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Some of you who have read Irving Stone’s best-selling novel, ‘The Passions of the Mind,’ based on the life of Sigmund Freud, may recall the following conversation between the psychologist and his fiancee, Martha Bernayse. Freud is giving her his version of the events that preceded the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. "Money was really the apple in the Garden of Eden. Eve got fed up with her unenterprising mate and told him, ‘Why should we stay in this tucked away nook where we have nothing we can call our own? You work all day, Adam, tending the orchard and what do you have to show for your labours? Not even a pair of pants to cover your nakedness. At any moment ww can be put out. Empty-handed, as naked as the day we entered. And what kind of a Boss are you working for? All he ever does is give orders. ‘Do this, Don’t do that’ It isn’t fair. We should be feathering our nests, accumulating wealth against our old age. Adam, think of what we could do outside this garden. Own millions of acres of land, sell the fruit of the trees and the grass of the fields. We can be rich! Monarchs of all we survey. We will rent the land to everyone who comes after us, a few thousand acres at a time, build ourselves a mansion. Let’s get out of here before we’re too settled in our ways. Adam says, "It sound right, Eve, but how could we get out? The Boss won’t let us go. He means to keep us here for ever." Eve replies, "I’ll think of something." And, aa we know, she did think of something. She allowed herself to be beguiled by the serpent and, in her turn, offered the forbidden fruit to her husband with the result that the world today, at least the eastern half of it, is facing what is known as the ‘population explosion.’ The original Eve, if we are to believe Freud’s interpretation of the Book of Genesis, was dissatisfied with the rather humdrum existence she and Adam had in the paradise that God had created for them. She craved freedom for the two of them, wealth, and the power that it brings its possession. Her modern counterpart has her fair share of worldly goods. Her husband probably has a lush job in a business firm, or is well placed in government service. What she has in common with her prototype is a sense of dissatisfaction, a longing to be much higher up in the social register than is warranted by her husband’s position. To be fair, there is also her husband’s ambition to get on in his firm or department. In my own time, I have known what it is to be hagridden by ambition and I am profoundly thankful that I was able to get rid of this burdensome passenger. Whatever contentment I have known dates from the time I did so. Actually, I took my retirement on a proportionate pension five years before it was due. But for the young, ambition is necessary and wholesome so long as it is kept within bounds and does not lead them into stepping on the face of someone else, a possible rival. There is no harm, also, in a bit of social climbing which, I suppose, is an indispensible requisite of the process of getting on in one’s job. Looked at objectively by someone who is no longer in the running, it can be quite amusing. A popular method employed in this respect is that of ‘name dropping.’ After all a man is known by the company he keeps and it helps a great deal if you can refer to a VIP by his first name even though you dare not use it to his face. "As I was saying to Sonia the other day..." is an opening remark I hear occasionally from people who, I know, would only fold their hands in deep obeisance in the presence of the lady. Money, as Freud makes Eve say, is often the propellant in one’s ascent on the social ladder. It can buy things like imported cars that look like luxury liners on wheels, frequent trips abroad and of course, the admiration of fair weather friends and sycophants who are only too happy to enjoy the lavish hospitality offered them in exchange for their appreciation of the ‘good taste’ of their host and hostesses. A familiarity with the arts and literature is another stratagem employed by social climbers in regard to which I heard a delightful story the other day. A friend of mine had a fabulously expensive stereo system installed in his house. He happens to be a ‘cognoscente’ of western classical music. At a party given by him to show off his latest acquisition, he asked one of his guests, "Do you like Bach?" Pat came the reply, "I’ll drink anything". Names such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus and Stendhal look impressive on one’s bookshelf where they remain, literally, on ‘the shelf’ as immaculately new as on the day they were bought. The fact that hereditary titles are no longer recognised is, I am sure, mourned by many people who, while not former rulers are descended from petty rajas, thakurs and the like. Independence brought sudden prosperity to many people who were born out of this tradition. They have had to make up in a decade or two what it took several generations to become in pre-Independence India. If in their attempts to achieve what they consider to be a high place in the social scale, they display a certain gaucherie, let us not forget that in some way or the other we are all slaves to symbols.
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