Saturday 19 Jul 2025

Of utter greed and human stupidity

REKHA SARIN TREHAN, Benaulim | JULY 17, 2025, 07:26 PM IST

When you come from a country where one steals flower pots from the G20 venue, yoga mats at International Yoga Day events, and mangoes at an agricultural fair why do you play the race victim card when caught stealing at a leading store chain in the US. It's utterly shameful that Indians conduct themselves this way in foreign lands and tarnish the country's reputation. A few years back a wealthy Indian family was detained in Bali for stealing appliances, towels, toiletry, pillows, mats etc. from a luxury resort but got off lightly because the hotel didn't want to press criminal charges. Greed, stupidity ( in this age of CCTV, scanners, anti-theft portals, X-ray machines, facial recognition and other surveillance tools ) and possibly a sense of entitlement is what drives such behaviour. To paraphrase Einstein, "Three things are infinite ; the universe, human stupidity and greed , but I am not sure about the universe."



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