Great Indian Dreams-I

I was thinking for last few days to write an article about the common people around and their test of humor, which is leading us to this humorous society with mess in everyday life. Let’s start with my city of love, which is getting devastated by huge population, continuous tree cutting and rising cost of living. In the wake of IT boom (!!) we have got sudden raise in incoming IT job aspirant from across the country to this sweet city to get that dream job. They just come and get job and start spending unprecedented way to know that at the end of the years, rent is increased by thousands and break fast and lunch is costing just double!! Apart from this, getting a house for rent is tough enough to kill your ever young age! And those having experience, for 5-10 years or more have gone for mad race for buying flats. And seeing this, our great developer community has come up with high raise congested flats here and there with the price tag of min 40-50 lacs. There are banks which have increased the home loan interest rate by approximately double; which means if you have taken a loan for, say 40 lacs, you will end up paying interest of another 40 lacs(@14% pa). So, with a mediocre flat which actually should cost you 20-25 lacs is now costing you 60-70 lacs!! How much are you happy with this deal, buddy? Did you ever sit and think about the tradeoff of the deal? And we the IT society were just so crazy to buy these flats that by going days the developers started reducing the quality and facilities of the flats and continuously increased the price tag like the imported perfumed sold in big shopping malls! So, we can see malls in construction by prestigious builders getting crushed! Oh God! The level of greed has crossed the psyche of Saitan!

Now why is this? Why are we being victimized in this way? Ask to your self concise and you will get the answer. Please don’t curse the developers or banks alone. If there were no unprecedented demands for such flats there should not be so many constructions going on and if there were no madness among us to buy the flats in this double price, then there should not have such price tag for these low quality flats! It is as simple as you can understand my friend! In reality, we like to curse others for the situation we have created by our own bloody hand!! It’s very simple! So, please justify your spending dear IT friends and those of you in the society have more money. Because, most of us lead a middle class life and can not survive such spending culture and creation of unjustified pricing. This can have serious consequences to our economy as a whole, with a bang of “Financial Meltdown”!!

When I talk about illogical spending spree of IT professional I also like to take note of another habit (bad-habit) of regular IT professionals preferring to eating outside. They prefer to eat outside not because they like that food but they are too lazy or disorganised to cook. I found lots of my friends or their friends converted their kitchen into Junk Room!

Another consequence of IT society is not ignorable. Ya, I wanted to mention about the growing number of students are making there mind to come to this industry for job. They just get relaxed and happy with a mediocre IT job in respect to their great potential in respective field of science, commerce or mathematic. Everybody just wants to start a career in IT. Few most critical factors towards this changing phenomenon are: 1) Family pressure to earn competitive salary and lifestyle 2) Social discrimination based on money status rather than knowledge and educational status 3) Illogical and very low salary structure for these fields.

The dangerous consequences of these attitudes surely lead India into “Knowledge Crisis” in near future. It will not be so far when we need to use windows Find tool to search a student doing his higher studies in prestigious and critical field of science, commerce mathematics, medicals, Bio-Firma. Oh God!

Let’s come back to Bangalore again. It’s named as Garden City of India! When I first came to Bangalore back in 2001, I used to get surprised seeing how people made way for a tree to grow in their premises. Some were so surprising, where we could find trees were allowed to grow by making hole even in their buildings or breaking adjacent walls. Really, it used to touch my heart by pride thinking how responsible and caring the people of Bangalore are. But, when the IT boom is bombarding each corner of Bangalore with huge construction madness, we find people (cruel BBMP etc.) never think twice to cut a tree or hundreds and even thousands!! It pains me and I feel shattered each time with shame and pain in my heart and say “Oh God save us!”

And did anybody ever thought about the illogical price rise in BMTC tickets! Minimum fare is increased from 2 to 5 Rs. and price tag of a daily pass is increased by just double! As an IT/ITES/BPO professional you may not be feeling the heat because of high value salary slip or your big MNC provides comfortable pick-up and drop in luxuries vehicle. What about the common man (Common middle class population and lower middle class people who are the main travelers on these buses)? I would like to ask to the BMTC authorities: “Sir, do you think these fares are in any way been increased keeping in mind about the common man?” My wife keep asking me this question! Oh! God…save us!

I am ending this article by telling you a story or you can say a realization. I was in a trip to Malpe, near Mangalore. Malpe is a island and we were figuring out whether we can get certain item out there or not. We came to know that we will get those things there but will be costing just double of the regular price. I felt very happy that we will get the things out there and it will only cost 30-35 Rs. (without thinking once also that it will cost just double!!). One of my friend, Narayana, told me, “Samir, did you ever noticed that you are going to spend just double of the actual price?”

I was ashamed and said to myself: “Oh! God! Help myself!”

My intension for writing this series of articles is not to blame anybody, but ourselves. My intension was to make us understand that as a representative part of Indian society we should be more responsible in our daily terms to realize the great Indian dream! And at last I want to leave you all with an amazing quote of Karl Marx(which I have receive as FWD mail from my friends)written way back in 1867, which will inspire my Great Indian Dreams-II and keep you all busy for few minutes:

"Owners of capital will stimulate the working class to buy more and more of expensive goods, houses and technology, pushing them to take more and more expensive credits, until their debt becomes unbearable. The unpaid debt will lead to bankruptcy of banks, which will have to be nationalized, and the State will have to take the road which will eventually lead to communism"

-- Karl Marx, Das Kapital, 1867