Monday, December 3, 2012

Soliloques of a poor man - 2

When will I become a Vice President? No hope in the vicinity, if the things are set to progress this way. Forget about a VP, even to bacome a manager looks to be a tough nut to crack. How thrilling it is to go around the work place, shout at everyone I come across, make draconian rules that affect the workers and staff, cut or reduce various allowances of the work force...all is possible only if I am a boss!

I am afraid, I must invoke the famous adage to achieve my goal- behind every success there are crimes. I must push down many a competitor and pull some others' legs to come up the ladder. How many more times I must pretend in front of the boss that I am more sincere than others in the set up? How many more strings I may have to pull? It is a tight rope walk, but I am a past master in this trade. Sometimes it is just  not enough to do hard work to conquer heights. Fingers crossed, I am hatching some plots to coronate myself at the helm.

Meanwhile one more feather is added to my already crowded hat. The sprawling villa in the suburb now has a swimming pool. What more I should add? A helipad on the roof top? That is asking for more. That is not justified.  Just a few kilometers away there is a big airport. That will serve my travel needs.Man must identify his needs and seek for it. I shall settle with the nearby international airport for the time being

On one of the sun shades of my villa, a dove family lives. I am an ardent observer of this family. The mother dove before laying the eggs collected a number of twigs from all over the vicinity. For her, building a house was a necessity not simply a status statement or a fancy. It is a part of fulfilling a biological process. She does not need a civil enigneer or the town's best architect to design her house. With that humble beak she made a beautiful home. It is just not a beautiful abode but a perfet one too. It is God's own creation, in tune with His will. He directly oversaw this perfect 'villa'. Still, I am not ready to admit that this is in anyway stands equal to my multi million livng place. Human beings have their own way. We no longer leave everything to the Almighty.

The dove laid her eggs in the nest. Another perfect product right from the heaven. A few flawless white oval shapped little things. The prospective mother stood guard to those eggs and finally found them come to life. She happily reared her children with all motherly duties warranted in this process.

Many big trees around my simple run down village home were home to a number of sparrows. Their nests were amazing peices of artwork. These nests are made to hang from the branches of the trees. We in our childhood days used to wonder how a tiny bird like a sparrow could weave a nest with such simple materials like strands and leaves of trees. These marvellous pieces of nature's work always stood as a mystery in our minds. Styling the hair like "Kuruvikkoodu", many men made their fashion statements. Eeven the handsome film stars sported one of its kind those days.

"Kuruvikkoodu" ( the sparrow nest) may still be hanging from the branches of trees, but our children do not have time to look at them. I do not want my kid waste his time going after such silly things. Children have much more serious things to do. Science, Maths and Social Studies. They have to gobble up the essence of all these modern day job-fetching tablets. This is the only way to know 'Gandhi' so closely.

 We did steal a few of such nests once in a while to have a close look at them. Many times, guys climbed headless cocunut trees to pick nestlings from the mynah's abode. Woodpecker makes holes in the dead trunks of the coconut trees that turn into homes for mynahs. We called them "madatha". Madathas were tiny cure birds that always made the childhood so pleasant. They lay eggs in these holes and the little ones live there. We pick them from the holes and keep in small cages. We feed them with grasshoppers and grains. Many times, these little birds could not survive our hospitality. They died young. Still, some of them survived. These mynahs entertained us, spoke a few words and it remained with us for long till a dog or a cat finished their story. That is an old story. Not worth remembering now. Being a prisoner of the past will no way fetch any economic benefits.

 
 The dove family lived there very happily. The mother flew out and in several times in a day. She took care of the little birds with all motherly duties. Remember, she had never kept a big saving for her post 'delivery' treatment. She never had a huge bank balance to bring up her children. I look at the nest with envy. She turned an insignificant part of my home a heaven. My airconditioned rooms and the luxurious interiors looked so silly for a monent, did I feel so? She looked to have a relaxed approach to life. I often felt her telling me that being happy with whatever you have is more important than nurturing a craving for more and more. There is no meaning in conquering all that you wish. But I won't heed her advices. What does she know about life? I have to maintain a huge bank balance. A medical seat costs upto one crore now. What will be the cost when my kid is at it? Its a thing over which I must be losing my sleep. He can't sing cinema songs. He can't play cricket.

People say a lot about inflation, consumer price index and gross domestic prodcut. What difference it makes to me? I don't even read a news article on any of these subjects. But of course, I mind RBI's reverse repo rate. It affects my loan amount, term deposits' interest rates and a lot of stakes at the stock markets. My heart beats only in tune with the stock market index.

Recently on one of my international fligts I happen to see an article on Banglaideshi weavers. The story about hardships the helpless wokers of the cloth factories in that country suffer, was a heart ache to read. Many of the men and women workers in the cloth factories get hardly 50USD per month as wage. This is not even as much as the price of a tee-shirt or a trouser they make. Such people are also living in this world, sweating it out right in the middle of a race for survival. I only hope they don't aspire to become VPs. Look, I don't like competition

There are a number of catchy advertisements in the Khaleej Times newspaper. The Dubai based daily weighs one kilogram many days. It has two full pages for news from India. The other day the daily had dedicated one full page to Kejriwal. The advertisement columns have plenty of advertisements about residential villas and plots on sale in Dubai. In the Palm Jumairah, one square foot of the plot costs between AED 650 and 1500 (hidden cost extra). This is equvalent to Indian Rupees 9600 to 22000. A 1000 sqft plot may cost me something between 96,00,000 and 2,20,00,000 Rupees. I am a poor man. Can't afford to own even a 1000 square feet of this vast earth!




 
 
 

Popular Posts