"To have little is to possess. To have plenty is to be perplexed."
-Lao Tse
Okay, you are an exception, Oliver Twist!
In a short story "How Much Land Does a Man Need?", Tolstoy writes about Pahom, a greedy Russian who hears that the Bashkirs, a minority race in Russia, are giving away their land for almost nothing. He goes to them and they offer him as much land as he wants, provided he can walk its perimeter in one day. Pahom agrees and goes out on his walk, but when the sun starts going down, he finds he has walked a little too far. Running back, Pahom collapses at the point where he had started just as the sun disappears behind the horizon. The Bashkirs try to congratulate him, only to find him dead. In answer to the question posed in the story's title, the Bashkirs bury him in a hole six feet long by two feet wide.
I am thinking about the above since yesterday when I read about the Hindu "godmen" who have been caught in a sting operation, offering to convert black money to white through shady transactions involving their charitable trusts. And I ask myself, what do these old men with long white beards and ash-smeared foreheads want in life, or rather want from life? Especially at this age! I mean, what difference would it make to them individually how many more crores they would make through these rackets? Yes, the amounts being talked about were 10%-25% of upto Rs. 5 crore!
http://www.hindustantimes.com/storypage/storypage.aspx?id=81ec3d61-8f10-4887-b316-c13d3cfc9fdb&&Headline=Sting+exposes+Godmen%2c+VHP+calls+it+campaign
Isn't there a big difference between what you want and what you need? Has this been forgotten conveniently by everyone except maverick musicians and bemused bloggers?
"I do not want what I do not have" - Sinead O'Connor
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
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2 comments:
a rather mundane and practical explanation would be that the money is never enough. As they grow famous their entourage and the hangers on become larger. He needs to support them. The same hols true for politicins as well. They need to prepae for the day when they are out of power and yet keep their flock together.
The money is never enough
rgds
Alok
In one of my blogs"swamis gurus and facial hair" I had wondered how we are forever willing to confer divinity on mortals such as our own selves. I guess if the god men are corrupt we have only ourselves to blame for having such unreasonable expectaions from them. At some point it will act is a catalyst for them to become corrupt.
madhu
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