What is it with some professions and being a crook.
Today again, an autowallah fleeced me. after a point, u don't want to waste time arguing and you just end paying up. I had the time and inclination to take this bugger to the Police station. I was about to take his auto's key from him and do the needful to walk towards the police station. But, then something happened, something that always happens at times like these. You suddenly feel a bit of pity+fear and a sense of resignation. Pity cause you are somewhere higher in the scheme of things and hence a bit of fear cuz he has comparatively little to lose and time on street makes him ready to put up an aggressive posture. Sometimes I put on that posture myself and do not let myself get fleeced. Resignation owing to the sheer wastage of your precious time and mood behind this and knowing that most probably nothing will happen of it even if you take them to the police.
They know the equation perfectly well too. So they hold their ground.
In Hyderabad they consider it their right to charge 'IT people' more cause obviously 'itna kamaate ho tum, saab, kya magajmaari kar re'. ('you earn so much, what's ur problem?')
or, like it happened in Ahmedabad on my first day there. I traveled some 1 - 1.5 KM and the autowallah stopped and started asking for Rs. 450. I ended up giving him only 50 and that too cuz i didnt have anything of smaller denomination, but it drained me of a lot of time and energy dealing with him at 7 in the morning in an alien city with big baggage.
or in any city, may it be marine drive in mumbai or hussainsagar in Hyderabad, if there's a woman with you, the autowallah is bound to ask you for more money than decided and will start arguing knowing that you would much rather not get into an argument while with a woman.
Has it got something to do with the street profession? or is it something very intrinsic about the whole 'making a living' thing. well, us white collar people have it easy in a certain way, so we tend to be righteous. The white collar work can let you earn without having to show any physical aggression, but is it any different with the structural violence that it creates too? the competition, the othering, the politics, the lies.. oh so many lies. If there were a lie-o-meter to check the amount of lie for different professions, wouldn't any white collar profession rank much higher than an autowallah's opportunism?
Atleast the autowallah's lies didn't put the world's economy to jeopardy. atleast their deceit doesn't keep on creating wars to secure oil and shape imperialistic aspirations.At least it doesn't fill people with consumerist anxiety or as with the 21st century journalism, fill a people's thoughts with paranoia and delirium for things fitting corporate strategies.
tell me a profession and I will tell you how it is propped up on lies. this economy of ours, even after the burst of two bubbles is largely beset with lies.
Is it a function of scale? the scale allows anonymity. the scale creates freedom. The scale creates rules. and rules by nature are straight, and human relations/emotions/actions by nature are anything but. If your autowalla is your neighbour, so is your banker or your taxman, would they rather save their face or make a quick buck?
'Quick buck'. That's the philosophy of current worldwide economy. Nothing worthwhile in life is ever quick, so all that gets sold quick is lies, shallow promises, half truths. what would sensex be if it wasn't quick. what would any 9 to 9 job in any metro be, if it wasnt for the quick.
So when i earn my lakhs and know that an editor in manipur perhaps is earning 10K a month, or that a teacher in a town school is earning some 4K per month, or that the roads and the stadium and the gargantuan palace builders don't even earn the minimum the govt guarantees, I feel guilty. I don't even see any value in what I am doing to earn this much. It helps me pay off my education loan and that's wonderful, but I am not doing anything worthwhile. While, the people who are doing wonderful things are not even managing to survive. Its the world we live in. worthless lies are worth much more than worthwhile things of life. the brand coke is bigger than incomes of a whole people of a few nations.
Is their the slightest possibility of a life in a smaller setting, with smaller economy and only honest labor for a life without remorse?
