Beyond the unreasonable man

Sometimes, the sight of a lamp challenging the storm, fully aware that it will be extinguished, is morally uplifting.

When orthopaedic surgeon Govinda KC began yet another fast on July 23, several words came to mind—an altruist, a stoic, a quixotic campaigner and a tragic idealist. Finally, I settled on ‘ an absurd hero ’ in the Sisyphean tradition: Someone who knows that goodness may not produce the desired result, yet chooses to be good because goodness, in itself, is worth doing. The similarity with Mahatma Gandhi is tempting at first glance, but neither was Gandhi purely a saint, nor is KC a sage.