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WHILE it is too common a knowledge that accountants elsewhere are scrambling around to retrieve their towels and loins from the mesh-y world of misreporting, it came as a surprise that a smattering of a gathering of CAs in Chennai wished to ignore the first monsoon showers to stay huddled and listen to SG, the champion of the `desi munch', advising them how they could bridge the XL gap between themselves and public expectations. What seemed to worry most of the professionals was the campaign in a section of the press that there was every likelihood that the Institute could be divested of its core powers.

Forceful speaker, right, but there are often problems with the statements that draw the maximum applause. Facts may be unverifiable, conclusions too brash, logic deceptively convincing, and most importantly solutions often impracticable.

One can gulp a bit of lies if, in general, the idea is to tickle, but when he tells you things without batting his eyelids on a straight face, in a tone that khakis are only used to, it is unnerving to have as audience nodding auditors. That theirs is one of the best professions, that you can counter the campaign of one newspaper in another, that nobody knows the correctness of the financial transactions in the US, that financial reporting (in the media) is the most corrupt profession, or that there is a paradigm shift — from Gandhi to Ambani. The piece de resistance was the suggestion to create a cadre — shall we call it the `accounting swayam sevak' — made of CAs who have renounced money-making to engage in image-building.

For a long time, the ICAI steered clear of entertaining special interest lobbies to push their indoctrination using its premises. But now things have changed. It is not unusual to find council members bend the knees by an acuter angle, and proffer pleasantries till you squirm, if there were a minister in their midst. Autonomy is but a sham for institutions that scurry to curry the favour of power brokers and bapus, netas and `guru's.

hindubusinessline@hotmail.com

D. Murali

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