Gold Gold everywhere! Not a glitter anywhere!

Disclaimer : This is the plight of the real middle class that is mentioned here. If you think you dont suffer so much then be glad to know that you are above the middle class!

Thanks to the internet my friendship circle has become bigger and the globe smaller. I just happened to observe the rumoured lureness of India “across the sea!”

My friends exclaim – India? Beautiful place! Would love to visit it sometime. Im blank! I search the atlas – is there another country named likewise?

Here the middle class family has more important things to do than to analyse the beauty and spirit of his nation.

One doesnt have the time to open their eyes to nature or places that are blissfully beautiful. You go in search of jobs to places far from home. Toil round the clock, 6 days a week and with the 23 leaves you are allotted a year all you get to do is reach home to ur dear ones.

One doesnt have the money to treat their taste buds. A majority of the middle-class people I have seen consider eating as a routine.  Tasting for 300rs when you can gobble up a full meal in half the price? Never! Its all for the sake of ‘filling’ the stomache without ’emptying’ the pockets.

One doesnt tend to realize the meaning of melodious pampering. Musical concerts going on? So what they kill you with their ticket charge. Most probably he will sing the same songs you have heard in the radio.  You may get 3 cds at one persons ticket charge!

One doesnt understand the sweet touch of paper back books! The sheer enjoyment of holding it and turning pages! 575 rs for a book. Every month you need different books (err they thought i need to hold on to one as my bible?) you dont realize its a dead investment. (True probably the prices for paper dont rise with time like that of Gold!)

Phew! so in life im not bound to enjoy the extreme pleasures which are abundantly available for my senses. (please! dont put in ur twisted thoughts here!)

Sight – enjoy the places in the movies that you see..preferably take the pirated ones that dont have the pic quality – theatres charge a lot. Hearing – download songs, listen to the cds of the same old songs..pleasures of musical concert and all is rubbish all there is a large crowd with larger purses (knowledge courtesy to imagination as not have visited even one!) Nose – My passion for perfumes need to be stopped with the ‘testers’ available as 5000 for a bottle of perfume is ‘hilariously ridiculous’ and total waste of money! Tastebuds – Chocolates from switzerland? Insanity at its peak! I’ll go get your favourite diarymilk.(favouritism assumed = ass u me ‘d!) Touch –  Books for 1000 a month? Can’t you download some of them? (take care of the download limit – reliance is cheap at the first look and way too expensive if we are careless)

So with all members of the family earning, toiling ourselves at work 9 hrs and another 3 hrs in traveling to and fro from office, six days a week, what are we supposed to do? Show enough expenditure so that we wont be taxed and then? hoard it! For what? arre buy gold, its an asset..at the time of the marriage of your daughter (wow someone could predict the gender of an unconceived child?) Or buy a house for your son (now its the incapability of the unborn that’s been predicted!)

That one day of union. For that one day parents spend their lifetime. Emotions have no place, joyousness have no place..but pompousness sure does have place. Entire life your aim is for that one day and in turn you pass on this concept of ‘non-enjoyment’ and ‘hardwork for child’s marriage’ to your children too.

The fun in the drama comes while shifting your gaze from the middle class to a higher class there optionally you find the same rules existing with perhaps one exception “your grand children’s marriage”.

There are a few who do seem to celebrate. How? Diwali – crackers i was spell bound when i heard the boy’s pg next door must have spent approximately (10,000 Rs for crackers! if not more) Dassehra – clothes with prices and stuffs in it that indicate – gold has been sewed to it. some of them flashy enough to look like multi-colored diamonds. treat for the eyes and ears they seem to be! Taste buds – Oh boxes in kilos of the same sweet or taste alike sweets made in pure ghee! Trust me – I hog on sweets and if you ask the difference between one sweet from another i need to give my brains some work-  most of them have the base of milk, sugar and ghee in abundance.

They (my friends) say India – is loud – ofcourse I often have to close my ears be it the crackers, the horns (they blare off as if saying hello to all the fellow vehicles on the roads – constant greetings i should say!) or even if its one man communicating to the other standing a little across the road! Some even think their voice travel the same way over mobiles..the farther the distance the louder you shout!

They (say India) is the land of spices – Yeah we export the best of them and gratigy ourselves with the trash that remains. After all eating is about filling your tummy! (Gee am i glad that atleast we have the trash of the spices we hold back!)

