Gambling

 Prafulla Kumar Mohanty


No man is ever happy with what he has or what he is – women too. In the evolutionary process of Homo Sapiens we have seen changes in body and mind. Attitudinally too man changes and wishes to change according to his imaginative perceptions of life. If a chance comes to take a risk he jumps at it. If no chance comes he creates, manipulates even conspires for it and gambles. Antony and Cleopatra gambled away half of the world for a kiss. Shakuni in  the Mahabharata gambled away his family  for revenge. He could bear with stony fortitude the sight of death of his parents, brothers and friends in the stonewalled prison house of Duryodhan only to destroy the Kuru clan. It was a great gamble with fate and a human challenge to destiny. Hitler’s gamble with the Russian campaign has been recorded as a compulsive war mongering bound to fail as he was trying to alter the destiny of the world and human beings.

Gambling is a challenge to destiny. Man wishes to gain what is not his in the normal course of reality. All men gamble overtly or covertly, consciously or accidentally; Those who don’t are timid and are satisfied with what they have. They never take risks, never disturb the apple cart. A gambler takes risks, even the risk of losing what he has and what he is. The desire to possess the desired objects which a person is denied in the regular course of his life makes him gamble. He risks his reputation and at times his existence. Gambling is like magic which gives the illusion of seeing or getting something which is not there. When a saint or a sage gives a magic mango he definitely takes a risk: If his tantric knowledge fails or his tricks are exposed he will lose his identity.

No business will ever thrive without risk taking. A speculative release of a product may by chance catch the imagination of the people and become a universal favourite. Jeans for example, is one such chancy product, which gambled its way into success. All big Industrialists take risks. Oil exploration too is a gamble in fact all ventures are fraught with elements of risk  .

Politics is the art of chance manipulation and risk management. The kings of yore as well as the politicians of the modern world often gamble on an issue or a situation. They bet on the mindset of a people or a ruler. China thought that the Indian mind still carried the old traces of timidity and fear of war, and would step back to escape a risky situation. Hence the Doklam threat, but when India stood eyeball to eyeball without banter or ferocity China withdrew, the gamble failed. Indira Gandhi’s Emergency was, perhaps, the greatest gamble in Indian Political history - post –independence. But it failed.  The Demonitisation of Narendra Modi was also a political gamble. It succeeded politically but failed to a great extent, however, temporary it might be, in terms of economics. Yudhistira  in the Mahabharata is a great example of a gambler. He is an expert in soldier mobilization which he practised on the dice board. When the invitation to play dice came from Dhritarastra, he accepted it and played with Sakuni’s deceitful dice. He lost everything including his brothers and his wife and was exiled for 13 years, the last year being the underground year.  Why should a truthful, honest and wise man like Yudhistira play dice? Was it for kingdom or wealth? No, Yudhistira played for political strategy. Had he won he would have returned everything to Duryodhan but Shakuni’s loaded dice had another gamble, changing the course of the plot of the epic.

Seniors always  admonish against gambling but gambling goes on – if not in the public places, in licensed casinos. Las Vegas is perhaps , the most glamorous gambling city in the world, a playhouse of billionaires. On Kumar Purnima  in the South and Diwali in the  North –West people gamble as  a religious ritual. Gambling, betting will never stop. Kalidas gambled and wrote the best in Sanskrit poetry. Dosteovsky ruined himself at the gambling dens but wrote great novels. Gambling is ‘bad’ but alluring. It is risky but irresistible.