Jul 24th 2004

There is a raging controversy in India about Mrs Priyamvada Birla!s will. She was the wife of late M.P. Birla. Mr Birla had left a will leaving everyting to his wife and after her death, everthing to charities. The couple were childless. The lady in question had prepared her own will leaving everything to her Auditor, Mr Rajan Lodha. The Birla clan members are contesting this as they do want Rs 5000 crores of Birla wealth to go an outsider.Late MP.Birla and Mrs
Priyamvada, controlled Pilani Investments. This company controls lot of educational institutions and hospitals-notable among them being Pilani Institute of Technology,Belle vue Clinic,Bombay Hospital etc.There is a news item almost everyday on this issue. I remember one Hollywood actress leaving 14 million US dollars to her cat. The basic premise of such wills is the lack of faith in fellow human beings. The poor actress did not realise that after all all the wealth will have to be managed by a human being for the cat and that the cat cannot act on its own. I remember
Robert Frost once saying " Half of our mistakes in life arise from thinking when we ought to feel and feeling when we ought to think".