Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Tuesday, July 08, 1997

A body a day 

Date: 08-07-1997 :: Pg: 08 :: Col: f 

As usual there was a rakshas in the story. He was eating men, material and cattle _ apparently with no rhyme or reason. They called the rakshas for a parley. Truce emerged in the form of an agreement. One body would be sent to him every day. In return he would stop haphazard lynching and lunching. This settlement did not meet my approval. My idea of fair play said the rakshas should have been tried and hanged. The storyteller did not agree. He said I lacked worldly wisdom. 

THE other day I parked my car in a parking lot outside an office. When I finished my business and came out, the machine was missing. I went to the nearest police station. There she was _ my car, with some bruises _ she had been towed away. I promptly complained to the SHO. 

That the car was parked at a proper place did not make as much an impression as the knowledge that they would not be able to extract a penny out of me, by or beneath the law. So the miser was allowed to go with his car. 

Telephone numbers have to change frequently. Let us not bother why. Can it not happen quietly? First your telephone will go dead. For the next two days you will run around anxiously to get it fixed. Somebody calls and kindly informs you that the fault is being attended to. If there was a fault, how did he talk to you? Thou shalt not ask stupid questions. 

I felt silly to admit to the doc that my head was aching. He ordered a nose, eye, tooth, tummy and head scan. All the tests could be done in the same lab _ operated by the doc's brothers and brothers-in-law. I probably just needed two aspirins. But I had engaged a specialist. If I took aspirins, I would do so at my own risk. Now I can sue the doc if anything goes wrong. 

Have I sued any doc in the past? Mercifully, no. Or have I sued a postman, lineman or policeman? Never. I have always been a kind- hearted Good Samaritan who wished no harm to anybody. That is how I allow myself to be blackmailed by all and sundry. 

Then wisdom suddenly dawned on me. I felt I was being preyed on by predatory animals systematically. There were no rules or reasons. If only they would announce their terms in plain language, I would meet them, to the extent I could, with periodic cheques, cash, or kind. 

``That is what I told you,'' the storyteller said, ``Send a body a day. The rakshas will be happy. More important, you will be less unhappy.'' 

tinmoorthy

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