Soliloquies of a Poor Man

Both ends hardly meet everyday. My salary just vanishes into thin air by the time, the date on the calender reaches 5 every month. From then on, life is a struggle. There begins a long wait for the first day of next month. The only solace is, I have three credit cards offered by the new generation banks. They allow me to spend as much as I can. They are from the modern age, and so, they are generous. They may have so many hidden agendas while apparantly keeping me in good humour. Many times, I end up paying a few thousands as interest to these banks each month. Their interest rates are a whopping 36% per annum. Look, how keen they are to serve me! 

I was born to a businessman father. My mom says there was a silver spoon in my mouth when I came to this world. The spoon really wreck havok in her womb and hence, it took a Ceasarian dissection to force me out from there.  As everybody knows, my father's business too was  running in 'loss'. He had struggled a lot to bring up his five children. He had sent us to the best schools in the town. I mean, the most expensive schools run by various religious and caste groups. A religious symbol invariably welcomed us to the schools everyday. From then on, we ate religion, we drank religion, we breathed religion. All that we learnt  was that only our religion is the best and others' are nonsense. Believers of other religions and Gods can never reach heaven. They need to be hated and if possible decimated. Anyway, since I was born with a chicken heart, I could not think of hurting any one.

My father never took us to Europe or Singapore for vcations. He allowed us only twice in a month to order pizzas from Dominos or Pizza Hut. We just had only a laptop and a desk top. He never bought us a play station or an  ipad. The horror of horrors was that he never allowed us to have an account on Face Book. He always egged on us to go out and play. He always told us the most boring stories of his childhood. Those boring oft repeated stories about grandma's fish curry, football, 'kuttiyum kolum', 'kallanum policum' and hide and seek. So boring. First of all he never shows a place to play. Every inch of the place where he lived his childhood is now converted into houses. No open place to play. My father lived in his nostalgia. We, the kids lived in our on world of Ben 10, Doremon and the silly car race games.

 

Thanks to so much of coaching classes and a big hole in father's pocket, I secured a seat in a professional college. Somehow, I got out of it with not so flying colours. That was not in my agenda, after all. But the degree certificate was enough for me. When I came out of the college - no wonder, no body took me in the campus interviews- I saw a big bandwagon passing by. I saw so many like me jumping on to it. I too did not miss it. The bandwagon straight away took me to a big glass decorated building. Inside, I was given a rotating chair and a personal computer with internet connection. I was given some training to do my job. I was sent to Singapore, Frankfurt and Tokyo to receive training. Above all these, I was given a hefty salary too. A salary I could never imagine. Like that I turned a techie. I don't know why I was called  techie. What I dealt with was neither Information nor Technology!

 

I never looked back from there anyway. I was promoted to the Lead and then I felt my salary was not enough. I found there are so many avenues outside. I just crossed one of them. The remuneration jumped to a new high. This process continued or rather I should say, is continuing. Meanwhile I booked a villa at the outskirts of the city. It costed me around 1.5Crore. I had to take a loan for a hefty amount. Now I have to pay to the new generation bank around 30% of my salary towards repayment of the loan. Neverthless, it is the price I pay for my dream home. It has everything that a human being can have.

A high end sedan is parked at the car porch. Looking from the balcony of my house, I can get the full view of the beautiful lake. I sit in the swing in the middle of the garden and sip away a cup of hot chai accompanied by the news apearing in my ipad. This is the time I used to curse our politicians and the democratic system in our country. I also wonder loudly about when we will have military rule in our country. Like in our neighbouring country Pakistan, our military too must lead our country to prosperity. Under army rule they could aquire self suffiency in many products. They started exporting such products to many countries, most of them to India. All that came to India have ISI mark on them.

While looking at my palatial villa and the sedan parked there, I feel a sense of accomplishment. I am sure, there are a lot more to conquer. But this is certainly not a reason for the God not to grant me 'Moksha' this time. Still, before 'Moksha', I must see a Rolls Royce car parked in front of another opulant bungalow that I will construct in future. By any yardsticks, our social status is measured with what we possess. To boost my social standing, I must have a plush villa, a luxury car and high end gargets in hands. People may not respect me if I have none of them.

 

Back to the statistics. Another 20% of the salary goes to Mutual funds, Stock Market and new generation insurance schemes.  20% goes to buy 'essential commodities', elctricty charges, maintenance charges and for outings with family. 30% is gone to Income tax. The slaried ones in our country are always destined to pay taxes- every time through his/her nose. I wish I were a businessman like my father who never paid a single paisa as tax. How could he pay tax for a loss making business?! 

Now, I hope all of you are convinced about how my purse turns empty by the 5th of every month. Huge amounts are still needed to go on domestic and international luxury holiday trips  along with family every year. Another big cheque must be signed to maintain the club membership. I lead a miserable life indeed. In between all these tensions, I get a lot of phone calls from the charity organisations. My kind heart always bleeds for the poor and disadvantaged in the society. But, where is money to pay them? So, I never attend any phone calls from these organisations. Believe me, I, at times, light candles as a gesture of sympathy to the poor. The only phone calls I attend are the ones from my fund managers 

After 40 long years of research, I discovered that friendship is a colossal waste of time. Relationships are loss making bonds. So, one shall never  invest a single minute of time or paisa for friends and relatives.  I always like to go by the famous quote : "Familarity breeds contempt". My world has just an area of 2400 square feet and the inhabitants of this world are my wife, my kid and me. This is an island and I do not want to be bothered by others. Look, I am a poor man.