Economists have defined money as a medium of exchange in daily life and have also described it in many words. The maxim “Money is what money does,” described with utmost brevity, is attributed to Prof. Francis Amasa Walker (1840-1897), American economist, statistician, journalist, educator, academic administrator and military officer. The idiom ‘money makes the mare go’, featured as an English nursery rhyme dating back to the beginning of 17th century, conveys more eloquently the power that money wields, particularly in our times and in our land. Every other column of dailies of all hues, if not every column reporting happenings in society mirrors the hand of money, directly or indirectly. The heavy weights in the country’s political parties have lately taken to hurl accusations, read charges of siphoning off money from public funds to various private holdings, more so avoiding glare of the citizens. Their kitty, boasting of amounts in rupees of astronomical proportions, is euphemistically called parallel economy.

Both the sides in the game of levelling charges of graft have found an escape route of denial of grounds of missing records and concrete evidences to their offending acts, leaving the public speechless and helpless for now. The charges on the backs of the multitude of elected representatives are reportedly being probed by authorised agencies of the government, reminding one of the fable of “who will bell the cat?”

The opposition in the State Legislative Assembly has averred that the treasury has been emptied of all cash even as the media reports are flashing events of laying foundation stones left, right and centre for a multitude of projects giving the impression to the public that all is well in the State’s finances. The employees of the State Government, numbering more than five lakh have also been made to feel happy by announcing a 30 per cent hike in their wages with retrospective effect. Amounts of money grabbed by fraudsters have reached figures beyond the comprehension of lay people experiencing shivers about the fate of their deposits in public sector banks.

One is prompted to feel that the maxim as well as the idiom mentioned at the beginning of this column is gross understatements describing money. In short, what money is doing is much more than what it has done in the past; money may make the mare fall dead, getting paralysed by the figures. In the current scenario, it is only garbage all over the land, including Mysuru that is keeping august company with money earned unethically.