Wednesday, April 29, 2015

The Peace Crusaders: Chapter 4

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Chapter 4

Victor was aiming to recruit someone who had spent a good amount of time in Chinhut and knew that country and its ways of working. He had shortlisted three persons. One name seemed quite familiar. The name was Shakti. He looked at it again and again.

Victor thought, “Could he be the same person who shared my room during my post graduation days? He was quite fascinated by this country Chinhut because of its huge population and its dire poverty. He used to think in terms of settling there and helping its people.”

Deep in thoughts he punched the numbers on his cell phone. The bell on the other side kept ringing. He tried again after some ten minutes with no luck. He paused for a few minutes and rang again saying to self, “This is the last time to this so called Shakti. I will turn to other two guys if Shakti doesn’t respond this time.”

Then he heard a voice. “Shakti here. Whosoever is calling me deserves my apology. I couldn’t have answered your call since I was in a session with my students of my advanced economics course.”

“I understand. Let me hurriedly tell you I am Victor.”

“Victor, who?”

“I’m calling from Desh. Are you the same Shakti who shared my room during our post-grad time?”

“Hey you dude! What the hell you are up to by telephoning me after so many years?”

“Shakti, you won’t believe how relieved I am now after knowing that you are my old roommate. How long you have been in Chinhut?”

“It’s almost more than a decade. I have seen this country’s metamorphosis from very close quarters.”

“But now it’s almost the second or may be the third most powerful country on planet Berth and the most powerful in Western side of the planet where it’s mainland is located.”

“You are right in that expression of yours. Lately it has occupied literally so much of extra land in many developing and even the developed countries particularly in central and southern parts of the planet. So you need to call the original boundaries of Chinhut its main land.”

“Tell me briefly how all this whole metamorphosis took place?”

“Once a very poor nation it became powerful in just a decade’s time. The reason? It had more than 30% population of the entire planet. Corporate giants of all the developed countries saw a huge potential of making money there. It was an exceptionally huge base of consumers provided the consumers could be made capable of buying. So they invested heavily in Chinhut.”

“Was it easy for them to invest? No bureaucracy? The hanky-panky dealings?”

“Of course all the deals were rife with hanky-panky things of the worst caliber. You can’t think of such corporate deals in any country and more so in a country like Chinhut without collusion with the country’s governmental bigwigs. They grabbed bribes of gigantic proportions from the potential investors. The hungry dogs and worst opportunists.”

“The new investments must have had an impact on employment and economy?”

“Yes. So with these investments new ventures came up and a significant percentage of people got employment. Also the new investors introduced the concept of buying on loan or borrowings so far unknown to the normal public of Chinhut. So soon the public acquired natural as well as an artificially created purchasing power and they started buying helter-skelter. The insane buying fuelled up the artificially created economy. In turn the corporate investors of Chinhut, foreign investors, country’s politicians, and their cronies had a field day.”

“How did Chinhut expand its wings in the other countries? Its people are everywhere and they have acquired so much of land in all kinds of countries.”

“With the riches created, it was now Chinhut’s turn to invest in the developing countries. But the politicians and the rich guys of Chinhut were far smarter than the investors of the other developed countries. Not only did they invest, they also exported their manpower to the countries where they made the investments. Chinhut had a big problem of having extraordinarily large population with very limited land to accommodate them and to produce enough food for them. The solution lied in throwing out as many from the country as possible.”

“But I’m sure the people who were exported must have been from the lower strata of the society?”

“Yes. Absolutely. They threw out from the country as many unskilled, semiskilled, and low earning people as possible. They did depute a few high ranking individuals also but their deputation was temporary in nature. Their main job was to strictly control the displaced people of the lower rung to stop them from cribbing and complaining. Their other job was to expand the businesses further as an extension of Chinhut’s expansionist mentality.”

“Smart move!”

“Really smart! This gave Chinhut an opportunity to have its people placed in every nook and corner of the planet. The politicians and the power brokers here think that this strategy could also be politically useful for them in the future.”

Shakti paused for a moment and asked, “Victor, tell me what was the purpose of your call. I’m sure it wasn’t to strike just a general conversation with me.

“Ours was not a general conversation Shakti. It was to confirm my knowledge about Chinhut collected so far only from the hearsay.”

“OK. OK. Good explanation. But now quickly tell me the exact purpose of your call.”

“Shakti, I need your help. I know you to be a man of objectivity and very high principles. Here in Desh we are trying to form a small group of likeminded people who hold high values and who will be willing to contribute toward welfare of our entire planet. Can you make to Desh in next couple of weeks so that we can discuss this matter further in more details?”

“In fact I have been invited to deliver the keynote address next month in a global conference being held in Desh. I can meet with you then.”

“Thanks a lot. I look forward to our meeting. Bye.”

“Bye.”