Those who live in their castles in the air need not think about what goes on below. They are the rulers of the world, owners of the future. They don’t care what the hoi polloi think. They have won the race to the top, by all means possible, while the rest sit below, roiling in dirt and filth. Those bird-brained plebeians who failed to reach to the top.

There is no mercy for them. They are to be despised, cheated, exploited, gagged and trampled upon, treated like a slave or a broodmare, milked dry like an old cow and sold to be slaughtered.

Why is Dr Govinda KC fighting for the losers? He says he wants to reform our medical system and ensure quality healthcare reaches those down below. Says we must respect all human life irrespective of how much a person are worth. I tell you that old man is a looney; an odd piece of atavism.  Thinks we live in Satyayug. Didn’t even marry for the sake of his duty. Donates his savings to those who cannot afford treatment. Could have made millions sucking money out of his patients like others do. Talks about ethics and moral values. Doesn’t he know that the Hippocratic Oath is meant to be forgotten the moment is taken?   Someone should talk sense to him.  Tell him how much money there is in running private hospitals, teaching the kids of the rich, selling medicine meant for the poor to private pharmacies (and blaming the loss on rodents running amok in the store), or bringing in foreign donors to deal with our healthcare woes. (Just think of all the dollars that come with the donors.)

Money, after all, makes the world go around. There is nothing a man doesn’t do for money. There is nothing that money cannot do in this world. All you need to do is to be able to drive to the bank and let loose the genie in the vault. Poof! All your problems disappear.

Potholes during the monsoon? You can get a monster of a motor if you have enough dough and drive it through the middle of the street like a king in his chariot when you feel like descending upon earth. See how it glides over uneven surfaces and open sewers. How small cars, bikes and cycles give way to you as you drive. If an errant footpathe  appears out of nowhere, just splash the muck in his face and move on.  He is a nobody. Education for children? You can send them across the border. Don’t let your kids mingle with those of the commoners when you can afford quality schools just hours away. Fallen sick? Let the genie loose and you are off on its magic carpet to Bangkok for a sneeze, Singapore for a fever and Europe or the US if you need surgery. Let others die for the lack of paracetamol or noon chini pani.

Money, then, is what one should be making, even at the cost of human life, if one wants to rise high up to those airy castles. Become a rich daktar sahib or a byapari. Mint it, mine it, pinch it, steal it, rob it, but make sure you have the coppers jingling in your pocket. Throw away your moral science books, forget what your parents said when you were a kid, just make money by all means. Lots and lots of it.

Else, don’t complain. The world belongs to those who own it, not to those who live in it. It is a Darwinian struggle for the survival of the fittest that determines our life and those of our children. And fitness to survive among humans is measured not in terms of abstract concepts like innate goodness or a strong moral standing but by one’s bank balance.

Dr KC alone won’t be able to change the nature of things even if he wants to. For power lies in the hands of those high above us. And there is a lot of money to be made out of human life. They won’t give up the chance to squeeze every penny possible just to accommodate the demands of an old dotard. They will keep on toying with him until he finally gives up, or loses his life during one of his hunger strikes.

If he is lucky, he will be a minor footnote in our struggle for justice and human dignity. If not, he will vanish from people’s memory soon after the struggle is over. But the world will still be the same. One where those in high eyries will prey upon their underlings wriggling on the surface. One where people will continue to squeeze every penny out of others to rise to top. As someone once said, the world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.