The Race for the Greenback!!!

When I was a newborn, my parents used to take care of all my needs. I didn't really know at that point of time what I needed but parents were the best judge. As I grew older my demands started increasing. Sometimes my demands were such that my parents were not willing to fulfill. no more chocolates, no new bicycle, no more playing in the sun and so on. I had to adapt to the situation and act accordingly. Usually a little wailing and throwing tantrums used to do the trick in those days.

In most cases my parents used to relent. My dad would take me to the market and get me whatever I wanted just to keep me quiet, even though for a while only. Then I started seeing the transactions happening. I wanted something, so I fought for it and shifted the status quo a bit. Seeing the status quo shifting, my parents acted to restore the balance. But restoring the balance comes at some cost. I saw my dad giving some little pieces of green paper to the shopowner in return for my chocolate. At first I wondered, is the shopowner crazy?? Why is he giving up chocolate just for some green paper. Clearly he didn't realize the value of a bar of chocolate. Then I started realizing that for everything I wanted from the market - bicycle, toys, ice creams... - people used to ask for this green stuff they called money. My curiosity aroused, I started following this green stuff. I saw that most of the times people were happy carrying around this green stuff in their pockets. So I concluded that it's probably gives you a fun feeling to carry around this stuff in your pocket. Maybe it's more fun than even eating a chocolate!!! But I was denied this pleasure by my parents at that time, no matter how much I wailed. That made me want this green stuff even more. I even tried to make some of this green paper using my color pencils and drawing book. I kept it in my pocket for some days but didn't feel anything. No fun at all. I thought maybe it gives fun only when you carry around the real thing.

Couple of years later, when I was old enough to go to school on my own, my parents gave me my first greenback. I was so thrilled that day. I thought now I would know what all the fuss is about. My parents said the money was to be used to buy some food from the school canteen, in case I felt hungry. Well, that day I did feel hungry in school but the green stuff had become too important for me to give up just for some food. I was still waiting for the pleasure which people seemed to get by keeping it in their pockets. Couple of days passed, nothing happened. On the third day, I felt really hungry in school. I thought what the hell, maybe I'll feel the fun some other day. I went to the school canteen, and there I saw it. My favourite chocolate! I had the green stuff with me, I didn't need my dad now to get me the chocolate. I didn't think twice and gave up the green stuff for the chocolate. It felt so good. I had got my first chocolate without the help of my parents. I had become a "big boy". Then it struck me "Ah!! so people keep this green stuff in their pocket so that they may get whatever they want, whenever they want by using it." That, my friends, was one of the greatest self taught learnings I have ever had.

From that day onwards I have had it clear in my head, I want more of this green stuff. So I took whatever direction it was considered socially acceptable to get more money. When I finished school, people said do engineering from a good college, would ensure you a good career and financial stability in the future. So I did that. After engineering, my first job was a decent one, the money was not much by my today's standards but satisfied all my needs at that time. After some time I decided, I need much more money than this. So MBA was the next step. After my MBA I thought that I have got what i wanted. A job that paid good money, an amount of money with which I thought I could live happily. But soon this notion was disproved. I saw people around me earning more money. I started looking for further avenues of increasing my paycheque. I had a comfortable life and the money I was making was sufficient to sustain it. But still I wanted a job that earned me more money. I wanted to earn more money for ..........well.......... just for the sake of earning more money. Of course I had fantasies of owning a big villa in the south of France, and a yacht and all the stuff people buy with big money, but I knew it for a fact that I could still do without them.

Earning more and more money has just become a social status symbol for most of us and nothing else. We spend more time trying to earn more money than we spend to enjoy it. Sometimes I feel what is the point of earning more, if the process of earning itself denies me the time to enjoy what I have earned.

Well this doesn't mean that I am out of the race for the greenback, am still in it full throttle. But still trying to figure out why am I doing what I am doing.

P.S. Just a thought. Don't take it seriously. Am not the one to renounce everything and head towards the jungle. Or... am I?? ;)

...... And the Pack disintegrates!!

I have had some real good friends. Friends whom I did not have to care about, friends whom I could even forget to wish on their birthdays but they'd still remain the best of my friends. I could just call them at anytime for anything and they were there for me, and I was there for them. We were a pack, moving and "hunting" together also fighting, but still relying on each other. The bonds forged during the formative years in college hostel had stood all the tests of time and distance. It seemed that these bonds would last forever.

But if they can get noble gases to make compounds (there I go geeky again!!), surely God has created ways of breaking these strong bonds too. Slowly and slowly my friends started getting hitched, was still tolerable when they had only girlfriends. But problem really started when girlfriends became fiancees. Now whenever I call them, their phone is busy. Whenever I want to meet them for a beer, they already have "plans". I can't even be sure who am I talking to when I ping them on FB or Gtalk now (Man!! talk about handing over your life, literally).

Still I did not lose hope. I still try to be a part of their new found happiness. But are the committed guys really being part of each other's happiness. At a wedding of one of the friends, I thought the whole pack would come together and we'd relive our glory days. However as destiny would have it, one other guy had to give his engagement party the same day and the others, even though they were at the wedding, were busy exchanging sweet nothings with their better halves on phone. That's when I realized, the inevitable is finally happening. The Pack is disintegrating.

