Hoarding wealth

Many simply like to see the pyramid of wealth scaling new heights every month.



As a child I had the good fortune of having my grandmother around me. She always had anecdotes up her sleeves. One such anecdote she narrated to me was when my grandfather was an officer in the British Empire.

He was then posted in Ramnagar near Varanasi. Our neighbour happened to be a businessman known as Sethji, who had a roaring silk business. His huge ‘haveli’ had a fleet of horse carts and an army of servants. His wife’s favourite past time was keeping the famed jewellers of Varanasi engaged.

Our family later shifted to Shimla in summer. When we went back after three months, I found amazing changes in the haveli. The number of servants had reduced to a trickle and it was no more the favourite destination of jewellers. Of course, the most glaring change was visible on Sethani’s face.

My inquisitiveness had bottled up and one day when Sethani exchanged pleasantries, I broke the ice to know about this change and she almost broke down. There was a sudden and unexpected change in their business fortune. They were making a loss of Rs 3,000 every month, she said sadly.

After a week or so we were in splits when their accountant disclosed to us that earlier the monthly profit of the Seth’s firm was about Rs 6,000, which had reduced to Rs 3,000 and it made Sethji declare emergency!

I never thought 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, increasing working hours and have even frozen the salaries. One of the IT companies resorting to such measures is sitting on a cash pile of Rs 11,000 crore! But then 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 pace of the increase slows down.

I also worked in the private sector for 35 years. They all considered removing an employee, unless found indulging in dishonest means, a virtual profane even when the units is under cash losses.

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 do not take it away because it will hurt him as it hurts you