Judgements relating to the ethical and moral conduct can often be highly subjective. Take, for instance, the case of a person being harangued by an alms seeker. Irritated by the beggar’s pleas, the person takes out a heavy coin from his pocket (such as the one, for instance, issued by the government of India on the occasion of the Birth Centennial year of NTR), and throws it at the beggar, without intending to cause injury. The beggar, however, ducks, avoiding possible injury, and, pocketing the coin, enjoys a hearty meal.

The question is whether what the man, who parted with the coin, did was morally right or wrong. Should one apply the famous Gandhian principle, of means being as important as the ends, the man was clearly guilty of a morally indefensible act. From the point of view of the hungry beggar, however, the fact remains that he had a good meal, which should redound to the credit of the person who provided the means for it.

Perceptions, in other words, can be subjective. As the Bible says, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, or, as the inimitable William Shakespeare put it, though in a different context, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

While striving to ensure that one’s character and conduct conform to accepted norms of ethical behaviour, one needs to have a sense of proportion. A cynic or a puritan may regard the giving of ‘baksheesh’ to a waiter in a restaurant, after a good meal, or the tipping of the Valet, who parks one’s vehicle at a movie theatre, as bribes, because they are paid salaries for the services they render. But that, clearly, would be a case of carrying things too far.

In this context, I recall the case of X, a senior colleague of mine, who was once travelling from Hyderabad to Visakhapatnam. He had asked a local official of his department for a cup of coffee from his home, to be brought to him at Vijayawada station which was en-route. When the official accordingly brought the beverage, he offered to pay him.

The offended subordinate told X that, if he wished to have a cup of coffee on payment, there were restaurants available in the railway station, adding that his wife would feel seriously insulted, if a gesture that was intended to show affection and regard, was treated as a commercial transaction.

To drive home the point I am trying to make, I recall the case of another colleague of mine who, in the days when official vehicles were not permitted for travelling from home to the office and back, would use his office car to pick him up in the mornings, from a government office close to his residence, and, in the evenings, after work, get dropped at that office, and walk back home the rest of the distance, merely in order to make the trips official. It makes for a sad case of hypocrisy, to put it conservatively.

The burden of my song, in other words, is that, the spirit, rather than the letter, of moral prescriptions, should guide one’s action.

We have noted, earlier, that the overarching super structure of ethical and moral conduct does not remain the same, as one traverses across regions, religions, cultures, and over time. That is not to say, however, that there is no common minimum denominator, across these variations. It should be noted that murder or rape, for example, or, for that matter, kidnapping or theft, are offences no system tolerates. Allowances, however, are always made, so that the codes of conduct do not make demands, which may be perceived as unjust, or excessive, in a given situation. A hungry person stealing bread from a bakery, or a soldier killing an enemy in battle, are cases in point. Likewise, the quality of speaking the truth is invariably celebrated as a virtue, no matter what religion, race or creed one belongs to; again subject to the demand of exceptional circumstances being catered.

In the Mahabharat, for instance, Yudhishtir gives an impression to Dronacharya, the Commander- in-Chief of the opposing Kavurava army, that Dronacharya’s son, Aswathama, 1has been killed, while, as a matter of fact, it was an elephant, by the same name, which suffered that fate. Uttering that white lie, and committing that single act of deviation, from his unswerving adherence to the virtue of always speaking the truth however, does little, to smirch the fair name of Yudhishtir.

Also relevant, in this context, is the dilemma many doctors face, while speaking to a patient, who is terminally ill. The technically correct, although a somewhat cold, and almost cruel, option, would be to speak the truth. But how much better would it be, in the alternative, to allow the unfortunate person to spend the rest of his life, in the hope that survival is possible? No blame can lie for choosing either option but to a normal and human physician, the choice should be obvious.

To end this piece on a light note, here is a story. I heard, about the need for clarity in communication between patients and doctors. Incidentally, it is from the inexhaustible repertoire of funny stories, which the inimitable duo of Bapu and Ramana produced, by way of jokes and cartoons.

As a doctor walks into a household, having responded to a frantic call from the wife of a patient of his, he encounters a strange scene.

His patient is swinging wildly, using the ceiling fan as a swing, joyously singing, “Mera naam Tarzan!”

Upon enquiring, what the matter was, he is informed by the wife that the man had taken 24 tablets in an hour, rather than one tablet in 24 hours, as advised by the doctor!

A classic, if somewhat funny, case, of failure of communications, between the patient and the doctor!

(The writer was formerly Chief Secretary, Government of Andhra Pradesh)