As soon as Human brain comes in a state of understanding or grasping information, even sometime in prenatal period too, we start feeding it with moral values, ethics etc.
Sometimes I wonder why we focus on imparting Ethics to human being from start of birth. Because in future he/she won’t be able to follow them as in this era practicing these values is costly. Cost can be anything like money, life etc.
This blog is about one of my experience where I paid for following ethics/moral values in tough situation.
So let’s start….
Back in 2011, after passing 12th exam I had to give different exams in order to get admission in esteemed engineering college.
Among many exams for one of the exam I had to go to Jaipur, Rajasthan.
Among my friend circle I was the only one who applied for this particular Exam because I was not so studious and my most of the friends were studious so I had to give almost every exam related to engineering entrance exam. I planned to travel in Railway from Bhilwara to Jaipur.
Although Bhilwara, Rajasthan my hometown know for the hub of Charted Accountant students, but upcoming students of engineering were not in minorities. Because of that I found some friends of my friends in train who were going for the same examination. So now we were a group of four.
In evening, after completing exam we decided to take train for return journey. In order to do that we took bus from our exam Centre to sindhi camp bus stand. And as we had enough time to catch train we decided to reach there by walking.
As soon as we started walking towards railway station one of our group member noticed one rickshaw ahead of us. Don’t know what did he realized at that time that he tried to hang by hands on the u shaped clamp like we do in pull ups. Like most of us did in our childhood days.
Maybe he thought by doing this he will manage to sit on the back seat and rickshaw driver won’t notice. That’s was his plan but plan and reality not always go hand in hand.
The moment he hanged himself on this u clamp, gravity worked and hinge of both side where this u clamp was fixed, broke.
Our bad luck started now. Driver analyzed the loss and demanded 300 Rs to get it fixed. In 2011 sum of 300 Rs for four of us was high amount. We tried to negotiate with driver, he denied. This conversation lasted for 5 minutes. And in end we decided that instead of giving money we will get it fixed. Driver agreed.
Situation is under control.
Wait kahani abhi start hui hai😀😀
We were behind rickshaw and started following the driver.
After few seconds, the one who hanged himself on the rickshaw disappear into a thin air. Till our brain was able to recognize this, he was completely out of our sight. He didn’t shared his plan to escape with us.
Driver shocked, he rocked, we now entrapped.
Now driver made us to walk alongside wit him in anticipation of this disappearing into thin air.
Still situation is under control.
Now we 3 member left. We started walking alongside with him. I was nearest to the driver. After few seconds both other member ran away in opposite direction. Again they didn’t shared their plan with me. Now I’m alone in this cyclone. Our bad luck converted to My bad luck now.
Now I can say situation went out of control.
All the negotiations we had done previously is now off the table. Driver demanded money now. I didn’t had enough money to pay. Even I showed my wallet to him but he is adamant now.
Verbal negotiation-cum-fight continued. Now the public started noticing us. Few people gathered and started asking what happened. Two person from the crowd analysed the situation and made a escape plan for me. They are saviour in this case.
Note: As depicted below crowd is in front of rickshaw.
According to them I was not responsible for his loss which is indeed true. One of the saviour asked rickshaw driver to show him the part which is broken. So he took driver to the back side of rickshaw.
Till this point I was unaware of saviour’s plan. The moment one of the saviour took the driver to the back side, other saviour told me to run as fast as I can. And without wasting a second on thinking what happened, I ran towards railway station. I didn’t stopped till I reach the railway station. And this is the first sprint (around 1 km) of my life.
SAVED!
Justice served to me by Public but at the cost of driver’s money loss.
I followed one ethic i.e. Right. I was right because I had done nothing wrong, driver’s loss was not because of me, so I didn’t have fear of punishment. But I ended up being in a complete mess. I paid cost of being at risk due to ethics.
There are so many examples where following ethics is expensive. I’m sure many of us may have experienced this.
So can we say ethics are expensive?
Can we follow ethics in this era?
Can we follow ethics/principles in corporate world? This question is tough.
Are there any rules which specifies when to follow ethics?
Or it’s like Ethics has some invisible asterisk mark?😀😀 (Ethics* * T&C)
…………………🙏Thanks 🙏…………………
PS: From feedback received on my other blog, this time I used pictorial presentation in order to convey information.
Blogpost's By Anoop 
I appreciate the fact that you try to learn from the small events of life. Situations like these are the real test of ethics. In my understanding ethics are not about money, ethics are about standing your ground. Running away from the situation is never a thing in ethics. Maybe for situations like these only my father always ordered me to keep some extra cash separately in bag 😅. Anyways, in my view what could have been done is try make him understand that you are not the culprit, give him whatever money you have, maybe buy him one time meal. Or try to ask people around to donate just Rs10 each (I am sure there would be at least 20 people in the crowd), it would be hard to make rickshawala understand as he was angry but the crowd wasn’t angry and could be convinced.
Maybe if I were in your situation then I would have done what you did. Reading a story in a comfortable chair and judging the act is one thing and being in that situation is entirely different but still, these solutions for situations like this may help you, me, and other readers who want to be ethical. Point here being, its not just about being ethical (though running away is not an ethical act) but about finding a solution to the problem at hand so that damage (physical, emotional, financial or any kind) on the people around you is the least.
Thanks for writing this blog and making be think. And I will always try to follow what I said.
LikeLike
As I mentioned I didn’t had a plan of runaway. I was forced to runaway when situation went out of control.
Keeping extra cash whenever going out is the first thing parents taught in middle class family but in 2011 300 rs was huge amount for me.
Your idea is good but this idea won’t come in the mind when anyone is in such situation. Yes this idea may come from any one in crowd and he can implement. In second paragraph you wrote diplomatic line😀😀😀😀. May be you remembered I wrote that in one of my blog i.e. we plan our strategy from looking situation from outside. But untill we are in situation we don’t know it will work or not.
I always wait for your feedback 🙏
But for me following ethics is expensive if you can bear cost then you can follow.
So many time I had paid the cost in different ways for following ethics…
LikeLike
To be honest, that second paragraph came from my own experience 😃😃😃. Regardless of the diplomatic paragraph, we still should see how to improve only then we can really act the way we should and not just impulsively.
I always love to read your posts because it’s simple and still makes me think and question myself.
Can you share more examples of situations when you had to pay unnecessarily just because you were following ethics?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Some are of corporate world which I can’t share on this platform because it’s against code of conduct 😂
LikeLike