India, April 5 -- Nearly every English-language newspaper this Saturday morning has at least one sombre piece warning readers to not go overboard with their reactions. That is always good advice, whether dealing with anger, sadness or happiness. Controlling emotions - the proverbial stiff upper lip - was something that was drilled into those of us who went to schools that modelled themselves on the English public schools. We were never meant to cry - at least not in public; even happiness had to be regulated in its expression; and despondency was invariably greeted with the advice to cheer up and get on with whatever we were doing.
Why, in an age when political correctness has banished the notion of self-restraint from our value system, ar...