Given the feature of dailies virtually compelled to accommodate their column-space to reports of various kinds of criminal acts in today’s society, on an unprecedented scale, one cannot but remark that living in peace nowadays is a challenge before all cross-sections of urban residents. The modus operandi of the offending types conning the gullible citizens by offering attractive returns on cash-driven investments has come to be named Ponzi deals. Old timers of the erstwhile Princely State of Mysore can recollect a similar deal by a person during 1940s who lured people to deposit their money for getting irresistible returns as interest in a short time. Legend has it that even royalty of the State and a Nobel Laureate were among his victims suffering monetary loss, apart from people with modest means hoping to grab a quick buck. The term scam, also appearing in the media and heard regularly during debates in the Legislatures nowadays, has yielded place to its modern avatar Ponzi, to describe fraudulent and deceptive acts and operations.
The land’s epics and chronicles of past centuries are rich source of narratives exposing the wicked ways of humankind to satisfy ambitions driven by greed. That tendency has endured despite clarion calls by mentors of society to people for eschewing greed and evil acts, features that distinguish plants and animals as ideal species.
