Although a lot has been said on this matter already, given the gravity of the episode, the resourcefulness of the errant individual and the clout of his media house - which has, it seems, been disgracefully partisan in protecting him by prioritizing his word over that of his accusing protegee - the column inches and airtime devoted to the issue are, for once, fully justified.
Ironically, his decision to atone of his own accord for his egregious action, one he deftly downplayed as an all too human flaw, only exacerbated the outrage over the episode, his intent borne out by the terms he chose: a bad lapse of judgment; an awful misreading of the situation; an untoward incident; his confessed urge to atone by means of a penance that would lacerate him - a calculated crutch for his floundering reputation.
The wording and the tone of high ethicality points to that old defense of the indefensible: immoral, though not illegal. The impression being created is of his crumbling under the weight of his own conscience, one he had presumably left at home before heading to Goa, owing perhaps to the baggage allowance on the flight he took. He seeks, thereby, to shift attention from the woman to his own put-on penitence. His guilt, though, is limited solely to what he has done, bereft of empathy for the woman who's been wronged and, therefore, of remorse.
Weaved into this carefully-crafted, self-aggrandizing impression is an insinuation of consensuality, or ,at the least, of tacit complicity. Suddenly, the whole atonement charade becomes all about his dignity and his angst at the realization that he has stooped below the moral standards he has set for himself, eclipsing the injury to the woman's esteem by his imposition on her. The righteous mentor is deploring his moment of weakness, wherein he got involved with his protegee, something he should have eschewed even if she did consent. The masochistic monk that he is, he even brings in the imagery of mortification to redeem himself.
For a man who made his name on divesting people of their appearances, amplifying their sotto voce villainy, and reading between the lines of their eloquent prose to reveal the subtext, his concoction is rather dilute. Could it be because credible fiction needs to be founded in facts, which aren't in his favor?
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