CORRUPTION

One word that has gathered more and more prominence in the recent times, which is uttered more frequently than a prayer or a rhyme is Corruption. This has become the anthem of many countries and there seems to be a sudden sense to protect the world from this contagious disease.When ever the word corruption is used than it is accompanied with money,which indirectly convey that,both of them are analogous.

Hearing, reading and seeing this word day in and day out, I started wondering whether this issue requires this quantum of protest and propaganda. Due to general curiosity I wanted to know the genesis of this word and the literal meaning too.

Well a peep into the literary meaning says, “Any Moral or Spiritual impurity or any deviation from an ideal dealing is corruption.” Well I can correlate this when we turn on the computer and when it refuses to work in the normal way and behave erratically we say it is corrupt right?,GOING with the same analogy, any man/woman ,when he/she is away from his normal mode.of functioning and deviating from actions or responses which are expected, we claim that he/she is corrupt.(so corruption need not deal with money alone)  Well we Tamils normally claim our supremacy by stating that our generation lived much ahead before the formation of the gravels and mud (kal thondri man thondra kaalathaye mun thonria mootha kudi) It appears corruption Too   pre-existed before the flood as per the book of genesis. And there are our great philosophers too who have given a thought about corruption such as Plato and Aristotle.

Well but today why is the world talking about corruption and giving it a literal meaning as if any activity that aides to make unaccounted money OR any activity that is a means of deriving money for completing a task   is ‘Corruption’. And a huge battalion is following this dogma and creating an awareness to arrest this malign disease.

But, what I feel real corruption, which is turning into a real menace, is the inability of people both at high and low levels to perform the job assigned to them due to

i)   inadequacy, fear of committing mistakes and indecisiveness.

ii) The fear to talk the truth and to say what is the actual status, instead inflate the statistics to skew them and mislead their bosses.to overate their performance to give a fillip to their career

iii) The inability to say NO, when they are 100% sure about the consequences of saying YES.  .

My every day routine after returning from work is normally to spend a couple of minutes

On the phone to exchange some pleasantries with my family members and than resort to my schedule of watching the television.

However in the recent days I found that each one of them were undergoing  unexplained levels of stress and trouble not because of their inabilities but due to their bosses,who were fitting into one of the  three category mentioned above.

The above points would get more evident if a few examples are cited

A person who was lamenting,for being fired by the boss, when the legacy of organizing  an viva at 9 pm,for a doctorate degree  was questioned ?which was a deviation from the normal routine for the simple reason that the student”s guide was a VIP and the university never wanted to earn  the displeasure of the VIP nor wanted any one to even point out that they were deviating from a normal  procedure.

Yet another person was back from an official training programme, the super boss wanted the participant to submit a report on the programme the immediate boss cautioned the

Person saying do not give a detail report,for it may pave way for additional work, just give a gist and above all send the report through  me. Now the junior person is locked between the devil and deep sea.And resorts to seek advice how both the deadlines can be met.

A third person has unearthed some wrong doing by some  important person!!!! which requires some action taken,but the boss does not want to earn the irk of the important person, Dose'nt want to give directions to stall the process ,but wants the onus of inaction to be borne  by the person who has unearthed the wrong doing.

And I have a fourth person who is often called by the boss to take advice about how a job is to be done,because of inability to think and execute.

These are just a portion of conversation what was exchanged between me and some people, who have been put to undue stress and distress,Such distress and unease is being experienced by every Individual,Organization,and the Society,Fitting this with the dictionary meaning of CORRUPTION.what is stated above the need of the hour is to prune the mind and people to ensure that there is no spiritual or moral deviation from the ideal which is the  first step to arrest corruption.