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Let me explain what happened with our two-week girl baby. Born safe and sound, it was not showing interest in taking breast milk as its mother failed to lactate for some physical problem (I've heard most of the mothers whose babies are taken out with caesarean section face this kind of problem). So the baby was given liquefied power milk (Lactogen-1) which it seemed to enjoy. In one week, however, after following a course of prescribed medication and proper food intake, its mother could produce milk in bosom. But now the baby will not touch the breast, and whenever mother will try, it will cry. It will only take feeder which is easier to suck. The nipple of feeder bottle is softer than that of feminine body and ensures ampler flow, though breast milk is much more nutritious than powder milk, which has also the risk of causing disease, particularly of stomach. Mother continuously tried to bring the baby to breast but all in vain. As the baby has got the easy stuff, it is not ready to switch over to a difficult habit. Such an opportunist it is!

Now, who has taught the child to be an opportunist? We parents haven't done that, surely, as the baby is too young to receive any lesson. A two-week baby however understands what gives it an advantage, physically and otherwise. At that time it does not even know how to talk or how to walk -- knows nothing of human behaviour. But it knows how to take an opportunity and how to stick to it. The phenomenon might be called a basic instinct for neonates. They inherit it from parents, who might apparently be so innocent, being dead against opportunism. It is the characteristic acquired through blood, genetically -- not the result of social upbringing, as generally assumed. Being an opportunist is an inborn property, an unavoidable propensity, decided by God. It is true for the human species, may be for all species in creation.

Why do we then despise opportunism and its practitioners? Why do we refuse to be branded as opportunists? It is probably because opportunism is a negative notion, which is socially reproachable, though I am not sure whether there is any real justification for this kind of attitude? It seems to be merely a prejudice and bad custom. We do not hate ourselves because we breathe, eat, drink and sleep, do we? You will probably say that opportunism goes against the tenets of noble life and hence it must be avoided by all means. That sounds quite sensible as it entails a sense of morality. But morality is a social necessity, not mandated by nature, anyway.

In our society politicians are known as great opportunists. They take the opportunity of changing party to be in power. They grab the opportunity of gobbling relief materials and public property. They tell a lie to the voting mass and vie for tender. They utilise the opportunity to import tax-free car and sell it to others. They fly to foreign lands with special passports and dump their companions there in lieu of money. They really know how to make the best use of opportunity. But is it any offence of theirs to go an opportunistic way? If all people on earth are opportunists, why need they be blamed only? You will probably invoke the scale in judgement. The extent our politicians abuse opportunity is out of decency. Their indulgence in opportunity is unlimited. It is the reflection of their vehement insensibility -- callousness. If you argue like that, you however approve opportunism to a certain limit; call it a 'tolerable limit'. One cannot exercise it excessively but can do so to the tolerable limit. Can you measure your own limit, I mean, to what extent you are opportunist?

The bottom line is that I am an opportunist, you are an opportunist, and all are opportunists. Opportunism is probably ingrained in the very composition of life. It might have helped life to exist and develop through tortuous evolutionary process. If you are a human being, or a living object, you are bound to be an opportunist. You may strive to attain greatness in life, rigorously controlling your behaviour, and you may be successful in suppressing your raw nature, but you are nevertheless an opportunist within. You have a dark face behind your brilliant beauty. Analyse yourself and you must find it.

(The writer is Assistant Professor and Head, Department of English, Daffodil International University)