The time-honoured fable of the greedy boy getting caught napping by his mother after his hand got stuck in the neck of the bottle while trying in stealth to over-provide himself with his favourite candy seems to suit the vote-seekers of our times in particular and the people at large in general, given their insatiable desire to build personal wealth in cash and kind, mostly by foul means, barring exceptions. Even the classic postulate narrated in textbooks on economics namely, The Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility, read satiety, doesn’t seem to apply in their case by a long shot. An irresistibly strong desire to acquire more money, power, status and so on than one needs, avarice in short, has proved the undoing of many persons ultimately resulting in their doom. While the pages of history cite cases of conquerors in many different regions of the world, including India, names of two persons stand out in our times, highlighting their possession of footwear numbering more than 2,500 pairs. To refresh one’s memory of these two, both women, one was first lady of Philippines for 21 years and the other was Chief Minister of an Indian State for six terms (1991-2016).
The saying that there is a sufficiency of virtually every thing in the world to meet the needs of all but not for matching their greed doesn’t seem to deter most people from crossing the line dividing the two regions, namely need and greed. A thinker has clinchingly expressed that he who is not contented with whatever he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.
