@15.August.2018

Thank you for your wonderful feedback on the
July 2018 Special Issue. Each issue in this 50^th year series is
curated with Golden Content. We are delighted to present another interview, a
view and counterview and four articles on wealth creation through investing. I
hope you enjoy reading them.

Independence Day

We celebrate 72^nd Independence
Day on 15^th August this month. I like to ponder on India and its
freedom during this month since Freedom and Liberty are priceless and are at
the root of all human values. This editorial is a sequel to the Editorial of
August 2017. Here are some thoughts:

Legend says that one day the truth and
the lie crossed.

Hello, said the lie. Hello, told the
truth.

Nice day, continued the lie. So the truth
went to see if it was true. It was. Nice day, then answered the truth.

The lake is even prettier, said the lie
with a nice smile. So the truth looked at the lake and saw that lie was telling
the truth and nodded.

The lie ran into the water and
launched…water is even more beautiful and warm. Let’s go swim! The truth
touched the water with her fingers and she was really beautiful and warm. Then
the truth trusted the lie. Both took their clothes and swam quietly.

A little later, the lie came out, she
dressed up with the clothes of truth and left.

The truth, unable to wear the clothes of
the lie started walking without clothes and everyone went away by seeing her
naked. Saddened, abandoned, the truth took refuge in the bottom of a well.
Since then people prefer to accept the lie disguised as truth than the naked
truth.

(The
truth out of the well by Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1896)

This story is about lie, yet the truth about
the lie has not changed in aeons. Today, in spite of so much information, the
challenge of spotting a lie dressed as truth remains.

We live amidst changing differentiations
which are perceived by each based on his belief, background, and situation.
This concoction results in the ‘portrayal’ of the actual. In other words: Perception
is reality, but not the truth. Consider these examples:

1.  Recently I came across a photo of a British
prince. From the side it seemed like he was showing a finger (the one you do
not expect a prince to show) to the crowd. However, another picture from the
front showed that he had last three fingers up. (Q: Can one believe what is
shown from one angle?)

2.  Driving through a forest, you brake suddenly
seeing a deer crossing the road. The driver thinks: what the hell, a deer is
obstructing my way. Yet, the deer is just walking in his home where the road is
intruding. (Q: An individual standpoint restricts the whole perception?)

3.  Terror is portrayed consistently by media.
Factually, nearly 4-5 times more people get killed by accidents due to potholes
and far more in road accidents. That doesn’t get the same coverage. Fear and
insecurity of dying at the hands of a gun-toting maniac is much more than that
of death due to a careless driver. Statistical fact[1]
is that road accident kills many more than a terrorists bullets. (Q: Why is one
type of fear of death portrayed excessively over the other?)

4.  Consider the monsoon sale displays. The
biggest words are: SALE and DISCOUNT PERCENTAGE. The smallest words are: UP TO.
Legitimate and clever. (Q: Isn’t ‘up to’ as important as the other two words?)

5.  Word play: Two potentially different words in
the way people use and understand them are mixed. Say Retail therapy. They give
a subliminal message of something that alleviates pain. (Q: Don’t we have too
many of them?)

6.  A media house reports a story. The story has a
subtle shade of agenda or self-interest. The story is perhaps about a big
client with a big advertisement contract. A lay reader takes it as news. (Q:
How does one know what is true and how much of it can be relied upon?)

7.  A website wants to give you ‘free content’.
Nevertheless, it wants you to register with some personal information. (Q: If
it was free, why ask for registration?)

The point is –
gigabytes and decibels – scramble for our attention and attempt to shape our
perception persistently. We need new heuristics to deal with this situation and
search for truth at a mundane level.

As Chartered Accountants we are somewhat
trained to look out for substance. Since seeing is often not believing, we have
to look harder for truth. Truth has many hues. The three notable ones are:
Reason, Facts and Testing words with actions.

Gurudev Tagore wrote about this in his poem
laying out his dream of India:

Where the
mind is without fear and the head is held high, where knowledge is free.

Where the
world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls.

Where words
come out from the depth of truth, where tireless striving stretches its arms
toward perfection.

Where the
clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead
habit.

Where the
mind is led forward by Thee into ever widening thought and action.

In to that
heaven of freedom, my father, LET MY COUNTRY AWAKE!”

Every day, rhetoric seeks to suppress the
stream of reason. Our elected representatives use rhetorical verbiage, often
entertaining too, but more often deflecting from the core point. Take an
example of some failure
or questioning on a given matter. You can pick their likely answer/s from the
following options:

1.  Denial – I didn’t do it, this did not happen,
there is no problem

2.  It’s a conspiracy (sometimes external too)

3.  Politically motivated (someone is trying to
throw me out / off)

4.  Victim mode: I am targeted because – I am of
xyz caste/region/background/ religion

5.  Excuse: Someone else before me was even worst

6.  Cherry pick data … and so on

Try to remember when you last heard the
following words: I own it up, I am sorry, I take responsibility. When was the
last time that someone stayed on the core point without deflecting? 

Facts are antidote of falsehood. Someone has
said: In God, we trust, for everything else bring data to the table. Facts
are available more than before, yet they require one to uncover them, for even
they come packed in deceptive agenda. 

Consider two recent words: post-truth[2]
(Word of the year 2016 per Oxford Dictionary) and alternative facts (from Trump
Election). These mixed up incoherent words supply a narrative which is
untenable. Many present, protect and promote such verbosity with fierce
confidence (and sometimes with added theatrics too). When you test words, you
can observe that actions don’t match up to them.

The point is: we have to be watchful. Our
eyes need more focus. Ears have to listen to what is not said. The mind has to
cull out deception from perception. Few look for the naked truth, but most
prefer the lie dressed as truth. Yet we can try and spot it. And we may not
succeed. Perhaps the search for truth is as eternal as time. Like the Sura?gama
Sutra says: Things are not what they appear to be: nor are they
otherwise.

Raman Jokhakar

Editor