PARASITIC EXISTANCE

 

Another tax filing season, completion of financial statements season. Another season of false assurances, false certifications. Another September season. Another season of bitterness, frustration and helplessness.

In India the understanding that is believed sacrosanct is that the business never dies even though the businessman may die. A sick man can go to the doctor and get himself treated. A man suffering from cardiac arrest possibly due to irresponsible living, can start afresh with a surgery, then rest and medication. But a sick business is never declared. Hiding the sickness could lead to further sickness, well so be it. There is no honour in declaring that the business cannot sustain itself. No law enables it. Financers and creditors would not listen to any such thing. It would be termed suicidal. The businessman would be considered non-bankable and financially untouchable. He would be socially ostracized and declared an utter failure in life. Who would want such a fate! Never! Not even for one’s enemy. Well then the obvious question that should strike a sensible mind is; how does an Indian businessman keep a dead business alive? Abracadabra! He has a magic portion, an elixir, in the form of his auditor who for a few rupees more would be ready to attest any bullshit. Without casting aspersions around, permit me to confess, I am one such leech. Pathetic but true. I am transformed into a parasite who survives on the shameful yet practical and natural act of surviving of the dead.

Do not misunderstand this to be some boast. This is more of mourn from the slashed guts of a sterile, inept and defeated man. However even if it is taken to be a boast, what good or bad can it do to my already existing miserable state? Still I do dare to publish this repulsive post into public domain in some foolish hope of deliverance. My good friend advises me, “Don’t make it to be such a strong issue. The more you repulse it, the more it will become big. Behave as if it is nothing, have a pleasant mind and some day it will simply not be there”. Excellent advice and I have to work on its implementation. I could possibly view this as an act of kindness, a social service where I help keep the smile on the faces of the various stakeholders of the business. Else I can pretend to be a doctor who tries in vain struggling against the will of God and artificially sustaining life through some extraneous life support machines. 

Economic activity is a game of the mind, it is all an illusion. One illusion sustains another and an unbroken chain of illusions are created and then sustained through deliberate human endeavor. Once caught in this whirlpool there is no escape. Therefore having chosen to be a part of this falsifying racket I should not be claiming the desire to walk the moral high grounds of “Oh, how I hate doing this stuff”. That makes me a class one hypocrite and a confused idiot to the boot.

This raises the fundamental problem all over again, what am I doing here, this is not the right place for me. As always I do not have an answer to this. Not yet.