Dec 12, 2010

Struggle of life or Struggle for life?

I dropped N and Chinni to Dharwar and returned to Bangalore last month. My bus reached at 5 am, a bit early than the normal arrival. Thought I would get some time to sleep before going to office.

The only option was to take an auto to home, so asked one autowala if he can drop me to my home. Unfortunately, in Bangalore, it's the auto driver's option to drive to a location, commuters just keep pleading and waiting for the right auto. So, this autowala agreed but said he would charge Rs 80/-, which is 2 times  more than the normal fare. I tried to bargain, but in vain. So agreed and headed to my home. My home was just around 500mts - 700mts far from the location I had told the driver. Upon dropping me, I handed over a 100 rupee note and the driver promptly denied to return Rs 20, only because he had to come 500m far from the spot I had mentioned. At 5.30 am, I had to argue and fight with him to give me back Rs 20. Finally, after heated arguments, the auto driver just left the spot ignoring me. I stood there helplessly for 2 minutes, thinking what to do. I was upset for the whole day and could not concentrate on my work and it all happened because of Rs 20.

After a couple of weeks, I had to been to Dharwar again to get N and Chinni back to Bangalore. Again we travelled by bus and reached our destination around 6 am. Again, didn't have any other option than auto. to reach home The auto driver again asked Rs 80 and I agreed upon without trying to bargain. Upon reaching home, I handed over Rs 100 note and told the auto driver to keep the remaining amount. The auto driver smiled and finally before leaving, he asked to verify I had left any luggage in auto.

I could not judge who is right and who is wrong after these incidents. I can give Rs 20 extra, but I can't afford to give each and everybody to make them happy. I am struggling to survive with my own earnings.

Now thinking in autowala's perspective, if I am struggling to survive with my earnings, definitely autowala would also be struggling for life with his earnings, since his earnings might be less than me. It would be hard to imagine his situation and circumstances of life. If fighting for Rs 20 with autowala can spoil my whole day, autowalas are spoiling their whole life fighting with several customer every day for the same Rs 20.

Last week, I completed impact analysis and estimation on couple of change requests that came in from my client in office. After the estimations where submitted, client scheduled a call to discuss the estimates. Even after explaining thoroughly why it would take so many days to complete the task, the clients disagreed and we had to come to a common platform by reducing the estimates. 

I could relate the client with autowala at that moment and was laughing within myself., difference being autowala argue for livelihood and clients argue to save & earn more money. The question that arises is - what is the purpose of life ? It has merely reduced to earning money. There is no more healthy competition, in fact there is no competition at all, all that has remained is just fight.

Farmers burn their blood and grow grains, vegetables, fruits etc. What do they get is very pity money to survive. But what to financial institutions do ? they hedge upon the same commodities, create futures, options and other derivatives and earn millions of money. They survive, not only survive but also live a king size life because they don't grow!!!

What I want to say is life's goal has simply reduced to "Earn Money". I really don't find any other motive of life. Ending this blog abruptly without any conclusion. Wish I had the powers to change this motive of human beings and work towards meaningful life of mankind.

1 comment:

Prasad said...

wow!it's a wonderful expression of analysing about life keep writing more stuff.