Pritpal Kaur
The middle aged gentleman who fulfils my carpentry needs from time to time is more like a wise friend than a service provider. I address him with an 'aap' and often find it difficult for him to accept his fee for his occasional small visits for a faltering drawer or a handle that has come off. Often he checks the faulty article, gives me an estimate, buys the required article himself and fixes it. His aesthetic sensibilities are so in line with mine that I told him to do my apartment with only one briefing about the colours I wanted.
Later I ordered the furniture in accordance with the work done by him. And today as I am living in the house has done by him. My friends who visit me compliment me on house's décor and colour choices as well as quality of work.
But in spite of all these qualities this gentleman finds it difficult to work with a lot many people. They haggle at the prices even after fixing everything beforehand. He complains that this attitude makes him feel sick. His observation is that at the end of the day he has to clear his accounts in the God's bank of karma. People who do not trust him make him feel Godless, which is not acceptable to him. I totally agree with him.
Recently I came to know about the agricultural land he owns. The amount is something that city dwellers may feel completely jealous of. And since this land is not too far from the Delhi U.P. border its net value is somewhere nears a few crores of rupees.
I mentioned this to a family member of mine. And the immediate response was, “Oh My God, I must respect this man. He is so rich.”
The body language and the facial expressions accompanied with this outburst were astonishing. And more astonishing was the attitude after this episode towards my carpenter friend.
What sent me thinking was the naked fact that why the same man who was worthy of all the respect which was bestowed upon him now, was deprived of it earlier. Why do we still connect the respectability with the possession of money one owns than the character one has built over the years?
The other day I am sitting at our journalists’ adda. The television news is on. Bihar is going for assembly elections. For Indian media elections are big event and Bihar is the most glamorous state in terms of elections and its paraphernalia.
Lalu comes on screen and the immediate reaction of my Bihari friend sitting at the same table enjoying her lunch is, “itana paisa koot liya hai andar, ab kaahe election larhne chala hai.”
(He has made huge amount of money, why is he again in the fray?)
Her outburst sends me back about a week to a restaurant dinner I was having with another friend and his family. All he talked was about people he knows and the amount of money they make out of their different professions.
I am amused and perplexed at the same time. As we say we are a progressive society. We are economically generating bigger and bigger middle class with every passing year. With the same velocity we are heading towards a bigger chunk of our society getting into rich or in better words neo-rich brackets.
And there are a large number of people in neo rich bracket that everyone wants to be in. but those who somehow cannot make it are the ones who are jealous and openly express their jealousy in many ways.
Be it the journalist friend who is cross with Lalu for being in the fray or my relative who counts the number of employees of another relative's law firm, makes an estimate of their mean salary, then based on the amount further calculates his annual turnover and declares that “the man ‘ is really awesome. Because he is very rich.
I have been trying to learn the ropes of social hierarchy since my childhood. My father taught me to respect people who are older in age to you. But then there are some people whose behaviour makes you feel sick and you do not feel like respecting them at all. But how can you not respect your father’s views?
Then as you grow older and you interact with other people in the society you are told rich people are to be respected no matter what. You encounter the nasty way some people treat those who according to them are not rich. Riches for them have different concoctions for different people. A person who had belonged to a middle class would consider someone owning some land to be rich. Someone who had been at the lower rung may find someone who owns a bungalow to be a rich man or someone who owns a large apartment for that matter.
What about a person who possess integrity of character, a sensible personality, fair means of livelihood but not an abundance of money to show around? Does that person not deserve respect? Is respectability only proportional to big houses and big cars? Foreign holidays and designer clothes and jewellery? Answer is obvious but still a wealthy man finds his way easier than a man with meagre income would find in this maze called our society.
