Here’s an excerpt from a novel that tells you why.
SADHU
Oho. I thought he looked constipated the moment I saw him.
TRANSLATOR
What? What? You want me to tell him that?
SADHU
Why not? Tell him that’s probably why he’s impelled to invade other nations and massacre tribes and all of that – any student of yoga will tell you that mistreating the body leads to mental disaster. Yogic science has shown that people who hold it in are inescapably driven to behaviour like running about slashing at people, besieging towns, and frivolous acts of bravery.
TRANSLATOR
Now you’ve done it. He has those fits when he gets angry, see, he’s rolling about on the ground. Last time he did that he put a city of eighty thousand to the torch, no survivors.
SADHU
He’d be a lot better off if he shat more often. I wonder what his per week rate is.
TRANSLATOR
I’m not going to ask him, understand? He’ll kill you and all your friends and probably all the rest of Sindh too. I refuse on the grounds of conscience. It’s my job, but I refuse for the well-being of all the population of this country.
SADHU
There’s a yogic cure for constipation. Every morning, you take ...
TRANSLATOR
Shut up. Shut up. You’ve caused enough trouble for one day.
SADHU
You’d be remembered as the man who saved the world from Sikander the butcher. Get this fellow shitting right and he’ll probably go home, quiet as a lamb.
From the novel Red Earth & Pouring Rain (1995) by Vikram Chandra.
While this refers to an ancient personality (Alexander the Great), it could just as easily apply to another, more current megalomaniac who hails from Russia. The best for all of those who put cities to the torch would indeed be to go home.
