I don’t do this a lot, and I’m guessing its maybe because of the financial crisis thingy, but lately I’ve been thinking a lot about money. And the way I see it, you have at least three kinds of rich people in India; though this is probably true all over the world.
1. The illegally rich
As in filthy rich. And I don’t mean that metaphorically. We all know who they are; dirty politicians, the shady guys up in government, the underworld, the over-paid who don’t do their taxes, all the guys who in fact have our money and we don’t do anything about because in a way, we almost expect politicans to be corrupt.
2. The legally rich
These guys are real rich too – except that they get their dough through legal means (which unfortunately includes movie stars, but then that is legal), pay their taxes and sometimes even set up institutes of social welfare. This is a minority; but hey, as long as they have money and know what to do with it, I don’t really mind.
3. The pseudo-rich
This is the part that bothers me. And this is also where most okay-to-do families in our traditional society fit in, because these people don’t have the money for their extravagant quests but they pretend as if they do.
If you’re still wondering, these are the idiots who spend around a million rupees on a wedding; pathetic losers who spend over 4 million on a stupid 2 bedroom apartment on a marshy swampland at an hour’s drive from the city; and throw away unspeakable amounts into medical school admissions.
Now, this maybe fine if you have the money; but I call these guys idiots because they don’t – and do all this just so they “fit in” with society.
I recently met someone whose family had to come up with a 100 sovereign of gold jewelry for a wedding. (For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term; a sovereign is 8grams, so this works out to nearly a KILO OF GOLD!).
I mean come on, who does she think she is; Paris Hilton?
And why does this happen? Because people believe in the equally brainless justification of it:
“That’s how marriages are arranged, you need that much gold”
I simply believe they are idiots.
After all, when you think about it - you can’t really have a need to spend money you don’t have.
Its time to start rethinking all this.
And the current financial crisis is the perfect place to start.
Labels: Lifestyle, Philosophy, Society
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13 comments:
i will never let my parents give out a dowry to get me married.. - it is so sick! they want the most precious thing my parents had - me and then they want to leave them without any money too . If that be the case I prefer adopting a girl child and taking care of my parents all my life than to marry a loser..
Yeah, spending money on marriages is very bad thing prevailing in our society.. I would never marry in that way..
I see you are a good observer of the world.. It's a pleasure reading your blog.. Keep it up :
@thepinkorchid
Wish more ppl think like that. I recently spoke to another guy where the girl's parents WANTED to give dowry because otherwise it would be an insult to them!!
This is again, another one of the "fit-in-with-society" attempts.
Sad.
@Darshan Chande
Yeah...its almost as if you SHOULDN'T have an inexpensive wedding in our society; really makes me mad.
And thx!
:)
good one bro ...
the phrase is apt "fit in Society" !!
It has become a matter of prestige. I have seen people (even groom side) borrow money at high interests just for the heck of extravagant wedding.
I guess "fit in society" phenomena also fits in to non-monetary social curses like, lesser preference given to remarry widows/divorcees (particularily women)/aged-bride (for they are still sometimes looked as unlucky - Dhosham and better avoid them from any happy moments). despite every body feels it to be wrong, they avoid them, just for the heck of "fit into society"
@ rahman.. one more gr8 post [U know i changed it .. he he] & rapta to people who jus live for show off...
@ pink... that was coolest line i ever read from a girl ["they want the most precious thing my parents had - me and then they want to leave them without any money too "]
@rahman...nice post....but when everything is said/written only the anger and frustration remains..... our society is an success when it comes to making people lose their self-respect and individuality... when everywhere around the world people long to be different, only in our country people are afraid to be different...ellam kali only!
@Pink Orchid....that was an amazing reply...keep up the attitude! don't let people dilute u!
@Rayees
Yeah...I guess the bigger problem is not of money; its of the "fit in" attitude ppl have. And like Ela said, we strive to be the same, afraid to be different.
@sheeru
Thx dude...(yes I did notice the previous one ^_^)
Sad thing is that no one seems to mind this; its almost as if "that's the way it should be"
@ela
As member of the most powerful generation of Indians to walk the planet, I guess it is up to us to change this...writing/blogging about it is the first step: creating awareness.
The next step is being models for other ppl to see - a friend of mine did this at his wedding. But like you said, I guess the biggest problem is that we are afraid to be different.
yeh, true. India is turning into a land of pseudo-rich people.We have a repeated tendency to fall into state of hypocrisy, and thereby ,ostentation. I guess there are some conflicting but logically valid principles, the unclarity in the application of which causes this problem in our Indian culture.
We drift away very easliy from some truths very evidently but do it on some amazingly 'valid' line of thinking.problem, i think, is about our ablity to judge the applicability of the logic.
@Mannu
The basic problem with the traditional indian society is that ALL is based on what others think of you...
I guess everything stems from this basic issue
there is another type as well :P
the ones who have a decent amount of money, but tend to live life in the simplest ways :)
i dont know what they are called :P, you can name them :D
@Shimmer
I think they are the smallest minority...and its difficult; I know some people like that, and even though they try to live simple, sometimes their level of thinking is so high up that they end up with what we call luxurious.
But really rich yet simple people have other responsibilities too dont you think?
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