Westerners visit India in large numbers nowadays. Those who stay in expensive five-star hotels expect to be provided with everything they require, including their favourite food. Since cow meat is generally very popular in the west, they expect it to be available in the hotels they stay in. So hoteliers include the words “beef steak” in the menu that they present before their customers.

Since the consumption of cow meat is prohibited in India, the news that beef steak was an article on hotel menus aroused strong criticism in the country. One MP raised the question in parliament, and the government initiated investigations. Hotel managers told officials that they did indeed give their customers “beef,” but the word “beef”—according to the dictionary—is used for the meat of both buffaloes and cows; what they were providing was buffalo meat, not cow meat.

On May 4, 1984, the Minister of Health gave a statement to parliament in New Delhi. As the Times of India reported next day, ‘the minister read out the Oxford dictionary meaning of “beef,” which included the flesh of buffalo as well, and not merely that of cow or ox.’

The newspaper headline was: “Five star hotels saved by the dictionary.” People read about this sort of thing happening in the present world, and are deceived into thinking that things will be much the same in the next world; they think that just as “dictionaries” come to people’s rescue in this world, so they will find some “dictionary” in the world to come, which will save them from impending calamities. But they could not be more wrong. The reason that a show of words can rescue one from a tight corner in this world is that here one is dealing with mortals the like of oneself. But in the next world one will be dealing with the Lord of the Universe, and there will be no way of tricking Him.

Only if one’s case is based on reality will one be able to escape punishment in the next world. Words which are not supported by reality will be of no use to anyone.

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Great Man

No man is truly great who is great only in his life time. The test of greatness is the page of history.

William Hazlitt