Money- Ye Dil Maange More

My maid's husband often comes to borrow some money. Sometimes, I don't exactly feel like giving him money, I just feel he is taking the easy way out. But then, I force myself to stop and think about his life. He works through the day for the corporation and sometimes moonlights as a watchman at night.  For the last twelve years that I have known him, there is little change in his lifestyle. He has borrowed money to educate his children and marry his daughters. And the struggle goes on. There is a good possibility that his children would have done as well as me, if they had had the same opportunities in life. There is an equal chance that I would have been born in a household like his, where money is spent faster than it is earned.


Money, you are damned if you have too much of it and damned if you have too little of it. If you have too much of it, you worry about how to save it, invest it, hide it, launder it and sometimes even distribute it or gift it. If you have too less of it, life is just hell. The difference money can make to people is tangible.

You need money to think, to cherish life, to create beautiful things, even to become better human beings. It is only when you start asking for more and more of it that you lose everything. Look at the plight of the cricketer, Sreesanth. He could have lived a wonderful, successful life, with enough money and a loving family around him. But he wanted more and wanted it quick and easy. If he can look for a shortcut to get more money, why do we blame others less fortunate, who do the same. The autorikshaw driver, the watchman, the policeman, look for extra money they can earn, one way or the other. It is the same greed that brings about major corruption scams at the higher levels of society.

Many educated, well employed, upper middle class Indians get very self righteous about corruption in India, I think it is first important to think about the everyday life of an average Indian who is just above poverty line. How different is the lifestyle of the privileged and the underprivileged in India? Have you done or do you do anything by yourself do bridge this gap?

People think that reforms by the Government can act as a magic wand to put everything straight. But it is ultimately the individual attitude that goes a long way to correct such deep rooted problems like corruption. Think about the amounts paid to the daily labourer or the domestic help or the policmen or traffic constables. I think they need to be paid much more in order to bring about some correction in the distribution of wealth among people in India. So go ahead pay a little more, Rs  20, or Rs 50, as much as you can afford, to the auto driver or to the coolie, atleast once or twice a month. That would bring about some change in their lives.