Monaaay

Money, with pscyhedelic strains on the guitar, goes the Pink Floyd song.

"Money, it’s a crime.
Share it fairly but don’t take a slice of my pie.
Money, so they say
Is the root of all evil today.
But if you ask for a raise it’s no surprise that they’re
Giving none away"

ABBA went "Money,money,money" and Dire straits sang "Money for nothing"

Money for nothing? Nobody told me about that. Dont we work hard to make money? How much money do we need? In one of my earlier posts in this blog, I asked this question of myself "How much money do I want, is one million dollars enough, or what will two cars and a beautiful bungalow back home do to my dreams, will it satisfy my urge to earn and spend?" How do I draw the line between necessity and greed? From celluloid heroes to pint size philosophers,
they all say the same thing, panam inniku varum nalaikku pogum, kaasu selavu panrathuku thanae (today you earn money to spend it tomorrow? isnt the money that we earn, for spending?)

A necessary digression at this point.

One of the most defining moments Ive come across in movies in the recent times was the climax in Schindlers List. As the story goes, Oskar Schindler, who initially sees Jews as cheap labor goes through a full circle of convictions, guilt and humanity. Itzhak Stern, his faithful Jewish accoutant, who helps him succeed in his business, feeds on his guilt and initiates him to rescue people from camps by recruiting them in his factory. To many Jews, Schindlers factory meant the difference between life and death. Nobody died if they worked for Schindler. That meant more than anything else to them. When the people were ready to be shipped off to Auschwitz, Schindler, a businessman who sees war as an opportunity to finally succeed in life and make money, pays off almost his entire fortune to bribe officials to move the Jews to his hometown. This way he saved 1200 Jews, and thus the name of the movie, Schindlers List.

He saved many more indirectly. His factory supplied armaments and artillery shells to the Nazis; Schindler made sure that no shell from his factory would ever fire. To make this happen Schindler spent huge amounts of money, conniving officials to keep buying from him. After the end of war, Schindler knew only too well that as a member of the Nazi party he and his wife would be chased, prosecuted or maybe persecuted. The final scene when Schindler the ruthless,
money minded businessman breaks down to his confidant Stern, about how many more he could have saved, it hits you hard. To depict the gravity of the situation and what money meant to Schindler in the end, Im going to quote directly from the movie.

SCHINDLER: (to himself) I could've got more... if I'd just...I don't know, if I'd just...I could've got more...

STERN: Oskar, there are twelve hundred people who are alive because of you. Look at them.

(Unable to look up)SCHINDLER: If I'd made more money... I threw away so much money, you have no idea. If I'd just...

STERN: There will be generations because of what you did.

SCHINDLER: I didn't do enough.

STERN: You did so much.

(Schindler starts to lose it, the tears coming. Stern, too. The look on Schindler's face as his eyes sweep across the faces of the workers is one of apology, begging them to forgive him for not doing more.)

SCHINDLER: This car. Goeth (The Nazi commander whom Schindler bribed to take the Jews to his hometown to work in his factory) would've bought this car. Why did I keep the car? Ten people, right there, ten more I could've got. This pin -- (He rips the swastika, from his lapel and holds it out to Stern pathetically.)

SCHINDLER:Two people. This is gold. Two more people. He would've given me two for it. At least one. He would've given me one. One more. One more person. A person, Stern. For this. One more. I could've gotten one more person I didn't.
(He completely breaks down, weeping convulsively, the guilt consuming him.)

SCHINDLER: They killed so many people...They killed so many people...

The meaningless gold lapel pin which he shamelessly paraded on his jacket came to nothing in the end. Will the money that we earn in our life mean anything to us, to this world. At times I used to ask myself, will the research that Im doing right now, is it going to help, will it make a difference. The money that I make would it make a difference? Im not going to humor myself that it would, but still I hope to put it to good use. For the hopeless romanticist that I am, the ideal world in which I dream, there, Dire Straits still sing "Money for nothing"

Someday on the different paths that Im going take, money should be the means to the end and not the end to the means.