You know why billionaires will always exist? Because people have been somehow convinced to never think of themselves as working class, on the labour of which the billionaires make their billions. Everyone is somehow a billionaire-in-waiting.
That is the reason why, despite the ridiculous gap between the haves and the have nots in cities like Mumbai, the slum dwellers never rise up against the rich. Because every underfed, under-clothed, underpaid, overworked kid, adolescent, adult, and geriatric thinks that they are potential Ambanis and Bachchans, future Piramals and Tatas, Shahrukhs and Ranveers in waiting, if only they worked really hard and got a few breaks along the way. And the rare success stories they hear and see are attributed not to selection bias, but as shining examples of why the system works.
The cheerfulness and ‘Mumbai spirit’ (and apparently every city around the world seems to have their version of this) that makes every Mumbaikar seem like a happy Sisyphus is nothing but a potent mixture of fatalism and this naive belief of being just one break away from a billion.
Indeed, we have Schrödinger’s free will: Free enough to believe that hard work and perhaps a break is all that we need to be all we can, but predestined at the same time because of our religious and cultural beliefs. Only on the deathbed can a Mumbaikar accept that they were indeed fooled, and most time, not even then.
As for Mumbai, so for the rest of this country.
Today, the government cut interest rates, as it keeps increasing the rates of power (whether electricity, petrol, diesel, or cooking gas), keeps adding to the various ways in which it can tax the citizens, and keeps finding new ways to sell off stuff (that was built using the very same taxes) at cut-rates to private parties who shall then find even newer ways to monetise their purchases by levying fees, charges, and tolls to the users of these national assets, viz., the citizens. On this (the new notification, subsequently withdrawn due to elections), many of my liberal friends have shared their anguish today, saying that retired and senior citizens who have worked hard during their careers and now rely on their savings for their livelihood will be the most affected, and that surely people will now see through this regime and its inevitable journey towards national bankruptcy.
I disagree.
Every person who looks at the falling interest rates sees themselves as taking advantage of them to become a billionaire entrepreneur, or stock market Big Bull, or landlord of a dozen properties. The very few who see them as affecting their savings and retirement funds are rare and few & far between. They are also seen as ‘wanting to portray themselves as contrarian’ (in other words: anti-Modi, and hence, anti-national).
This, in itself, may not be a bad thing. People believing they have the potential to become the best there is in what they do is not bad in itself. It is the connection to this of garnering so much wealth that it would boggle someone to see the true proportion of it that makes it undesirable for a society, a nation, and a civilisation as a whole.
Let me illustrate. If you were born today, and had one Rupee for every second of your life, you’d be a US Dollar:
~ Lakhpati (100,000) by about the end of the week and a bit
~ Millionaire by Sunday, 27 June 2021
~ Crorepati (10 million) by Wednesday, 25 January 2045
~ Billionaire by Tuesday, 26 March 4403 (2,382 years from now)
~ Trillionaire by Sunday, 28 February 240219 (2,38,198 years from now)
~ Lakhpati (100,000) by about the end of the week and a bit
~ Millionaire by Sunday, 27 June 2021
~ Crorepati (10 million) by Wednesday, 25 January 2045
~ Billionaire by Tuesday, 26 March 4403 (2,382 years from now)
~ Trillionaire by Sunday, 28 February 240219 (2,38,198 years from now)
Do you see the vulgarity of this?
Now, take this wet dream of being just one break, one action, one day, one moment short of being a billionaire, and mix with it the drug called xenophobia.
This is the deadly cocktail we Indians are addicted to.
What we need is not more of the same. We need to check into a rehab. And detoxify ourselves. What form that rehab will take, and more importantly, when it will happen is anyone’s guess though. I, for one, am not holding my breath.
