OBSESSED WITH PROFITS

As a child I had the good fortune of having my grandmother around me. She had always educative stories and anecdotes up her sleeves to suit the occasion. One such anecdote she narrated to me was- your grandfather was an officer in the British Empire. Once when he was posted in Ram Nagar near Varanasi our neighbor happened to be a business man known as Seth ji who had a roaring business of Silk. His huge mansion ‘haveli’ probably biggest in the town, a fleet of horse carts baghees , an army of servants, his wife’s favorite pass time of keeping the famed jewelers of Varanasi engaged gave enough indication of his ever burgeoning wealth.

Our family would shift to Shimla in summer. Once when we were back after a three months stay in Shimla, life in the haveli,had undergone number of amazing changes, servants had reduced to a trickle, only one baghhi in the waiting and it was no more the favorite destination of jewelers. Off course, the most glaring change was in sethani (Seth’s wife)) whose ever glistening face seemed to have acquired a paint of grimace.

My inquisitiveness had bottled up to the point of burst and one day when Sethani exchanged pleasantries I broke the ice to know about the reasons of this change, sethani almost broke down “There is a sudden and unexpected change in our business fortune. We are making a loss of Rs 5000 every month. Till what time could we absorb these loses?” I departed after displaying an expression of sympathy..

After a week or so we were in splits when their Munim (Accountant) disclosed to us that earlier the monthly profit of Seth’s firm was Rs 10000 odd which had reduced to Rs 5000 odd and it made Seth to declare emergency and slap harsh measures.

I could never think that this mindset had percolated down to our IT honchos who despite making huge profits and comfortably sitting on cash reserves are issuing pink slips to the employees, have increased the working hours not sparing even females and have frozen the salaries. One of IT companies resorting to such measures is sitting on a cash pile of Rrs 11000 crore the amount enough to start a bank and finance thousands of small units. But then my mother had told me that hoarding of wealth is also an addiction. Once you become a part of it, you simply like to see the pyramid of wealth scaling new heights every month and have Zero tolerance if the increase is with a slower pace.

I also worked in the private sector for 35 years in a few big business houses. They all considered removing an employee unless found indulging in dishonest means a virtual profane even when the units would be making cash losses. Though in many cases appointment letters would not be issued but still the jobs would be for the life time and the word of mouth would be honored in the matter of salary and perks. But, now when appointments letters are issued much in advance, the selected candidate remains unsure about his being called to join and such cases are many when the call letters are with much reduced salary.

Indeed it is a time for our IT honchos to go back to the surviving captains of the old school of management whose general message was “Remember if job is important to you, it is still more important to the man down the line. Think hundred times before giving any benefit but once given don’t take it away because it will hurt him as it hurts you.”

BHARTENDU SOOD