l  remember one particular episode of the famous “Neelam Ghar” aired in the late seventies whenTariq Aziz had invited someone who had found a brief case full of money on I.I. Chundrigar Road.

Later he somehow got hold of the real owner and returned the brief case to him. The owner happened to be a rich tycoon from the Middle East who rewarded a handsome amount of money to the man who found the brief case. Mr. Tariq Aziz applauded his honesty, praised him and gave him some prizes. When the show was aired, I was a child. But for years I have longed to stumble across a brief case full of money that would attach a label of honesty to me and also bring me wealth.

Years later, when I spoke about this incident to my friends, ninety percent of them said that the person who had found the brief case was the biggest fool to be known. I asked them why they thought so and one of my friends replied, “Are you out of your mind? You find a fortune and you let it slip away from your hand just like that? No, you don't do that”. “But you can't lay claim to something that is not yours,” I retorted. At this, another friend of mine said, “I don't see any difference in either keeping the brief case or returning it. You keep it, you get rich. You give it back, you still want a label of honesty and the desire to get rich in a roundabout way. The point is you want “something” in return, no matter what!” His remark made me think about the whole incident over and over again.
Was I no different from them? Did I have as much greed inside me as anyone else? Why couldn't I just be honest? Why did I wish for a return for something which I had absolutely no right on? Questions as such bombarded my mind for several days.

Perhaps tendency to be greedy is human nature. Even when we talk of divine things like the heaven, we know that we have been tempted to do good in return for heaven, we have been promised the bounties and the beauties and so on. So greed itself is not a bad thing after all. Neither having it within you makes you a bad person. It depends on how greedy you can get, which will make you a bad or a good person. My father once told me that one of his employers had a unique method of testing his employees' trust worthiness. He would drop a fifty rupees note on the floor of his shop in the cloth market and would then ask any one of his employees, preferably the newly appointed to do the cleaning of the shop. If during the cleaning, the employee found and returned the note to the employer, he was considered trustworthy. And if the employee found the note and pocketed it, he would be fired.

Money has always tempted people and will continue to do so as it gives you the power to buy your dreams. But does it have the power to buy everything? Can it buy life? No, it surely cannot. Like everything else, it has its limitations.
One of my close acquaintances lives and owns a shop in Chicago. Besides shop lifters, sometimes his employees too steal from the cash register. People belonging to good families may also tend to steal. When I was studying for “SAT”, I came across the word “kleptomaniac” (one who has a habit of stealing) and it made me laugh. I thought that thieves steal because they need money or something; but why would anybody steal out of habit!

Later on I came across some kleptomaniacs. Many of us know them as people who take things from you for a little while but never ever return them. They are in the neighborhood, in the office, could be your friends, colleagues or classmates, the list is endless.

Parents also play a vital role in developing a child's personality. A child adopts things that he goes through in his life. I am sure all of our parents have often tempted us with chocolates, toys and other goodies when we were young with “this is all yours once you finish your homework”, or “you want some more, first let me hear how a cat mews,” or “who wants to go out? First clean your room!”

I still remember that as a child, collecting “Eidi” from relatives was a joy in itself. That was the only thing that enticed me to visit each relative's house on Eid. We would spend our Eidi in on rides and swings in our area and eating junk food. The girls would be happy to keep their Eidi in cute little purses that they would show off to each other. Later on their Eidi was mostly spent by their brothers as most of the girls were not allowed to play outside their homes. We would get them goodies from vendors and shops and get our share for the deliveries made.

Greed manifests itself in a variety of ways. Some people beg for diaries and calendars at the beginning of every new year and they go on about it as though the year would not commence if they did not have a diary or calendar.

Instead of waiting and longing for it, surely they could buy a diary or calendar for themselves. Another fatal greed is for cell phones. You all have observed how people lose their lives and take others' lives for cell phones. One of the cleaners where I work found a cell phone somewhere on the street. He was very happy about it. When I told him that this phone didn't belong to him and that he should return it to whoever it belongs to. He replied, “Sirjee, there was nobody there to claim it when I found it, so it's a gift to me from God and I am keeping it”. Voila! He had not just a new cellphone but a justification for it as well.

Greed is one of the many characteristics built into us humans. We have the free will to use it any way we wish to. How we use it entirely depends on our upbringing, our conditioning and the environment we live in. You can either cut an apple with a knife or kill a person, the choice is yours. After all, it was the greed to get my article published that compelled me to write it. This time you can call it drive or ambition, perhaps!