• Investment World
• eWorld
• Catalyst
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest

IT IS when reason becomes a casualty that one considers the alternative. A noose or a bullet, lonely cliffs or running trains would end up in his shortlist.

On the same plank, one can put some of the gory rituals practised in rural India — such as burying children alive for better health, or getting priests crack coconuts on devotees' heads — to find a solution either way.

At casino tables, this happens too routinely — to bid all that one has in the hope of winning high. But the story often has a tragic end, and the usual moral is that believing in luck is a reckless gamble. Sadly, however, the victim draws the wrong lessons.

If someone were to look at all the turmoil that has been dogging the accounting profession in recent times and claim that what is raging is a fire test for a Phoenix, you wouldn't need to be tickled to laugh. "Today, we can look back and say that not only has nothing been lost, but many things have been gained," writes the president of the ICAI in his latest communiqué. "The profession has come back to a position perhaps better than the original one." This is very much like survivors trickling out of a crashed aircraft eulogising the scenic beauty of the wilderness around them.

Just as the supporters of Yatras believe that any incidental violence and destruction would only go to strengthen their cause, the apex body of bean-counters looks at ordeals not as means of destruction, but of resurrection.

"Dear colleagues," he waxes, "the society, I feel, has an abiding faith in our profession, and the base of that belief is such that passing winds cannot shake it." It is said you have to believe what you can't check. So, it would be better for Indian accountants to believe in the `miracles' their president talks about.

Another queer exercise is also on: The Institute is all set to advise and inform society in general about "what we are and what we do" — a task that the ICAI has taken up "in earnest" at the beginning of the year. So, now they know.

hindubusinessline@hotmail.com

D. Murali

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail
Comment on this article to BLFeedback@thehindu.co.in

Stories in this Section
SEBI's stay order

Copyright © 2002, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line