Business is business..!
Robert Clements
Wednesday, August 08, 2012 - One day in a school in London, a teacher said to a class of five-year-olds… I’ll give ten pounds to the child who can tell me who was the most famous man who ever lived.
“An Irish boy put his hand up and said, “It was St. Patrick.” The teacher said, “Sorry Paddy, that’s not correct. “Then a Scottish boy put his hand up and said, “It was St. Andrew.” The teacher replied, “I’m sorry, Hamish, that’s not right either. “Then a Jewish boy put his hand up and said “David”,The Buddhist boy said “Gautama Buddha” and the Muslim boy said “Mohammed”.They all were not successful.
Finally, an Indian raised his hand and said, “It was Jesus Christ.” The teacher said, “That’s absolutely right, Harish, come up here and I’ll give you the ten pounds I promised.” As the teacher was giving Harish his money, she said, “You know Harish, since you’re not a Christian; I was very surprised you said Jesus Christ.” Harish replied, “Yes. In my heart I knew it was Krishna, but business is business! Even as you laugh at the business sense of the young boy and repeat to yourself that we should talk the language the listener wants, have we ever realized that, this is because we have no spine? I certainly believe that when we are not able to stand up to what we believe that we are cowards indeed. For many years we as a nation were part of a Non-Aligned group.
As I watched the decisions that the ‘non-aligned’ made, I realized that there were no decisions at all. We were just doing ‘business’ by saying yes to whichever country we needed something from. We never took a stand. As children we were all scared of a lizard like reptile and even called it a ‘blood sucker’ “See how red it is,” said a senior, “It sucks blood!”
But when we children went nearer we found that the red blood sucker had turned yellow, and then green and could change it’s colour according to it’s background: If it was on the branch of a tree it was brown, if it was near a leaf, green and when it climbed a wall, it turned yellow. We found out that the name of the reptile was ‘chameleon’
It hid itself by being part of the background. For the chameleon business was business; it had to survive and so could change to whatever circumstance it was thrown into.
Are we like these reptiles? Do you take a stand for right and wrong? Do you stand for what you believe in? Or is your life fashioned like our great non-aligned movement and you repeat in your mind, as you change colours, that business is business?
—Email: bobsbanter@gmail.com
“An Irish boy put his hand up and said, “It was St. Patrick.” The teacher said, “Sorry Paddy, that’s not correct. “Then a Scottish boy put his hand up and said, “It was St. Andrew.” The teacher replied, “I’m sorry, Hamish, that’s not right either. “Then a Jewish boy put his hand up and said “David”,The Buddhist boy said “Gautama Buddha” and the Muslim boy said “Mohammed”.They all were not successful.
Finally, an Indian raised his hand and said, “It was Jesus Christ.” The teacher said, “That’s absolutely right, Harish, come up here and I’ll give you the ten pounds I promised.” As the teacher was giving Harish his money, she said, “You know Harish, since you’re not a Christian; I was very surprised you said Jesus Christ.” Harish replied, “Yes. In my heart I knew it was Krishna, but business is business! Even as you laugh at the business sense of the young boy and repeat to yourself that we should talk the language the listener wants, have we ever realized that, this is because we have no spine? I certainly believe that when we are not able to stand up to what we believe that we are cowards indeed. For many years we as a nation were part of a Non-Aligned group.
As I watched the decisions that the ‘non-aligned’ made, I realized that there were no decisions at all. We were just doing ‘business’ by saying yes to whichever country we needed something from. We never took a stand. As children we were all scared of a lizard like reptile and even called it a ‘blood sucker’ “See how red it is,” said a senior, “It sucks blood!”
But when we children went nearer we found that the red blood sucker had turned yellow, and then green and could change it’s colour according to it’s background: If it was on the branch of a tree it was brown, if it was near a leaf, green and when it climbed a wall, it turned yellow. We found out that the name of the reptile was ‘chameleon’
It hid itself by being part of the background. For the chameleon business was business; it had to survive and so could change to whatever circumstance it was thrown into.
Are we like these reptiles? Do you take a stand for right and wrong? Do you stand for what you believe in? Or is your life fashioned like our great non-aligned movement and you repeat in your mind, as you change colours, that business is business?
—Email: bobsbanter@gmail.com
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