Saturday, April 30, 2011

In search of the perfect status

From the moment that you are born you are taught to dream big....you are told to strive to get into the best colleges, to get the most well paid jobs. If you don't...well then something is wrong with you. If you are happy with a job with a level of job satisfaction instead of a job with really big bucks...."Are you insane?"

Job satisfaction, as my very practical and pragmatic mom says, won't get you 3 pedigree dogs, an SUV and big house to accommodate all of this (she attacked me from my perspective you see).

True.

When I travel in the crowded local trains and see people, daily passengers, traveling by such trains day after day I am filled with a sense of desperation. I don't want to be one of them! I don't want to go to work each day getting pushed around in a stinking and whimsical local train! N-O!
But then, when I was working at an ad agency in the poshest locality of Hyderabad, Banjara Hills, I saw unlimited richness. Expensive holidays, designer (ugly!) glares, zooming around in expensive automobiles....you get the hang of it right....I didn't feel the longing for that kind of a life AT ALL! I am afraid that high up there on the top rungs of success the little joys of life might become hazy and ultimately disappear!

A bunch of my friends are dying to go for a little holiday. Just us friends. On a whim I looked up the prices of The Leela and Taj Exotica. The lowest fare for a room was 10,000 (@ The Leela)! I could go to Goa for a few days and then spend a week at Gokarna in that money!!!
Wealth ain't a joke! It's a boon alright! But just hope it doesn't devalue or lessen the thrill of a shoestring budget holiday, a shopping spree at Sarojininagar market, cruising around in a rickety scooty, or cuddling a dirty but incredibly adorable street mutt!

Of course, if a realist or a cynic or may be the parental community read this they might just write it off as idealist fancies of a young girl. May be they will say...."We were just like you once. You will learn the realities of life as you go along"!

Damn....sure hope not.