The Blog Of Dysfunction

Guest Post By: Dr. Johnson C. Philip

The other day I sneezed in a meeting. Nothing special about that. However, no sooner there was a break, I found a young man clinging to me. He said he had a “gadget” that would cure me of my ailment. What ailment I asked, and then he told me how he had diagnosed a series of health problems from the sound, tone, and rhythm of my sneezing.

It turns out that almost everyone, including the mendicant at your door, has a gadget these days up his sleeve. There are T-shirts that cure asthma, sandals that cure blood pressure, pressure pads that make pain disappear, vibrators that dissolve fat the way a hot knife cuts through butter, and so on. These people have a gadget for every conceivable ailment. And then some. They promise that I only need to heed to them, and I will be a superman, free from all diseases — why, I might even become a little god, immortal and free from all sickness, worries, and everything. However, few things bother me about all these gadgets and offer, preventing me from reaching for my purse.

1. Not a single person who tried to sell these health gadgets me had any medical background whatsoever. True some of them might have taken a “postal medical course” from one of those fly-by-night operators, who generously offer a medical degree for nothing more than a pocket money, but then only an imbecile would take such “medical qualification” seriously.
2. All products are part of a chain. Which means, if you buy a product, then you are also forced to sell it to others. That is mad!
3. If you went to your grocer’s, and if he sold you 3 kg of sugar with the stipulation that now you need to sell it to 3 more, even an uneducated person would kick his #$% ! Yet these people are trying to get highly educated people to become peddlers.
4. Worse, if a product typically should be sold for Rs. 50, they sell if for 500 — because the cost reflects less of the production price and more of the commission which every greedy “entrepreneur” from top to bottom (actually more from top) gets.
5. And hey, it is illegal in most countries. But then most of them at the top know how to escape the arm of the law through linguistic acrobatics.
6. Worse, all the “science” they give out is nothing more than the clap trap of the Maya or Inca witch doctor.

I have studied both science and witchcraft (the latter one only as a researcher). And thus I feel I might laugh myself to death when they tell me about underpants that emit far infrared rays, magnets that increase blood circulation, and “monopoles” that cure “multipolar” diseases. All this is humbug of the highest (or lowest class).

Men have always craved health — easy health. Thus they would do anything other than live a healthy life and visit a doctor when needed. All these men who tried to peddle their wares so far to me are simply exploiting the human greed for health without investment in sound living.

This morning I was woken up by one of these guys who has been bugging me for last whole week. He did not know that a few more minutes of sleep (to complete my body’s rest-quota) would have been a hundred times better than the humbug he is trying to sell me — at 50 to 100 times the production cost of that worthless rattle.

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