Seven Rupees Story

A story has been in circulation in social media about a purported interview to select 3 physicists by Nobel Laureate Prof.C.V.Raman after his retirement when he wished to open a Research Institute in Bangalore. The day after the interview was over, a candidate who just failed to make the grade was waiting to meet him during his morning walk in the park. When questioned by Sir C V Raman, the candidate revealed how he was reimbursed ₹7 more than his claim towards attending the interview the previous day. He visited the Research Centre Office in the previous evening and attempted to return the excess money paid to him. Because the accounts had closed, they could not take back the amount and hence asked him to enjoy. Since it is not right for him to accept the money which did not belong to him, he wanted to give it back to Prof. Raman. Pleased with the honesty of the person, Prof. asked the young man to meet him the next day at 10.30 am. When he met next day, the Nobel Laureate told the young man "son, you failed in the Physics test but you have passed the honesty test. So I have created another post for you"  He gladly accepted the job and later on he too became a Nobel Laureate in 1983. This young man was Prof. Subrahmanyan Chandrashekhar (US Citizen of Indian Origin) He has written a book on how the seven rupees changed his life. This was how Honesty made a Great Scientist.

Talent can most often be acquired with hard work, guidance and help from others, But, Character and Values are innate. As Einstien once said, “Don’t try to be a person of Success, but always be a Person of Value“

Twitteratti responded with remarks at this unbelievable story.

"Is there any book or any authentic article on 7 rupees .......Please help." 

Someone else replied "Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar was C V Raman's nephew! Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar was born in Lahore on October 19, 1910. His father C. Subrahmanyan Iyer was in Government Service. C.V. Raman, the first Indian to get Nobel Prize in science was the younger brother of Chandrasekhar's father. So it's unlikely that this story is true!"

One more Twitter message read "Cute story but what is the source? It is going viral on social media. For starters, C V Raman is his paternal uncle, therefore it is unlikely they would be strangers. For another his (Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar's) biography makes no mention of his study in Bangalore."

I presume that this was a concocted story by a clever Training Manager to drive home the importance of right character and honesty for one's progress in life. All the same, reading this story, I recollected an incident which occurred during my days as a manager in Novartis. We recruited a young medical representative in 2001. The boy was very intelligent and his performance during the selection interview was outstanding. We were certain that we had a found one who would progress and grow up into a valuable addition to our company's highly talented pool of employees and contribute to the long-term company goals. He was sent to Trichy as a Medical Representative. Being a field sales job, he was expected to carry out his job independently with out any direct supervision by his superior. Our expectations were belied and soon we started to receive negative feedback from our friends and business partners about his laxities in work. We brought our observations about his work to him wanting to correct his errant working style. He admitted to his insincere approach to work and put in his papers and decided to resign. He reasoned that it was the only that way he could atone his stray from honesty towards his job. Surprisingly, a few days later, we received a demand draft at our Chennai Office for an amount equal to  the last 2 monthly payments he had received from our company saying that he didn't deserve to keep that amount as he hadn't worked during that period. Well, our company faced a strange problem with that money as it was for the first time that an employee had returned his earnings in such circumstances and our office lacked a suitable accounting procedure for accepting it! TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION, surely.