I did not know either Mr. Roy or Mr. Das personally. Yet,
their passing away has disturbed me. The reason being that what happened to
them (and what will now happen to their family members) can happen to any one
of us. Today, most people and specifically professionals are living highly
stressful lives and there are no signs of any changes happening even in the
distant future, leave aside the near future. I had already referred to this
aspect in the last month’s message. But the recent tragedies have prompted me
to communicate again on the same topic.
The above are, of course, only a few important aspects.
There would be many more. But the main point to be noted is that, in general,
most of us are facing at least some, if not all, of the above situations in
our lives today.
Is there anything that we can do to deal with the above ?
Let us not forget that today, we are trying to cope with and adjust our lives
to this constant stress. But our children are born and are living in this
environment from day one. For them, stress will become a way of life from
birth itself. This is a very dangerous and scary scenario. Let us all strive
to change our life-styles. Slowing down the pace of life, reducing the number
of working hours, spending more time at home and also doing regular physical
exercises are a few basic things that we must work on immediately. The time to
act is now. There is no time left to delay this any longer. Can we not work
from homes (technology is there to allow us to do so) on at least 1-2 days a
week instead of travelling long distances ? Can we spare one day in a month to
get rid of useless papers from our table-top and cabinets, so that our offices
are not unduly cluttered up ? We sit at our office desks for almost 8-10 hours
a day. Have we spent any time and efforts to find out whether the seating
arrangement is suitable to our health ? Is your chair comfortable ? Is
the distance between your head and your computer screen adequate ? Are your
arms and wrists in the right position while you type on your keyboards ?
Nothing that I have mentioned involves rocket science. It’s just that we
simply don’t feel it is important enough or urgent enough to pay attention to.
Most readers would be paying for annual maintenance contracts for their
computers, fax machines and other equipments. What about the regular
maintenance of the most complicated equipment in the world — the human body ?
If you agree with me, please refresh your memory and
recollect what happens when stress reaches breaking point. Hopefully, this
will jolt some of the readers into action.
I guess, it’s time to move on to less morbid topics. The
IFRS month of the BCAS was kicked off on 25th November by Mr. N. P. Sarda, a
past president of ICAI and a person who must have taught thousands of CA
students what costing means (I remember standard costing even today, only
because he made it appear to be so simple). It’s always a pleasure to hear
him. He was at his best on 25th when he spoke on IFRS. The IFRS RRC that we
have arranged in mid December has received an overwhelming response. I am glad
that we took the decision to devote an entire month for IFRS-related events. I
thank the members of BCAS who have supported the Society at all times and have
made our programmes so successful.
One year has elapsed since the dastardly terrorist attacks
in Mumbai on 26th November, 2008. The memories of those 3 eventful days still
haunt most Mumbaikars even today. Has anything really changed since then ?
Have our authorities learnt any lessons ? Are we any bit safer today than what
we were a year back ? I wonder. We all need to get involved and be a catalyst
to bring about change in society.
Social networking sites have become a rage nowadays. Not
only youngsters but even seniors are taking to these sites in thousands every
day. The BCAS recognises the power and the potential of such sites in bringing
people from all over the globe together. I am determined to make BCAS known to
Chartered Accountants across the world through the medium of such sites. I
seek your support in harnessing this extremely powerful technological tool to
unleash the power of networking amongst professionals. Let us all get together
and form a cohesive force that thinks together, acts together and brings about
social and economic changes for the improvement of our society in general and
our laws in particular. A CFO of a company recently wrote to me after reading
my previous month’s President’s Page. He complimented me on what I had written
but commented that, as usual, there was nothing in the message relating to
members in industry. I agree with him and will devote some time from now
onwards in making efforts to draw CAs in industry into the BCAS fold. How I
will go about this and when I would achieve this — I am not sure. But what I
do know is that where there is a will, there is a way.
Finally (and I know that the Editor of BCAJ is going to be
pleased with me for restricting the size of this month’s message to about
1,000 words !), I hope that readers have voted in the ICAI elections. At the
BCAS, we tried our best to make a difference in these elections. Let us hope
that we get dynamic leaders who will lead the profession forward into a new
horizon, leaving behind the inglorious moments that we have been witnessing
for the past few months. Eternal optimism ? May be !
