K. R. Sethuraman
23 Is Honesty the best policy? Mercury and the Woodman: While he was cutting a tree on the river bank, a woodman lost his axe when it accidentally fell into a river. He was wondering
how he could ever get back his axe when Mercury appeared and offered to help. Mercury dived into the river and came up with a golden axe. The woodman said, "Oh God! Mine is not a Golden axe.” Mercury dived again and brought up a
silver axe. The woodman shook his head and said, "Sir, mine is an iron axe, not a
silver one.” On his third dive, Mercury recovered the woodman's axe. The woodman was overjoyed to get his axe back and thanked Mercury profusely. Mercury was so pleased with the honesty of the woodman that he presented him with the other two axes.
Mr Ram, an industrialist, was indicted in a scam. He was widely expected to be
arrested soon. In order to avoid being in the jail, he flew in a top cardiologist to examine
him for "severe heart pain". The doctor 'diagnosed' a serious heart ailment and put him in the VIP suite of a 5-star hospital for a month's rest.
Comments Unfortunately, in real life, dishonesty seems to pay rather well - at least in the short
term! A Mercury of today may well say, "I can give the golden axe if you will let me keep
the silver one.” And a desperate woodman of today may well reply, "I'll let you have the golden axe. Just hand over the silver one."
The ploys of the doctor-patient nexus to fool others are too well known. Just look at 72