This marriage thing is spreading pretty fast in my age group, and it's changing much more than just the marital status of people. But I am still holding my ground. I am still the Lone Ranger, The last of the Mohicans, The last man standing (ok, that was a bit too melodramatic). Undoubtedly, the pressure from parents for marriage is becoming unbearable. Everytime I call them up, the topic of marriage is inevitably raised. Parents are like "Get married son, you're already pushing 30". And I'm like "Mom, 30 is the new 20". One time I bet my mom that she couldn't have a single conversation with me without raising the topic of marriage. Well she did accept the challenge. But my mom is too cute. The next day she asks me "How would a "person" with such and such education and working in so and so company be like?". I mean could they be more blatant than that?

Thankfully for me, my parents criteria are stringent enough, so that very few prospectives get filtered down to me. So still holding high the flag of bachelorhood, and hope I continue to do that till my next post too. Adios!!

PS: This blog post is written in jest. Hope none of my friends' better halves mind it. Please note, I don't give a damn whether my friends mind it or not. ;)

Losing Is Fun!!!

Sure losing can be fun. Why not? You'd love to lose to a kid just to see a smile on their face (trust me there are losers like that) or to an attractive person of the opposite sex, just to score with him/her (Please note I am trying to be gender neutral here. Ya, you got it right, "trying").

But that's not what I am talking about here. I am talking about losing against your wishes, making a stupid stupid fool out of yourself, something that breaks your heart and makes you want to jump off a cliff!! Ya, that's what I am talking about here. No one wants to be in such a situation right. But let me try to change the way you look at it. I'll recount two instances - one in which losing completely ruined my day and one in which it made my day. As it happens both the scenarios are set in out of town vacations.

As a kid, I often used to go out with my parents on touristy vacations. Used to be fun going out with parents in those days, you don't have to be responsible for anything. Your parents are there to cover for you. But on one such occasion, I was given the responsibility to take care of my mum's purse while she paid tribute at some shrine (don't laugh, I was a kid back then and looked cute with a purse). As you've probably guessed by now, I managed to somehow lose it. I don't really remember how, maybe some tout managed to get it off my hands while I was appreciating the future potential of a kid of the opposite sex (notice the gender neutrality again).

Of course my parents were angry with me when they realized it, but tried not to show it. In any case I felt really stupid and dejected and angry at my carelessness. Losing my mom's purse had completely ruined that vacation for me.

Now take another scenario. Recently me and my buddies took a trip to the ultimate Indian bachelor party destination, Goa. We were all meeting after many years and it promised to be a gala time. We reached our hotel, pooled our money in one wallet, handed it over to the most "responsible" person in the group and headed for the beach. And as fate would have it, the "responsible" person was duped by a tout and we lost all our money. For reasons beyond my control, I cannot describe how exactly the tout duped my friend, but it was rather ingenious. And do we mourn our loss? Not at all. We couldn't believe what just happened and how foolish we were not to see through the whole con. We couldn't help laughing at our stupidity. We laughed till tears started running down our cheeks. We laughed for days thinking about it. Losing the money and in such style really made our day. We hadn't hoped of laughing so much on that vacation. We enjoyed it so much so that the person who had lost the wallet also started participating in our merry making. So in a way it was money well spent.

So in a nutshell Losing can be fun too, it's just how you look at it or in the above case how your friends make you enjoy it by laughing mercilessly at you.

It's All About Honey, Money

For those of you who are thinking that I made a grammatical mistake in the title by writing "honey" before "money", you may not be completely wrong. Actually I am confused (come to think of it ain't I always confused??). Do we earn money for keeping self and spouse happy or do we choose our spouse in such a way that is beneficial for our personal balance sheet? This question anyways is not so relevant for the ultra rich, happy with their economic standing people but for the young middle class to not so rich people who want to better their and their progeny's economic prospect.

According to my experience, the answer to the question keeps changing with age and phase of life, may of course differ from person to person as well. In the early stages when you are about to enter the professional world, you have ambition, you have fire in your belly, you are already targetting for the CEO's job, that is the time when you care more about money and not about "flimsy" relationships.

But then, for better or for worse, you fall in love. All your goals, all your ideals go for a toss. Your world turns topsy turvy. All day, all night you think of only the object of your affection. Needless to say, you start showering expensive gifts on your sweetheart. The house you have been planning to buy can wait, but right now you need to make your special one feel special. That's when you put faithful old money in the backseat.

But alas!! As it happens with most surreal relationships these days, you start having fights and the angel suddenly becomes the demon who's looking to burn you in the fire of hell for all eternity. Then you run, you run for your life and a month later seen around the city bars having a gala time and saying "Never...... Never again". Now you and your money are living happily together.

All this while you forget that your biological clock is ticking (yes even men have them, or so do the parents of nubile age boys think). Despite all your attempts, all conversations with your parents end up on the topic of marriage. You finally give in to the pressure and start coping with your parents in the search for a suitable match. But hold on a sec, you are not in love, of course in love with your money, but not with a person. So your criteria for your prospective spouse is someone who has a decent earning potential and wdn't come in between you and the house that you are still planning to buy. Hence at this stage in life it's still all about money, honey.

Now, let's say you got the spouse you desired and you, honey and money have been living happily for a couple of years. You bought the house you had been looking to buy for all these years. But the CEO job still seems to be far away. Your personal life is fine but professionally if you are still ambitious, and your ambition is not being rewarded amply, you become dejected. Happens to most of us. So at this stage you make a compromise and settle with whatever stage you are in your professional life. You learn to start being happy with whatever money you are earning. Everyday you just want to finish off your work by 6 and head home ASAP. So now you have come to the stage of "It's all about Honey, Money". This stage I assume lasts throughout your remaining life unless there's a lot of friction in your personal life.

I haven't really lived through all these stages myself, so most of the stuff is just surmise, but an intelligent and logical one I hope.