The Hindu Business Line : There's no law against feeling good

AMONG the oft-used phrases in recent times, after `scam unearthed' and `case adjourned', is `feel-good-factor'. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction; likewise, for every person who bets on FGF, there is at least another who feels bad. Thus, as election days approach, we would be listening to one camp hyping the `good' while the other would be decrying it.

Sonia is perhaps right when she says "feel-good" factor is akin to "day-dreaming." But that is not due to "the majority of people remaining bogged down by poverty and unemployment," as she says. For, according to the other camp, those people too have the option to feel good, as much as Sonia too has the choice. If the Opposition is not feeling good, it is their problem.

After all, FGF is a `feeling' - a word that has 83 entries in www.dictionary.com, one of which is `belief' - with a host of synonyms: "acceptance, admission, assent, assumption, assurance, avowal, axiom, certainty, conclusion, confidence, conjecture, conviction, credence, credit, deduction, divination, expectation, faith, fancy, feeling, guess, hope, hypothesis, idea, impression, intuition, judgment, knowledge, mind, mindset, notion, opinion, persuasion, position, postulation, presumption, presupposition, profession, reliance, supposition, surmise, suspicion, theorem, theory, thesis, thinking, trust, understanding, and vie."

Like auditors are free to have opinion, these guys are also having an opinion; they need not be right. Or it is simply a fancy, just as many think they're the most beautiful creatures on earth. Or worse, FGF is a suspicion. Remember, there is no law that prohibits the citizens to harbour something pleasant in their head.

We learnt as kids how to feign feelings, so one of the first writing exercises in school involved penning a leave letter that began with the usual from and to but the key line read: "As I am not feeling well, I request you to kindly grant me a day's leave... " Don't say `not keeping/ doing well' because we are not talking about facts but about thinking. Thus, Venkaiah has every right to feel great. Why stop him? He can even feel that others are feeling good or great.

These are different grades of the syndrome.

And the virus is spreading fast. The PM wants the FGF to get converted into votes. Advani has a theory that feel-good factor is not only in the IT sector and economy but also in religious and spiritual spheres as well. Not to be left behind, Jaswant has announced that FGF is here to stay, though the CBDT is wondering whether to issue a circular to that effect.

With varied pronunciations possible, don't be baffled if you hear a neta lauding the `peel-good-pactor' or some such. Already, some people doubt if the slogan is about filling `gud', that is, jaggery. Recently, Jaitley proclaimed that we have moved from `feel pain factor' that prevailed when bad people ruled us - you know when - to what we have now as FGF; and one feels `bad' that he is setting a bad example for kids who are looking at his speech for opposites.

A sage advice to the enemy camp is not to feel bad, at least before the election results are out. There is all that time, you see. On the other hand, should we not be worrying about the FGF brigade? No need, as long as they are not feeling too good. Because if that were to happen, they may lose all touch with reality and continue feeling good even after the ballots end up speaking a different story.

SayCheek@thehindu.co.in