“We are told be good, do good. But it’s no good to be good,” Swami said the other day over a cup of coffee. He had a fairly disappointed look on his face. Jigneshbhai and I wondered what it was about. We didn’t have to wait long to know.
“I know you must be wondering why,” he continued. We looked at him with eager eyes and raised eyebrows.
“Well, I had a meeting with Raichand yesterday to discuss a vendor evaluation done by his blue-eyed boy,” Swami started. “Surprise, Surprise! I saw the slides I had shared two days back in there. And Raichand told me he liked the blue-eyed boy’s evaluation and so we should go ahead with the vendor!”
He had a mixed facial expression with drooping shoulders. “His evaluation it seems!! All he did was copy my slides,” he said.
“So what did you say?” Jigneshbhai asked Swami.
“Well, what can I say?” Swami rolled his eyes. “I said, ‘Yes Sir’ and walked away. Not a world for goodness.”
“So what will you do now?” Jigneshbhai probed.
“What is left to do? The blue-eyed boy got the credit. I will not share slides with him the next time,” Swami replied. “Not that I like it, but what other option do I have, if it is misused?” He added while picking up a muffin bite.
“True,” Jigneshbhai said in a pensive tone before going into silence as usual. Swami and I waited, ruminating.
“Plus Raichand will tom-tom around about how they took a good decision after the vendor is finalised,” Swami grumbled. “Not that I care, but I am out of the picture on both sides,” Swami said. His grumpy tone and dejected expression made it clear that, even if he may not care, it still bothered him.
I looked at Jigneshbhai. I waited for him to say something. But he stayed silent for a few minutes, after which he spoke.
“When you go to a hospital, do you expect anyone who is not sick?” he asked, out of the blue, as usual.
Swami got irritated by this unnecessary diversion of topic.
“But why will I go to a hospital for no reason?” Swami revolted unable to get the context of this abrupt question.
“Well, you do go, I know, to get needless checks done. But that’s besides the point,” Jigneshbhai teased. “The point is, if you go, what do you expect? Sick people or fit people?”
Swami and I looked at each other and thought our wise friend had lost it and perhaps needed to be taken to hospital himself.
“Of course, sick people, except the doctors I guess,” Swami answered. “But what’s the point? What does this have to do with this blue-eyed boy and his taking my slides?”
“Well, what is he if not sick?” Jigneshbhai asked.
Swami’s eyes lit up when Jigneshbhai called the blue-eyed boy sick. “A lot of sick people around me, for sure. This is not the last time I will see someone like this blue-eyed boy,” Swami declared. “In that sense, Raichand’s office is a hospital full of patients,” Swami said, in an irked tone with a smile.
Jigneshbhai had a serene smile on his lips.
“Well, in a hospital, you expect sick people. If you expect anyone else, is it the hospital’s problem or yours?” he asked.
Swami and I pondered over what Jigneshbhai said. From a corner of my mind, he seemed to be right again. He continued.
“Even if someone looks fit, you know he is sick. It is naïve to assume otherwise,” he said. “It is stupid to repeatedly do so.”
Swami and I glared at each other. Our experience did suggest that yes, it is naïve to expect selfless goodness all the time.
“So what should I do? Why don’t you just tell me that being good is stupid?” Swami jumped to his conclusion in a hurry.
“Well, I didn’t say that” Jigneshbhai remarked, focusing his attention back to the coffee and muffin, while Swami and I stared in expectation. “Goodness still has its value,” he added and helped himself to a bite of the muffin.
He then looked at us and said, “Doctors are good people. But they give sick patients the treatment required.” He then took a sip of coffee and said, “Some patients get cured, some don’t.”
Swami and I stared at each other again. Like usual, Jigneshbhai spoke in riddles and metaphors not telling us what exactly to do.
That’s when we saw the wealthy old man from the adjoining table walk up to us and sit across me and Swami.
“Expecting pure goodness is naïve,” he remarked.
He had a cryptic look on his face. He broke into a smile seeing the confusion on our faces.
He left us with more food for thought when he said, “If you are a doctor, give the treatment. If not, at least, don’t become another sick patient.”
Swami and I scratched our heads again. Jigneshbhai smiled.
***