God created the world (let’s believe it for this story’s sake) and everything else that was needed. When he reviewed he thought there are 2 things which are missing – Ugliness and Beauty. So he created both of them and gave “beautiful” clothes to Mr/Ms. Beauty and “ugly” clothes to Mr/Ms. Ugliness. (Let’s say its Ms. Beauty and Ms. Ugliness) Both of them had a long and strenuous journey to earth from heaven and they decided to take a bath.
Both jumped into the river nude and were enjoying the bath. Ms. Beauty went far into the lake and when she turned back she was surprised to find that her "beautiful" clothes and Ms. Ugliness - both missing. She understood that Ms. Ugliness has taken her “beautiful” clothes away. Ms. Beauty did not have option but for wearing “Ugly” clothes and started searching for the Ms. Ugly who is roaming around in “beautiful” clothes.
The search I guess is still continuing and this 2 para story imparts a great deal of wisdom that ugliness is always behind a mask that looks beautiful. Let’s try to look beyond the mask or clothes or the exterior appearance. I cant find a more apt situation for this story when I heard about “Ramalinga Raju and his Asatyam” today in the news!...
Ability to lie without a wink in front of the whole world and that too for few years is a skill and I think Mr. Raju has landed up on a wrong job. He was a natural fit for a politician, a lawyer or a diplomat. Unfortunately he managed to be a successful software services entrepreneur taking his organization to great places by camouflaging a great deal of dirt and was looked upon by millions as a great role model.
This ability would be an envy to many politicians / lawyers and diplomats and the individuals and institutions who / that honored him should have had a bitter pill to swallow today.
He has betrayed the trust of millions and I am not sure what made him to tear his “Beautiful clothes” and show his actual nature. It could be the fear of someone else finding it imminently or an uncontrollable spike of bravery or his realization of lack of any more avenues to cover this up or a great sense of burden which he was unable to carry any further.
"An unshaken solution decays" since heavier particles tends to settle at the bottom and lighter at the top. Hence we always have to “Shake well before use”. I learnt that does not apply just a solution in a bottle but also to any system in general. ;)
Just as I said in one of my earlier blog that we should thank the terrorists who attacked Mumbai since they woke up a large number of people from their slumber and shook us up, I would suggest that India Inc. and the regulatory bodies should thank Mr. Raju for giving all of us a lesson in corporate governance and exposing the gaps. Unfortunately he is not an ethical hacker but a “vicious trust breaker of the worst kind”.
I believe the best punishment for such incidents should be meted out by the society / industry than the legal system. While Mr. Raju can start planning his stay in jail and there are no regrets about this and can probably resurface as a politician after few years, I fear Satyam as an organization is going to be a history and as an example for bad reasons.
“Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. This is a very famous statement but I disagree with it. If someone is looking ugly in a mirror then it is not the fault of the mirror. A mirror just reflects. Likewise power and temptations reveal what we are as individuals. I still believe that there are many in this country as corporate leaders who are not corrupted by power, greed, and temptations… or should I say atleast unaffected yet.
So Iam at a liberty to edit the above saying as "Temptations reflects or Greed reflects or Power reflects". And I am not sure why and what has blinded us so far to see this reflection.
Probably its our certainty... certainty that they cant be wrong. Should we start believing in another saying..."Certainty is absurd and doubt ensures progress?"
Why dont we have the power to realize when (and then its the )...
Clouds masquerading as Sky
Smile masquerading as Cunningness
Ignorance masquerading as knowledge
Imminent pain masquerading as short term pleasure
Promotion masquerading as shit load of work
Personality masquerading as Individuality
Asatyam masquerading as Satyam
Iam very sad at the turn of events since its another instant of "betrayal of trust" by one of the most respected guys in the industry yet...
Happy reading!
To me beauty & ugliness are two faces of the same coin. Surprisingly Mr Raju turned out to be Amithab of Sholay fooling around lakhs of shareholders by a forge coin with beauty on both sides. Sometimes I feel “SATYAM”&“MAYTAS” are also two sides of the same coin, for you get “maytas” if “satyam” is read in reverse.
ReplyDelete- A’sathyameva A’jayathe -
-Rajan