They (say India) is a land of colors – Yeah I saw all sorts of colors in the sky the diwali night! And the mere hearsay information of how much they would have amounted upto brought colors to my cheeks! and yeah one color to the sky after they were done – grey (that’s a color too!)

I realize this country of mine is rich with the natural blessings, abundant with the treats for all senses but binds its people with chains that never let them enjoy the treasures it has in store. Or should I blame the blindness of the current generation. People who have this great door to education, to outer world and yet close themselves behind the age old traditions of hoarding. Ah! speak of adhering to tradition we have them in abundance too but one is chosy enough to pick the worse ones! The good ones have faded off long before.

I dont say you ought not think of your son/daughter. But I wish more than the rush of accumulating wealth for their 20’s..and in the due process live by our lives and neglect their..if only we enjoyed life enough to give them a piece of the world outside,,to treat them with tastes from world over..guide them with the right books from authors across the globe and help them grow a better human being!.

Err..lemme wind up..I guess we have a baptism to attend and we as the close relatives need to gift the child ‘gold bangles’ lemme go withdraw my half month’s salary for  that!

Melting Desserts

After a very late dinner we walked up to an ice cream parlor. An odd place to visit in the middle of the night, had it not been for sleepless Mumbai! And mind you we did have company there whenever you feel you’re doing something odd there is nothing when compared to the pleasure of finding a company. But I should say our pleasure was topped with a greater degree of surprise when we saw who our company in the lonely shop at the middle of the night was..

 

 

There were three of them the eldest being not a tad more than 12 years and the youngest just 5 or lesser than that and I should say the age would be of lesser concern. The major concern was that they were one among the number of beggars that flood the streets in India. They had begged in the morning for a piece of bread to sustain their lives and here they were in the middle of the night to have a sumptous dessert. Do we not throw them coins of charity? be it coz of the prick of conscience they so efficiently evoke by a dirt soaked body and tear soaked cheek or be it just the haste to drive them away whilst you can romance uninterrupted. Well I know not whether they had their share of a meal that day, but I knew they had come for their share of a dessert. We had settled down for just a single scoop each not without commenting how we ought to cut down our unwanted expenses. However the tiny tots did not seem so wary and I half expected them to be. They had chosen 2 different scoops each and were picking other packed choco bars. And as I fumbled through my bag for the fifty bucks our scoops had cost us I heard her “chutta hoga 5 sou ke liye?” not sure whether I heard it right I looked at her palms outstretched with a real 500 Rs note!. Well why do I want anyone to pinch me to make sure I’m not dreaming? It could’ve been their earning (through begging) for the day, not forgetting that it ought to be 50% more than the average workers salary, or it could’ve been that they just stole it!! Whichever the course – it could not have been a promising one for the growing buds of the nation!

I would have smiled or even been happy for them for the whale of time these tots were having at the ice cream shop if only the picture of their future melting faster than any ice-creams was so vivid. The picture is clear – professional beggars or lambs for the greater professionals who would amputee their arms or legs and place them in the middle of any crowd. Yeah they no doubt would achieve immense expertise in tickling a pain in our hearts and make us throw a coin. I had a friend of mine from Poland visit India last year, India he agreed was one of the best places he had visited. He was an avid traveler who can boast of having covered almost 100 countries by now. I asked him why he didn’t bring his wife along and the answer really shocked me. She had fallen ill last time she visited India seeing the beggars and their plights on the street that she resolved never to visit India ever again. . I could say nothing but hope with all my heart that never in their lightest jokes would they have ever given India a sobriquet of – the land of beggars,,,or for that matter never do so. Not that I pretend to be queen Elizabeth and ask “not even a piece of cake?” I wish begging only would no longer be considered as an art in our country and the growing buds not be crushed and denied of a spring wherein they deserve to bloom.

I reminisce the dream of a beautiful India that was instilled in me as each morning I was to pledge that I’m proud of It’s rich and cultural heritage. Now I’m puzzled, if today becomes tomorrow’s heritage will there be anything left to be proud of? Since the laws the state has made against begging are only pieces to adorn the law books, will there be any innocent hearts to take pride whilst a large chunk will be flocking in the streets for alms.!!!! If we can realize that child labor is a crime.. it’s high time we realized that child begging is a greater shame.!!