THE UNOPENED WINDOWS
“Your assumptions are your windows on the
world.
Scrub them off every once in a while, or the
light won't come in.”
I was teaching a young
boy yesterday. “We say, an asset is ‘taken over’ by a partner, while we say, a
liability is ‘assumed’ by him,” I explained to him.
I have been teaching Accountancy for over three decades, and,
the above explanation is so routine that it goes without any student
questioning to me – “Why so?”… “Why can’t we say that an asset and liability
both ‘taken over’ by a partner?”… “Why we need to say that a liability is
‘assumed’ by him?”
Yes, everyone ‘assumes’ it is so… and, therefore, it is so.
It goes… Goes with the flow of teaching and learning!
But, it didn’t, with this young boy, last morning. He asked
me “But, why?”
So, I had to explain to him the meaning of the term – ‘Assumption’.
“What we take upon us, without questioning, without any proof
or explanation… is, generally, known as an ‘assumption’. Often, we do it
blindly… without even realizing the consequences of our act… Yes, that’s why we
say – “We assume responsibility.”
I had to tell the boy, “Look dear, when you ‘take over’ an
asset, you stand to gain… You become richer, and that’s something nice… But,
when you ‘assume a liability’, you take upon you a headache… You have to deal
with it later… You have a big responsibility… and, that’s not so nice, you
see.”
“Thank you sir,” the young-man was convinced.
But, then, I wasn’t so convinced with that!
“What about so many assumptions I make in my life,” I was asking
in my mind, “Aren’t they all untested, something I have blindly accepted, taken
for granted… Aren’t they, therefore, my liabilities and headaches?... And, if
so, that’s not so nice, no?”
Believe me, that’s the time I thought, for the first time in
my life, of a sacred day. As a Catholic, I have been observing this day, right
from my baby days – ‘The Assumption Day’. We believe, that, on this auspicious
day, Virgin Mary was taken up by the angels into the Heaven, by her body and
soul both, as soon as Her life ended on this earth!
It would be tough for me to explain to someone, who isn’t a
Catholic, how could Mary, Jesus’ mother, be a Virgin… and, how on earth, one
can believe that She had been taken to Heaven with her body and soul both!”
I have never ventured to explain this Mystery to anyone.
Never!
Being a teacher of Accountancy, all that I have been able to
do is: to explain to my students as to why a liability cannot be taken over…
but assumed!
No matter who we are – a clergy or a faithful, a teacher or a
student, a scientist or an illiterate … a super-rich or a pauper… we all have
tucked so many assumptions around our minds… Most of them have become obsolete,
outlived their usefulness, and, yet, we cling on to them. Yes, as Isaac Asimov
has rightly said, our assumptions are our windows to the world… That, unless we
open them, time to time, and scrub them off nicely, we will be neither able to receive
proper light nor fresh air…
Yes, why are our minds closed? Because, we haven’t questioned
our assumptions… We haven’t opened the windows, haven’t scrubbed them off well, every now and then!
Bryan Davis was more forthright when he had conveyed the same
message:
“Assumptions are unopened windows
that foolish birds fly into,
and their broken bodies are
evidence gathered too late.”
And, if so, that’s not so nice, no?
GERALD D’CUNHA
Pics.: Yojana Singh
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