Mirror, Mirror, on the wall – Who is the smartest of them all?’ Sound familiar? Of course, from the German fairy tale ‘Snow-White’, with a small change though, the word ‘fairest’ replaced by the word ‘smartest’. In the fairy tale the wicked queen and stepmother of Snow White is in possession of a magical mirror that keeps telling her every morning, when asked, that she is the fairest of them all. Everything is fine as long as the mirror gives a reply in favor of the queen, until Snow White reaches the age of seven and the mirror starts revealing Snow White as thousand times beautiful than the queen. Jealous of her step daughter’s beauty, the queen orders her to be killed. What an extraordinary mirror to have in this modern world, even though the queen used it for the wrong purpose. Unfortunately Snow White is a fairy tale and there is no such magical mirror in existence, at least till date.
Since the fairy tale was written long time ago, the world has made huge technological advances, but a magical mirror that can easily reveal the ‘smartest of them all’ feature is still a long way away. However, human imagination is limitless, and if someone does attempt designing a mirror of this magnitude then the most important factor that would be required, as part of input would be to zero-in on the definition of smart. So what if it’s a magical mirror, it would still have to be programmed and correct weightage given to various factors before determining the smart guy in town.
So how do we go about defining an ideal smart person? Top of the list has to be education, social background, attitude, and maybe the area the person comes from. For example a smart person in a place like Bangalore is usually a typical engineering techie always thinking and implementing technological solutions that make life simpler. A smart person in Bombay could be defined by the various successful self made millionaires in the field of art, finance, business and sports, people who create serious wealth and fame for themselves despite the chaos. But when it comes to Goa, how do we define a typical smart individual of Goa? An inventor wanting to invent that magical mirror will have to shelve the idea at the conceptualization stage itself, for want of a proper definition. Have we decided on a clear definition of smart or have we created enough smokescreens over the years so as to conceal the genuinely smart and prop up the phony. If smokescreens exist in Goa in the present modern time, then surely they might have existed in the past. Goa today is paying the price for decisions made by the propped up smart of that time, and the Generation Next will pay the price of the present decisions taken by the so called clever of today.
Let’s face the fact, we don’t live in an ideal world, every place has its share of fakes or crooked people. However, when they turn out to be more popular and threaten to become role models for others to follow, the genuine smart usually lose their rightful place in the society, being consistently pushed to the sidelines. The fallout being that most Goans start admiring only the crooked, thereby harming our reputation in front of others, that we are not smart enough. No wonder a lot of people from all over the country and the world, come and address Goans on trivial subjects, sometimes even at the behest of the Government of Goa. The speaker is thrilled because he believes he has done a great job of educating and talking in front of an ignorant but well behaved and decently dressed audience. Where else can a speaker get this kind of combination?
Examples of so called smart but insincere people at work are many, among them are; the present government’s changing of agenda from going after corruption to interfering in the food preferences of their citizens. Today most Goans are worried about government meddling in what they cook at home, at the cost of losing the big picture on corruption. Is this not a deceitful plan thought way ahead of time to protect friends who were fully embroiled in corruption, so what if they come from the other party?
The recent Indian football league also saw a subtle move by private individuals to appease the government of the time. Otherwise how can one explain the color of the team flag being saffron when the jersey was white or blue? Was this not some artful move to hoist saffron flags in Catholic dominated homes of South Goa. Should we be proud of smartness of this kind?
The disgraced Ramalingam Raju, Chairman of erstwhile Satyam Computers showed fictitious cash of over a billion US dollars on the balance sheet and got away from the scrutiny of smart financial analysts right from Wall Street to Dalal Street for a considerable period of time. The fraud came to light, only because the shareholders shot down his proposal to move that fictitious money to another sister company, a last ditch attempt by him to fill fabricated assets with real ones. Despite his high qualifications and smartness, his falling from grace and landing up in jail confirms there is no place for the crooked in a modern society, however smart they may be. Can this ever happen in Goa?
Not that there is a dearth in Goa of smart people with integrity, but most of them keep a dignified silence not wanting to disturb the status quo. The list is long of Goans that have succeeded out of Goa. It’s a shame that the atmosphere is still not conducive for smart people to live and thrive in Goa. Those that exist are swimming against the tide and in a hopeless minority. Time has come for us to define the authentic smart people of Goa. People who do well for themselves, in the process add value to Goa and yet do not become a burden on the natural or financial resources of the state, people that propagate original ideas for the well-being of Goa. To those who are always on the lookout to embezzle original ideas so as to pass them as their own, so that people can consider them smart, or to those who circumvent rules that suit them in their personal business and success it is time to look into the plain mirror, before someone invents that magical mirror.
(Plastino D’Costa is a business consultant)
