Teaching values

“ Mamma, how do people become rich”? piped up Hiya, recently turned seven.

Hmmmm…..I wondered. “Here’s my opportunity to teach her values”. So I started off by telling her how people can become rich in different ways, honest and dishonest. We had recently come across the term “dishonest’ in one of her book chapters, so that made my job a little easier. She appeared to understand, nodded her head and summed it up by saying, “So we can become rich if we study well, work hard and save our money”.

Sounded about right to me. Hiya was satisfied and she went on to watching how a dog was engrossed in eating tomatoes by the side of the road.

Blame my age, but I could not so easily make a switch from such a loaded abstract question to something as concrete as a roadside dog. I pondered on how most Indian children must be learning such lessons at their parents’ and grandparents’ knees. How most of us have grown up on a staple of Panchatantra and Amar Chitra Katha staples, leave alone our Mahabharata, Gita and Ramayana.

Then how on earth did we end up as such a corrupt nation?? Why do we bribe our way around everything? Why do we want to buy Porsches and BMWs but want to not pay our import duties? Why do we buy houses from conniving builders who violate every rule possible to create monstrosities of cement and concrete? Why do our ministers get richer to the tunes of millions while our numbers below poverty line remain the same?

So, then I wonder…..what should I have said when my daughter asked me that question. Am I wrong to think the way I do…..or is the new moral “Be amoral”?