Peculiar Problem of Plenty

Russia-Ukraine. Israel-Iran. China-India. Haryana-Delhi. History is full of stories of mankind's lust for more. Or less, depending on what fulfils need and greed

- RAJEEV NARAYAN

"Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts man in an endless effort to satisfy his needs, without ever reaching that goal." Erich Fromm

Like all throaty growls, this one too began life as a whimper. The person whimpering was me, trying to talk some sense into a hotelier in Manali, supposedly the new Queen of India's Hills. Quite tersely, the hotel ka malik (hotel-owner) informed me that I was not allowed to wash my car with the half-bucket of water I had brought from my room. I was tickled and pickled at the same time. After all, while on holiday, I had carried that damned bucket up and down 100 steps from my room to the car. The tickle made me smile. The pickle turned out to be his undoing, for it made me growl. "Then what about the tanker-loads of natural water flowing into your drain? Who are you going to be rude to for that? God? Do you want his number?"

My growl and repartee flummoxed him. Or perhaps he feared that anyone coming from Delhi, especially one offering God's own number early in the morning, must have access to the 'one' who rules over Delhi and the world today. His mental ChatGPT calibrated and processed my retort, and in a millisecond, he retreated, seemingly shrinking as he did. The shrinking got to me, managing to melt even my stony heart. "Arrey bhai, mazaak kar raha tha (I was joking). What's happened to make you so fidgety," I asked.