The Curse of Unearned Wealth

July - Aug 2003

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Once Laxmi came on a one-day visit to Earth. She called people of nearby areas and said, "I am Laxmi. I have come to give desired boons to the people of this area. Whatever you people desire you may ask me". The exact programme of this divine distribution of desired bounty was also announced and made known far and wide. All people of that area were agriculturists. Earth also got this news. She collected all her farmer children and advised them not to aspire to get things free. "Go on working hard and I will not let you have any sense of scarcity." But nobody heeded Mother Earth.

All were eager to get immense wealth without work. They did not stop. They came in large numbers to Laxmiji at appointed time. Laxmiji fulfilled everybody;s desire. After fulfilling the cravings of as many people as She could, She went back to Her Heavenly Abode at the end of the day. Getting immense wealth people were puffed up. They started using that wealth wantonly and foolishly. They got addicted to many vices. Wealth acquired without hard work is wasted in immoral extravagance only.

Farmers had no scarcity of wealth. They started using it as they wished. They stopped doing agricultural work. When immense wealth is in hand what is the necessity of working hard? Everybody stopped farming. Godowns full of food grains started emptying. Cost of food started sky-rocketing and within a few years it reached at its peak. Eatables were not available at any cost. It became a famine-like situation. Immense wealth was there but food was not available. People began dying due to hunger. Within a short period, most of the population of that area including their cattle died of starvation.

The few who survived fled to areas where better condition prevailed. Thieves looted wealth. Mother Earth sadly roamed around that arid area of desolation. It was looking like a cremation ground. Earth started cursing Laxmi. Only she had excited desire in the minds of simple farmers to get wealth without labour and innocent children of the soil fell victims to the allurement of unearned and undeserved wealth and thus invited their own ruin.

This story aptly describes the condition of today's man who is critically suffering from the malecity of getting rich instantly by foul means and squanders the undeserved wealth in gross self - indulgence and self-aggrandisement. Agricultural land is being purchased by the sharks of land - mafias from the farmers at exorbitant prices for construction of multi-storeyed buildings for earning huge profits through manipulative means. The agricultural land area is thus shrinking at a fast pace. A day is not far off when the common man will face the same fate as befell the agricultural community of this story.

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