year resolutions? Aren’t they adopted to be, like humpty-dumpty, broken as the rhyme and day/week progress?

But I do indeed follow some conventions and have at least one wishful expectation as the season of goodwill and anticipation of the future descend on the planet.

My wishful expectation at New Year is to check, as the year ends, the headlines of the national British newspapers. It is their privilege to announce to the country the sitting government’s choice of individuals to whom they have granted “honours”.

These are acknowledgements which declare that so-and-so is now a Member of the British Empire (MBE) or an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). These accolades are handed out to people whom the government (and the Opposition parties) think have rendered the state or its population some significant service.

Some leftie acquaintances of mine strongly object to people who accept these titles as they contain the word “Empire”. In our times, when the sun has decisively set over the British Empire and the captains and the kings have all departed (Oh, OK, except one!), the word “Empire” doesn’t mean governance over “lesser breeds without the law”, but is purely symbolic. Would I, gentle reader, in defence of my leftie acquaintances and their contentions, accept such an honour if some government proposes that I be handed one?

Answer? Absolutely not. Decline!

Why? Because I’d deem such titles not quite appropriate; slight and demeaning in fact. I’d want to go a couple of rungs up that honourable ladder.

The next rung would perhaps be a Companion of the British Empire. That wouldn’t do me either. Then follows the knighthood for men and a damehood (Is that the right word?) for women. So, for instance, years ago, Salman Rushdie was granted a knighthood and this year Keir Starmer’s Labour government handed one to the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan.

I am sure there are some fundos in the country who perhaps dislike Salman being thus honoured, even though he richly deserves it for his services to literature and the book trade. And now there are cry-babies, including two national newspapers, the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail, which object to Sadiq being knighted as they ridiculously claim that he has some association with Islamic terrorism. They even put out a petition to be sent to Parliament to say so, and I was sent an e-mail asking me to sign it. My reply to such a request was to ask them if they were about to put out another petition alleging that the Pope or Boris Johnson or both were members of ISIS?

With such controversies surrounding the grant of knighthoods to Salman and Sadiq, would I accept a knighthood if my services to ….er…. um… well… my natural modesty prevents me from saying quite what…. (Yeah! Yeah! --Ed)

No, my refusal of a knighthood, if and when offered, is because as each New Year approaches, I peruse the lists of honours to see if I have been made Lord Dhondy of Sachapir (the name of the street where I spent my childhood in Pune).

Well, perhaps gentle reader, you’ve guessed. That for some unfathomable or conspiratorial reason, Keir Starmer has not ennobled me this time, as did Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Neil Kinnock and, might I add, Boris Johnson, did before him! Perhaps they felt sending me to the House of Lords would mean I would, being opinionated, use my status to undermine their authority? Ah well, watch this space?

And my other look-forward-to thing at the end of December is formulating my very educative Christmas Quiz for anyone who happens to celebrate the season with me.

It starts Biblically.

So, for instance, one of the questions would be “in which and only book of the Bible are the three Magi mentioned?” And I’d follow that up by asking to which religion did the Magi belong? And if they were kings or priests? Going further, reading the account of their arrival, after following a star in the East, would they have landed in Bethlehem or Balochistan? Further: Did Herod murder the first born because the Magi boasted about why they had turned up?

Moving on, the quiz might ask to whom did Nehemiah of the Bible appeal to liberate the Jewish temple in Jerusalem from the barbarians who had seized and sought to demolish it. And, yes, what was the religion of this person?

Then, turning to literature rather than the Bible, two questions:

What was the religion of the character Fedallah, the harpooner to Captain Ahab in the novel Moby Dick?

And lastly, what was the religion of the baker whose cakes the Rhinoceros stole in Rudyard Kipling’s How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin?

Google all?