Oh! For a little more money

It takes 20 years to build a reputation, and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that you will do things differently. These words attributed to Warren Buffet neatly sum up the plight of Rajat Gupta, the former Goldman Sachs director who sometime back was charged for insider treading and recently sentenced to a two year jail term by a US court. In Gupta’s own words he lost his reputation so assiduously built over last 40 years. The message from the US courtroom is loud and clear, your actions, sooner or later catch up with you. Gupta- scholar, executive, leader, philanthropist, and educationist might have done a lot of good to the society, but he shipped once and has to pay very dearly. Reputation is a jewel which nothing can replace. It is thousands of times more valuable than all your wealth. And if lost, it is lost for good. This is not to sling mud at the IITian and Harvard Business School educated Indian poster boy of whom the entire professional class of the country was proud. Rather, one must sympathies with him. His contributions by far outweigh the charges framed on him, but it must be remembered that reputation is not always proportioned to virtue. The verdict may appear a little harsh to many but the one basic question that arises is why did he have to do this? What more did he want? And in these questions lie the answers to most of our worldly woes. No amount of sympathy can now undo the damage that has been done to this internationally acclaimed business leader, who taught at the world’s best business schools. Even if the crime is not as big as the sentence, even if there are many more who are guilty of felonies of far greater magnitude, what Gupta lost must serve as a eye opener to all. The ultimate truth is that what you do will have its bearing on you and not on those for whose benefits you did those acts. Sage Balmiki’s story as given in ancient Indian scriptures is a grim reminder to this very hard reality and is paraphrased below. The story goes that before becoming a saint Balmiki was Ratnakar – the dacoit. He used to ruthlessly murder travelers and loot their belongings. Once he happened to encounter the sage Narada. On being accosted Narada asked Ratnakar why he was doing all this. To this Ratnakar said he was doing it for his family. Narada then said, will the family members share the burden of the sins that will accrue to Ratnakar as a result of his evil deeds. Ratnakar was not sure and he said he will go and find it out but till that time he tied Narada to a tree. When Ratnakar asked his family members whether they will share the burden of his sins they all declined. This shocked Ratnakar and he came back and narrated this to the sage after freeing him. But this was the turning point in his life that transformed the dacoit Ratnakar into saint Balmiki.

People must realize that for every evil deed that you do only you are accountable and not those who reap the benefits arising out of those deeds. People also need to realize that there is no end to greed and falling prey to greed ultimately leads to grief. The temptations, though, are very powerful and to win against those you need to follow a golden rule. That is, every time a temptation allures you just resolve – not this time. And remember Hitler’s advice ‘The amount of money that’s in your bank at the time of death, is due to the extra work you did which wasn’t necessary’.