The most important in my family.

I always thought I was the most important member of my family until I started living at home. Having lived in a hostel for 8 years, I expected a warm welcome when I came home. Away from my parents for 8 years, I expected that I would be treated as the most important member of my family, it was going well until she stopped coming. My mom went crazy; she started searching desperately for her in every corner, calling random people in order to find a single trace of her. She could not be found anywhere; she was gone, long gone.  Earlier, I had seen my mom waiting for her; more desperately than she waited for dad but it didn’t bother me until she was gone.

My mom became frustrated, the same food that was very tasty earlier, somehow became tasteless. I decided that it was high time and I should be a responsible son. I started searching for her. I made calls to unknown aunties and knocked random doors to search her, following the directions from my mom.

I survived for three days without her then on the fourth day she came and said, “Meri saas bimar thi, phone kharab tha aur aaj se jhaadoo, poccha aur bartan ka 4000 hoga”. Even in times of hyper inflation my mom agreed.

Sometimes money doesn’t matter at all. For some people, it's their presence that is most important.  

Famous Chartered Accountants

• Last night I decided to check a few good and famous Chartered Accountants. I found CAs who have excelled in their field and reached to great heights.

Since we are not allowed to advertise I had to try hard and was able to come up with a few names.

1. K.M Birla- The chairman of Aditya Birla (the Tata Birla wala Birla) Group. This guy is my main inspiration. A Marwari and a CA. I can almost connect with him (except the fact that he was born with a silver spoon). Also did MBA from London Business School.
   
2. MotilalOswal - Co Promoter, Chairman & Managing Director of Motilal OswalGroup(As of end of financial year 2008, the group net worth was Rs.7 billion) . One of the dudes who said a no to their family business and did wonders withbroking business.
   
3.  ShekharKapur - You know this guy if you have watched India’s Got Talent Season 1.He was the only guy who sat beside Sonali Bendre and he was there because he directed Mr. India. And yes he is a CA. The most amazing thing is that his Wikipedia profile says that he did CharteredAccountancy at the behest of his parents.
   
4.  DeepakParekh - Padma Bhushan winner and the Chairman of HDFC. Quoting Wikipedia, “Apioneer in mortgage finance, he has enabled scores of Indian middle classpeople to own their houses or apartments through affordable loans.” This guyshould be the ideal role model for all chartered accountants. A bunch of rebelsmight have Shekhar Kapur as their role model too.
   
5. S.Gurumurthy– The only greatest thing Abhishek Bacchan did apart from marrying AishwaryaRai was act in a movie called Guru. In the movie R.Madhvan plays an aggressive journalistwho is hell bent on exposing the corrupt means of reliance( guru’s company withsome other name in the movie).
   Guru is based on true events and R.Madhvan is strongly based on S. Gurumurthy. Gurumurthy’sarticles in The Indian Express caused a national stir in the corporate worldand did massive damage to Reliance. Yes! Chartered Accountants have been glorified in the movies too.
   
6.  AdityaPuri – MD of HDFC. We told you we are bad at advertising. He doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page.
   
7.  RakeshJhunjhunwala – Another Investor. A few boring facts that he is India’s 51^strichest man and world’s 1062th. He has been described as the "Pied Piperof Indian bourses".
   
8.  PrannoyRoy – The founder and Executive Chairman of NDTV. First cousin of ArundhatiRoy. Also studied at Queen Marry, University of London.  His father was known as Hurricane Roy.  Some people are just weird and successful.
   
9.    RameshwarThakur – Senior Indian National Congress Politician. Former Governor of MP,AP, Kartnatka. Like a true politician, he is surrounded by controversies ofeating money.
   
10.  T.V.Mohandas Pai –  (Imagine a guy with TV as his name). CFO of Infosys from 1994 to 2006. In 2000, he, along withothers, founded the Akshaya Patra Foundation, Bangalore, to start a midday mealprogram for school children. Today, the midday meal program feeds over12,00,000 children in 7,669 government schools across seven states in India,primarily in Bangalore's rural and urban areas, Mysore, Mangalore, Hubli,Mathura, Jaipur, Baran district of Rajasthan, Nayagarh district of Orissa,Puri, Bhilai, Guwahati, Ahmedabad and Vadodara. This initiative has turned outto be the largest midday meal program in the world.
    
11. Shri K.Rahman Khan - A chartered accountant turned politician from Karnataka, anda long-time member of the Indian National Congress. He is the Deputy Chairmanof the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian Parliament. Before holdingthe post of the Dy Chairman he was the Union Minister of State for Chemicalsand Fertilizers. Mr Khan is one of the most prominent Muslim leaders of thecountry.
    
12. AkashSarawgi – Just another CA Aspirant. preparing for the final exams now. Took Science but loathed it more than anything. Finally studying commerce. Ok! I will shut up now.
    
    Wait… I am not even a Chartered Accountant.
    Since we are not allowed to advertise, you can always come up with more names. If you know more, please tell me too.

Do we really want to be corruption free?

The other day I and two of my friends had to go to play cricket. My bike’s rear tube had a whole in it. All of us rode on one bike and escaped a traffic check and were laughing on the incompetency of the traffic policeman to catch us and admiring my friend’s biking skills at the same time. Later did I realize that we had broken the law without paying for it.

 I thought about the other alternative: I could have spent about 100 bucks on an auto rickshaw after 10 minutes of painful bargaining. I would like to stress on the word painful because to me it seems that the auto drivers have some business mantra which may sound like, “A man in need is a man to be screwed”. Mumbaikars are one of the few lucky ones who do not have to go through this bargaining pain. Coming to the point, we had broken the law and didn’t pay for it. Yet we do not have any shame in sharing Anna Hazare's picture on Facebook titled, “Stop Corruption”. Do we really want to stop it?

The other day on the birthday of Legendary A.R Rehman I downloaded some of his songs from the website Songs.pk. Again I realized that I have done an act of corruption and by the ongoing rumors I have also funded the terror attacks on India.

As a Chartered Accountant student(yeah, we are the ones who save your money so that you don't give it in the hands of people you hate) I do have ethical dilemmas about Tax Planning. Is it morally correct? Whether manipulating the law in a systematic and legal way makes me honest? Am I really contributing to the nation ?

Tax has to be the best investment a man makes in his entire life. It is supposed to take care of the needy and the people who make this investment. It is supposed to improve our standard of living and provide us with a better country and a better infrastructure. Though for ages and years tax is shown under the Head “Expenses”. A finance minister is supposed to be the best man who can handle your money and when people get a feeling that their money is being mishandled then tax is termed as an expense and evaded.

By now, piracy is something that we all have committed. If you haven't done it yet then either your dad is a billionaire or possibly you don't know how to do it (which is very improbable). Many of us do piracy without  even knowing that we are doing something wrong but since "Ignorantia Juris Non Excusat" (Ignorance of law is not an excuse) you really don't have an excuse.

We even don't know how many times we have broken the laws of Motor Vehicles Act, 1998 and yet we are very pleased in supporting the cause of Anna Hazare's blindly.

Do we really want to have strict laws ? Are we of the opinion that corruption when done by others is crime and when done by us stands correct ? Do we really want to change the nation ? Do you swear that you won't touch a bike or a car before 18 ? Will you never download pirated stuff from internet ? Are you really ready to change? Isn't it that we want others to change without changing ourselves ?