Sherlock Holmes is Not Home Now

Sherlock Holmes in his ‘Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle’ finds a hat that has been left by a run-away gentleman. He gives it a thorough examination and tells Watson a number of features about the life and individuality of the wearer. For example, he infers that the man was an intellectual and was fairly well-to-do once but not now. He had the sense of foresight but was a little indifferent now and that his wife probably had ceased to love him. He had a haircut recently and applies lime cream in his hair and leads a sedentary life. Also that he does not probably have gas in his house. Later when Holmes happened to meet him, most of his inferences drawn from closely observing his hat turned out to be fairly accurate. The size of the hat implied that the wearer had a large brain under it and the style and condition of the hat told of the age of the hat and the expensive taste of the owner who now couldn’t afford to replace it even when it was badly battered, tainted with wax and spotted with sweat and cream.

Holmes exercised his detective skills in the late 19^th century, when life was still by and large true to how it appeared. You could trust things as they happened to show up. But with the rise of free enteprise and technology, deception has become such an accessible and rampant practice that Holmes, if he were in business today, would, for the better part of his occupation, remain befuddled. He would give up his logical talent and invent new ways to work out the crimes of thieving and murder. Because, appearance are consciously constructed to confound others these days.

When we were young, elderly people with long flowing beard and a white headgear were considered saintly, venerable and morally upright. Today we have their videos of groping and hugging women who in desperation had come to them for help. The so-called Swamis, Babas and  Fathers lead a double life which, until someone takes the lid off, maintains a well-protected sacred profile. Their religious rhetoric may be about promoting spiritual well-being, but underlying motives can be encouraging donations, exhorting conversions or wielding political power. The politicians of the day, too, are highly adept at this game and are the most difficult to comprehend. Their rhetoric may sound uplifting, promising, progressive and even morally pious, yet it can be all gas, lies and bluff – a typical doublespeak. Worse is, they have the temerity of admitting later that it was all but a way of saying.

Once lies or deceit was the preserve of crooks, but over the years it has so consistently percolated down to the ordinary level that we have ceased to believe what we see or hear. The beggar at the curb may have an amputated limb, but in actual be a healthy man with enormous earnings stashed under his carpet; the handsome looking prospective groom to your daughter may be a conman who will ditch her the moment his designs succeed. The suave, soft-speaking officer or even a doctor may rob you, not directly but through his crony network. The property or investment agents tell you only half the truth to hasten you into a deal. What will Holmes do with such deceptive faces?

We live in tough times. Trust has turned into a liability. We don’t stop for someone to help fearing it may be a trap, particularly if the other person is of the opposite sex. Yet, not every woman with a revealing dress is a harlot, nor every wayside stalker is a sex-maniac. Our old assumptions about ‘face is the index’ have ceased to hold. Masking is an everyday affair. The make-over technology can make an old woman look like a teenager and a ruffian like a gentleman. Dark skin can be turned fair and fair can be turned brown; a glittering set of front teeth can develop canines and the dark eyes can turn blue with a grimace that is both charming and terrifying at the same time. We can’t trust any photograph or video as all images go through a Photoshop, some even get morphed and most get displaced in time and location. The same is true of any voice recording; that is why courts refuse to accept them as valid evidence. Written word was once considered authentic, but what with WhatsApp scriptwriters any line can now be attributed to a Ghalib, Gulzar or even an Einstein.

Technology has made deception so easy and attractive that we have all come to accept it as a way of life. We buy wood that is not wood but looks exactly like that; our leather shoes may look like leather, but in actual be machine-made; the cotton we choose to wear may be cotton only in looks; A fruity drink may not have any fruit at all; the red carrot picked up from a friendly store may have been dyed to look so; the green dot on the packaged food may not ensure that it has no meat in it.  Gelatin or fat in ice creams and health supplements have animal products, but are rarely declared. And the milk and egg on your breakfast plate may have never seen an animal. The list is endless and we have stopped caring for it. The real is becoming increasingly scarce and it gets revealed only after someone explodes the intrigue. 

What would completely stump Holmes is the phenomenon called ‘counterfeiting’. Eminent international brands have given rise to a flourishing industry where fake imitations are produced and sold at one-tenth of the price. (Only connoisseurs with microscopic eye can see the difference) Designs are meticulously copied with slight change in the labels– Rado becomes Radd and Rolex Rolax. More daring counterfeits in the garment, shoes, cosmetic and perfume industry even retain the labels. Interestingly, everyone knows who is doing what, yet no serious effort is being made to stop it. In fact, the brand owners unofficially recognize it as free publicity for their products.

Not that appearances alone will perplex Holmes, but that his entire investigation skills will be rendered useless and laid to rest. Who will need his services for fact-finding when the police are supposed to connive with the offenders?  He will prove a big heckler – a dog in the manger. The criminals now don’t live in the underworld; they walk hand-in-hand with the state. When the state intends neither to fix a crime nor make public the criminals, it is occupationally correct for the police to stop short of investigation and keep their detectives out of the courts.

Holmes, these days, will be twiddling his thumb sitting in some pub.