‘That’s life - full of ifs and buts, isn’t it?’ said Raja Rao, sipping the dregs.
‘But then,’ said Sathyam, ‘don’t parents end up blaming their children for the perceived neglect of them? Sulking in bitterness, they push their children into the vortex of guilt.’
‘If only we had discussed this aspect of life before Saroja’s birth,’ said Raja Rao, even as Sathyam found his face lighting up, ‘I’m sure, I wouldn’t have had anything meaningful to say. But now I can tell you, it’s we who owe our children for having made us parents, and the fulfillment that goes with it. Maybe, it’s this subconscious sense of gratitude that tends parents to fend their children into adulthood, and beyond. But, it would be injurious for parents to imagine that their children owe it to them for having tended them all the way to their adulthood, and once the children are helped by the parents to be on their own, it amounts to the full and final settlement of the filial account. Then, how does the question of parents withdrawing from their children’s account arise?’
‘No doubt, it’s a sound premise,’ said Sathyam, and after shouting for the bearer, added mysteriously, ‘Are you a moralist by any chance?’
‘It’s the context that holds, isn’t it?’ said Raja Rao tentatively, a little taken aback though.
‘Well, about the so called kickbacks,’ said Sathyam in an undertone as though the under-table thing owes that from the world.
‘I was never exposed to its temptation,’ said Raja Rao in relief, ‘so I can’t pass any judgment.’
‘Oh, come on,’ smiled Sathyam, ‘don’t be diplomatic.’
‘Well, if I’ve to take a philosophical view of it,’ said Raja Rao, applying his mind, ‘the insidious corruption harms the economy while the incentive bribing bedevils the society. While the kickbacks bankrupt the nation, the bribe mongers pester its people.’
‘Why don’t you see the positive side of it,’ said Sathyam with apparent conviction. ‘Doesn’t corruption place more money in more hands? It’s only in the Utopian Republic of Uprightness that the nice guys remain straight and yet strike it rich. But, left to it, the world we live in warms up to the unscrupulous, all the while leaving the decent in the cold. But in the Commonwealth of Corruption, the resourceful are forced to part with part of their booty to bribe seekers. And won’t that put more money into more hands?’
‘What I can say,’ said Raja Rao perplexed by the proposition.
‘Won’t bribe money honey society as well?’ said Sathyam, pleased with his rhetoric. ‘One has only to remove his hypocritical blinkers and view the social scenario to see that. Don’t you find the bribe money coming in handy for the average in bettering their lives and improving the education of their children? But, if India were to be a Republic of Fairness, then we may have a few accumulating wealth ‘disproportionate to the calling of luxuries’, even as the rest struggle to make both ends meet. Well that would have ensured that we had more coolies in our country than we have professionals today.’