JOIN USAmused, he told me like this, “My widow mother struggled to teach me up to middle standard by cleaning utensils in the house of village head. Fortunately, I was selected as Patwari and moved to a city.
Money would come even without me asking for it. I sent Rs 40 from my first savings to my mother who got suspicious of my source of earning since Rs 40 was a big amount at that time considering Patwari’s measly salary.
She sent back the entire amount to me by money order with a message that if she knew her son would become a corrupt official she’d not have struggled to give him education. I was very much pained and returned back the money to the person who had bribed me and took the pledge that I’d live with honest means.”
We still have many amongst us who are honest and a few are utterly honest with unimpeachable integrity. If asked, majority of them will tell that they have come to value the virtue of honesty in public life because of the school of thoughts they were exposed to as a child and most of the times it was the conduct of their parents which left an everlasting influence on them.
Most of us, in our single-minded pursuit to earn wealth have become blind to means and have embraced all that which is antithetical to tenets of dharma. Foremost amongst these is avarice and our failure to put restrain on our aspirations in the face of excessive consumerism. Thanks to our vibrant economy five per cent who have become rich in last two decades have become role models for middle and lower middle class.
Their minds are working overtime to attain the level of those super rich five per cent
without being particular about the means or whether they will really use the money in their life time- one flat then second flat, one car then second new model car. They find security of life through money alone.
Their sense of belongingness is confined to their family comprising of wife, husband and children and it is making them to do everything illegitimate and immoral for their family especially children.
They rarely think of being useful to people around, rather stress is on gaining something out of them. They never think how their selfish acts deprive a more eligible person of what in normal course he would have got.