Business & money seem to follow no business ethics.
It all depends on how we decide to play the game of life.
Everything is fair in love business and war money!
A few years back when I went visiting my hometown, Mussoorie, after a gap of quite a few years, I found it had changed a lot. Curious to pin point the changes, I went out for a walk on the mall road.
As I was busy observing the new buildings around that had come up in the years I had not been there, I heard the screech of a car applying brakes by my side. Sitting inside on the wheel was a fat, middle-aged man looking intently at me with a smile of familiarity on his face.
"Are you not G B, my old school mate? I am Devendra, if you remember..." - he said.
"O... you are Kallu!" - I immediately recollected the face of the boy who was one of the dullest students in our class 40 years back, not only academically but also in all the extra curricular activities and whom we always addressed with his nickname Kallu. He always used to give the impression of a body walking around without a soul inside.
"Come inside and let's move to my place." - he opened the door of the car for me.
I sat in and the car took us to a big mansion worth millions outside the mall road on the way to Kempty Falls.
We got down and went in.
"So this is what I have earned in my life. Is that OK?" - he was dying to hear my comments.
"At least I couldn't do as much as you seem to have done. How did you do it?" - I was really happy to see his passion even if distorted!
He had a winning smile on his face - "Look, you were the best student in the class always standing first in the exams; and I was the worst, somehow managing to pass with a great difficulty."
"Yes, I remember... and now I am seeing this great change in you. How come it happened so?" - I was curious to know.
"I was left with no alternative but to play the game of life well as far as business & money were concerned. I had got bored of my dullness, and one fine morning I decided I would jump into the thick of action whether I am able to swim in it or am drowned. I just wanted to play the game of life, of business & money, of earning a name and status for me in the society, which my father had challenged me I would never be able to do." - he couldn't hide the bitterness showing on his face.
"And now? What does he say now?" - I was enjoying observing his passion even if a distorted one!
"I am the best son he could ever have given birth to... that's what he says! I still remember the day when I symbolically picked up one single coin from his cash box and said I wouldn't be coming back home until and unless I multiplied the same with at least a million. And now there are multi millions that I have with me here at my disposal." - he was proudly looking at the mansion we were sitting in.
"What on earth did you do to achieve all this?" - my curiosity was going on increasing.
"I jumped into the risky business of transporting timber from jungles to the cutting machines..." - he left the sentence incomplete with a winning smile on his face.
"But cutting timber is banned!" - I wondered.
"Who cares?" - he flicked the question away with a jerk of his hand.
"But what of business ethics?" - I appealed to his moral sense.
"What business ethics? Business & money know no business ethics, my dear! If you play the game of life to win, you have to forget all the business ethics and the only thing that matters is you win it whether by hook or by crook. Understand you, the best student of our school - a master of business ethics?" - he started smiling at me.
And I started smiling at the world of business & money we humans had made to play the game of life amicably and justifiably and what else not!
