What keeps them ticking ?
I go for long walks in the morning here at Jaipur. I leave my house before 5 am and pass through some of the idyllic areas before moving on to pink city. Some trucks and tractors playing loud music ply in the government office areas. In the pink city, one can spot auto rickshaws and pick up vans plying catering to with people arriving in the city by long distance buses.
There are several small temples where people gather to pray at the break of dawn. There are two or three locations where newspaper vendors are sorting newspapers and handing them over to newspaper boys who would carry them on bicycles to the ultimate customers.
I take a break by ordering a cup of tea at the gate of Sawai Man Singh Hospital popularly known as SMS hospital. This is the largest government hospital in Rajasthan and there are several tea shops open early in the morning near the gate of the hospital.
The tea shops are one room establishment. Each shop has three employees- one person making the tea who I presume would be the owner, one for hailing customers and preventing them from going to the next tea shop and the third one for distributing glasses of tea and washing the used glasses.
Today I ran my eye over the stock of trade of one of the tea shops. There was a LPG cylinder with a stove and couple of large vessels along with two large mugs and couple of kettles for tea making. There was about ten litres of milk in sachets in a plastic crate. The other items in the shop were forty loaves of bread and fifty packets of Parle Glucose biscuits costing six rupees each.
In short the value of stock of trade is will not even amount to one day’s earning of well paid executive in private sector. A glass of tea costs four rupees. Such a set up has to generate revenue to support three people as employees. It does not call for great imagination to make out that the person who hails customers and the guy who distribute glasses of tea would be earning peanuts.
There are large number of people sleeping on pavements in Pink city and around parks and most of the regular ones are in fifties and older. As the day breaks, these people move towards temples for alms.
As a bystander, these scenes make me feel despondent and hopeless. I wonder what keeps these people going about their chores every day.
There are several small temples where people gather to pray at the break of dawn. There are two or three locations where newspaper vendors are sorting newspapers and handing them over to newspaper boys who would carry them on bicycles to the ultimate customers.
I take a break by ordering a cup of tea at the gate of Sawai Man Singh Hospital popularly known as SMS hospital. This is the largest government hospital in Rajasthan and there are several tea shops open early in the morning near the gate of the hospital.
The tea shops are one room establishment. Each shop has three employees- one person making the tea who I presume would be the owner, one for hailing customers and preventing them from going to the next tea shop and the third one for distributing glasses of tea and washing the used glasses.
Today I ran my eye over the stock of trade of one of the tea shops. There was a LPG cylinder with a stove and couple of large vessels along with two large mugs and couple of kettles for tea making. There was about ten litres of milk in sachets in a plastic crate. The other items in the shop were forty loaves of bread and fifty packets of Parle Glucose biscuits costing six rupees each.
In short the value of stock of trade is will not even amount to one day’s earning of well paid executive in private sector. A glass of tea costs four rupees. Such a set up has to generate revenue to support three people as employees. It does not call for great imagination to make out that the person who hails customers and the guy who distribute glasses of tea would be earning peanuts.
There are large number of people sleeping on pavements in Pink city and around parks and most of the regular ones are in fifties and older. As the day breaks, these people move towards temples for alms.
As a bystander, these scenes make me feel despondent and hopeless. I wonder what keeps these people going about their chores every day.
Sometimes I wonder, what keeps us going-- what makes us do the same stuff everyday of the week--do we really enjoy our lives-- the same morning ritual to get ready for another day at work-- the same bus ride to office, the same boring office gossips, long traffic snarls back home-- the domestic squabbles during nights??? What makes us do this? I think most of the executives who enjoy the luxury of a handsome paycheck at the end of every month, live a similar life to those of the chai walas,trying to make ends meet. The sense of Well Being is just a head fake. The more money one earns, the more bills one has got to pay to keep up with the pressures of the living standards of the social strata they belong to. Am currently reading this book "Rich Dad, Poor Dad"". Very interesting-- infact it proves that most people across the globe have a mistaken idea of life & money.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your thought. I have spent my childhood in village. I always look around to see how chi walas and people in similar vocations survive especially when the prices of essential commodities have goen through the roof.
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