Chanakya and Me

My friend sent me Chanakya's Quotes. I immediately thoguht of responses to them. I wrote back and thought i would post the responses here...
Neethi in Tamil means Judgement. So you will see, a Neethi for every Quote of Chanakya.

"A person should not be too honest. Straight trees are cut first and Honest people are screwed first. - Chanakya

My Neethi : To maintain a log of the consecutive lies you said is difficult. You need to be smarter than SMART can mean.

"Even if a snake is not poisonous, it should pretend to be venemous **- Chanakya

My Neethi : One day, your pretence comes out to the limelight and your true color will show up.

"The biggest guru-mantra is: Never share your secrets with anybody. ! It will destroy you." - Chanakya

My Neethi : If you don’t share your secrets, you will never know anyone else’s secret and you will never have opinions of people. Opinions of people do matter, coz you never know which opinion will spark an idea in you. A good idea can make a lot of difference anyplace, anytime.

"There is some self-interest behind every friendship. There is no Friendship without self-interests. This is a bitter truth."- Chanakya

My Neethi : Simple logic. You don’t go around making friends with everyone in the globe. If there are friends, then there is a duty that friends have towards each other. This is not a planned self – interest. Even if it is, it doesn’t matter as long as there is love binding the friendship. There is no bitter truth about it. This is the fact of Life.

"Before you start some work, always ask yourself three questions - Why am I doing it, What the results might be and Will I be successful. Only when you think deeply and find satisfactory answers to these questions, go ahead." - Chanakya

My Neethi : Not always you will have answers to these questions, leave alone satisfactory answers. Just go ahead and do it as long as a second thought on it does not give you qualms. It is your duty to work your best and forget about it. The rewards will come when they have to.

As soon as the fear approaches near, attack and destroy it." - Chanakya

My Neethi : Fear for valid points needs to be there.. You cannot fall off a cliff unless you want to commit a suicide…

"Treat your kid like a darling for the first five years. For the next five years, scold them. By the time they turn sixteen, treat them like a friend. Your grown up children are your best friends." - Chanakya

My Neethi : Mere Scolding does not help. Half the time the kid is baffled about the very idea that the parent is yelling for nothing at all. You can never become a kid again and so you will not understand what it feels to be a kid, unless you care for a little bit of child psychology.

Books are as useful to a stupid person as a mirror is useful to a blind person. - Chanakya

My Neethi : That means only intelligent person can read books.. Which again means there would not be any best seller books, coz I bet all readers are not intelligent.

Well, these are just opinions.... You are free to post yours..

Comments

Majorsri said…
well dew drop, i can say only onething that chanakya rocks...i wudnt say hes indian machiavelli.. but i wud call machiavelli an ITALIAN chanakya......
RIPZZ said…
Interesting Piece.. This like Chanakya versus Deeps !!
Hello Dew,

I have certain comments to make on "My neethi":

1. Chanukya meant in the first adage:

don't be too honest, which means have a mixture of honesty and lies as an arsenal to confuse the victim. It is not that you keep lying like a pathological liar and screw yourself up by not being able to maintain a log of your lies.

2.Pretence can be maintained for a lifetime if one takes heed of certain aspects like not going overboard,not trying to radiclaly harm anyone with the pretence,etc. o telling pretence comes out one day is very naiive.

3.By secrets Chanukya meant deeprooted secrets which people should not know. Not professional secrets or trademarks, even that needs to be closely gaurded.

Opinions are dime a dozen and if one needs a good idea one can follow umpteen number of creative ideas or read litreature to spark new ideas.

What is the definition of being secretive needs to be studied carefully...

Thus, I can find a "defect" in each of your counter-arugument,buddy!

Try to appreciate the essence not give your two cents to what is there!

Subodha

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