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Duck soup

D. Murali

This is an old story. Mulla Nasruddin's distant uncle gifted him a duck, made his usual enquiries and left. ``Make soup,'' Mulla told his wife. When the couple was about to relish the delicacy, there was a knock on the door. ``I am the cousin of your unc le who gave you the duck,'' the visitor said. Mulla gave him some soup and they discussed the uncle's generosity over lunch.

After some time, there was another visitor and he introduced himself as the nephew of a brother-in-law of the uncle, and he enquired of Mulla whether the duck was good. ``Oh, yes! Have some soup,'' Mulla offered hospitably.

It was late evening when the umpteenth visitor was at the door and he was none other than the grandson of the half-brother of the mother-in-law of the aunt of the uncle. Soup was offered and he tasted it. ``It's just like water,'' he remarked. Mulla expl ained: ``This is the soup of the soup of the soup of the soup.''

The story is important for CAs scouting for fresh assignments: Find a common link -- however remote -- with strangers. The ICAI too sets an example for such endeavours by organising events apparently far removed from its core strengths. One example was t he international megashow on WTO a couple of months back. Another, coming up in a few weeks, would be the national conference on power sector reforms. What is the connection between CAs and power, one might ask, for the only inputs that a CA has about th e sector are the double-account system that should have bugged him in his studies.

The connection is Suresh Prabhu, Union Minister for Power, and he is a CA. He is from the Sena -- a word that has the same letters as `sane' and just that. When some amount of knee-bending happens before a minister, the response is predictable: ``Okay, t ake Rs 20 lakh and organise a conference on my department.''

Fortunately, for the ICAI, the recent reshuffle didn't create any problems, such as Prabhu getting shunted to civil aviation or animal welfare.

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