Nation of thieves

My dear Billy, It is often said that precaution is better than cure. But as you know, precaution or no precaution, if a thief wants to lay his hands on your things, he’ll certainly do it. He’ll always find a means to his end. The precaution that you have taken may simply make it a little bit more complicated for him. If the high security banks do not deter robbers from breaking in, in what way is the alarm system in your house going to prevent them from visiting your place? Robbers have had a very long history, my dear Billy. In fact, the history of the world is teeming with robbers, thieves, burglars, brigands, bandits, pirates, plunderers of varying degrees. One mythological character is even reputed to have stolen the sun once. Satan stole innocence, obedience, and even paradise from humans by enticing Eve to eat of a certain fruit that was expressly forbidden by God. Valmiki, the great sage who has written the most brilliant epic of the Ramayana, is said to have started his career as a common highwayman before getting the revelation that led him to compose his fabulous work. There have been other legendary robbers, like Robin Hood who was reputed to steal from the rich and to distribute the loot among the poor. Ali Baba of the Arabian Nights turned out to be a plunderer of marauders. A gang of 40 thieves used to store their loots in a hide-out cavern which Ali Baba accidentally discovered. In less than no time he used their password to gain access to their hidden treasure and walked away with the booty. There have also been subtle thieves in mythology, my dear Billy. Penelope of Homer’s “Odyssey” lived on stolen time for twenty years in order to maintain her fidelity towards her husband Odysseus who was away fighting the Trojan War. She rejected all the marriage proposals from the noblemen in her surroundings by maintaining that she would communicate her decision on the day she would have completed weaving a piece of cloth. But every night she would undo whatever she had done during the day. Scheherazade, another important legendary figure, caused her husband the Sultan Chahriyar to postpone her murder by telling him the fantastic stories that constitute the collection of the Arabian Nights. Other thieves in history have stolen airplanes, ships, trains, have broken into banks, jewellers’shops, supermarkets; they have looted the rich and the poor. There are those who have kidnapped people and held them as hostages in exchange of ranson. If in the past thieving was an activity pursued by a specific clan of people, today everybody, or almost, indulges in the venture consciously, but also unknowingly at times. My dear Billy, it would not be preposterous to claim that in our age and time, there is a thief lurking in every corner, in every station of life, nay in the very exercise of living. And we are not here talking only of those who commit little burglaries like stealing mangoes and litchis from the trees on your premises, of a few items of poultry, or the parasites who stand at street corners and pounce upon the unsuspecting victims, or the ones who attack tourists and walk away with their money, cameras, cell phones and other possessions. We are not talking of the professionals in the trade who loot banks; we are also talking of banksters that loot the people in very subtle ways; insurance companies that fraudulently appropriate their clients’ money, and otherwise very respectable firms that hoodwink consumers with bogus ads. People in the legal profession have been known to cheat their clients in order to extort money from them. There is a standing complaint against doctors that they fleece their patients. Officers in top positions very often use their offices and influence in order to defraud the state. Others claim bribes in order to do the jobs for which they are employed and paid. Even the noble field of sports is not spared, my dear Billy. Match fixing has now become a very common sport practiced by almost everybody, from players to managers and trainers. There are others who buy and sell jockeys and dope horses. Others dope themselves before running. Then there are those in the government and private offices who think nothing of doing private work during public time, using the office phone for their own private calls. Some even pilfer the office stationery and other materials and take them home for their own use. And my dear Billy, what do you make of the myriad “artists” who shamelessly copy their colleagues’ works without any remorse or compunction and sell them as their own? They make an easy buck on the sweat of other people’s brows. So do the thousands of pirates, big and small, who gleefully reproduce protected and unprotected works on, CDS, DVDS and several other devices, and get rich quick by selling them to unsuspecting, and even willing and complaisant clients. Politicians steal our votes by making false promises. Students, who have not studied, easily find their way by copying on the works of their friends at the examinations. Children are taught to steal since a very early age, my dear Billy. What can we expect of our society on the global level?