KSS Pillai
I failed to understand why the school-going boy needed the information. His only income was the pocket money from his father. When I pointed it out, he said, “It’s not for the present, grandpa. I was thinking of the future when I become a minister.” “But your father wants you to become an engineer, doesn’t he?” “And pay lakhs of rupees to get a job? Stingy as he is, I don’t think he’ll pay that much money after I enter the job market.”
The situation was the same 50 years ago when I was offered the post of a college teacher. The college management had demanded a large sum of money and suggested a shortcut to minimise the shock: “Imagine you were unemployed for some years after you became eligible for the job.” As I already had such a job in another part of the country without greasing palms, I had said, ‘No, thank you.”
A regular observer of the political scenario in the country, my grandson said he was thinking of joining some popular political party and becoming a minister. Unlike the past politicians, he would take care of his appearance by dressing in white, starched shirts and pants or dhotis. He would also visit beauty parlours regularly. He was already a good speaker and could manipulate facts so cleverly that the audience would be confused about the truth. Getting votes was all that mattered, and he knew how to do it. He would somehow get a juicy portfolio that would assure a regular income from contractors, job aspirants and similar classes of people.
He had a low opinion of some corrupt ministers after watching news items telecast by television channels. One showed heaps of currency notes dumped by a minister in the rooms of his associate. The raiding agency had to take the help of banks to count the bundles of seized currency notes of 500 and 2,000 denominations with machines. It was a shame the recipients of such huge sums did not keep counting machines of their own. He was also critical of the government for not printing notes of 5,000 and 10,000 that would have made it easier to store them.
He did not understand why a minister, who got crores of rupees illegally, was not intelligent enough to store them where the raiding parties could not lay their hands so easily. It was said that they were after some missing luxury cars of the associate, which could be full of currency notes. “If at all I have to store notes inside cars, I would have bought a bigger vehicle with one driver and kept it far away, moving it regularly from place to place,” he said.
My grandson was also critical of how the minister stored the gold ornaments. “A prudent person would have bought gold bars or melted the ornaments to make gold bricks. Better still, he would have bought diamonds that required comparatively less storing space.”
I was impressed by the manner in which the new generation thought and was sure my grandson would have a bright future with lots of money at his disposal.
