My Biggest Fear

I used to be petrified of my future, in the past. When I was younger, all I feared was not having money when I grew older. In my 20’s, I dreaded financial dependence. I was scared of having to ask someone else for money. The money could be for anything, for meeting my daily needs, for buying clothes, for going out, for donating to a cause I believe in, for eating out, for travelling, for ordering in, a zillion things. 

I was so afraid of my unseen future that I would save. I was an obsessive, compulsive saver. I did not want to have to beg anyone for money. That meek look on my face, the extended arms, the seemingly endless wait, the anxiety of rejection – all these accompanied a request for money. I did not want to go through it. I have seen men making their women wait before they doled out the cash. Some perverse pleasure in watching the dependence. 

Today, at 48, I am in the future, that I always wondered about, in my past. I retired at 45. And yet, I am not financially dependent. No, I don’t ask anyone for money to fulfill any of my needs. In fact, even though, it has been three years since my last full-time job, I have been living off my savings and even help run the show at home. The thing I feared, that thing never came to pass. My worst nightmare never materialized and boy, am I glad!

I am joyful and content today. I feel all those years of slogging my ass off and saving and struggling and taking on all the responsibilities of a job, house, family, child, all of the sweat and tears paid off. Today, when I nap in the afternoon for an hour, when I read a book, when I do gardening, when I cook what I like to eat and feed my family and not only cook but cook well and happily too, when I stretch my body for a bit of online yoga, when I chant mantras and shlokas, I feel at peace. I feel my life did amount to something. That, finally, it all added up well. 

I read somewhere that the real luxuries of life are sleep, freedom to travel, peace of mind, a siesta, an evening walk, leisurely late Sundays, home food, good clothes, doing what you like when you like. All the things that we take for granted or never value when we are young. 

I like the person that I have become. The old me is a happy me, a content me. The young me was really terrified of how things would turn out eventually. I would constantly worry. As a youngster, I was mortified that my life may go from bad to worse. What if this happened? What if that happened? The what ifs never came to be. Thank God for that. It is a divine kripa (blessing) that your 40’s are fulfilling and peaceful and relaxed.

Does it happen often, that what we fear the most, never fructifies? Given the fact that I am a compulsive overthinker, it can be traumatizing visualizing a future so dark. But in the end, things turned out well. At least, so far.

I remember a school friend once remarked that I am someone who likes to be in control. Yeah, right! I do. The fact that at 48, I have not lost my marbles, yet, and that I still call the shots in most areas concerning my life and that I can still afford, money-wise, to do what I like, even if it is just a relaxing facial once a month, yeah, that is satisfying.  

Women and Spending Power

When I was on a child-raising break to be with Tanvi as her daycare center was not good, I picked up a few freelance training assignments during that period, tasted blood, and have only been freelancing  Why am I getting into all these humdrum details? Because whenever I have been without work (read: without a steady income), some months with no money at all (freelancing is an unpredictable work choice), I have been very (to the power of 10) depressed.  

I have been depressed because I couldn’t shop for myself, couldn’t shop for my family, couldn’t shop for the house, and least of all, could not even do grocery shopping. Shopping offers a temporary high, is exciting for a fleeting moment. I have heard that tirade against shopping a zillion times. But the freedom - to flash my debit card (earlier) or electronic wallets (now), on a sudden impulse to buy something that lasts, for the house – is supremely tempting. The irresistible itch to pick up stuff from a flash sale or abuse insane discounts during public holidays or festivals or the crazy cash-back deals they flaunt online, I am guilty of it.  Just knowing you have money on you in case you need to buy something on an impulse – that’s a coveted feeling.

But this beautiful joy, which comes with financial power, is lost when you don’t earn. And then I go into severe depression. And since I am an incurable worrier, at times, I have been so depressed that I go online and do those (free) Tarot card readings! What a horrible phase that was - feeling unwanted, desperate for attention, feeling the lack of respect. I would upload the same resume twice in one week hoping for a head hunter’s call. Not because I would join the first company that called, but to reassure myself that my skill-sets still had a market value and that if I chose, I could be the earning member of the family again.

I love running my household. I love planning, buying, securing, and cushioning for the family. I even love buying milk and coriander leaves as much as I love buying a laptop or phone and paying off debts and budgeting for road trips. It fulfills me. I am ‘masculine’ in that sense; more a provider than a nurturer. Being an enabler makes me happy. Providing for the needs of our home makes me feel proud of myself. Never having to say ‘no’ or ‘don’t have money for that when my daughter asks for something, is my ultimate success parameter.

The kitchen stifles me. I don’t really enjoy being in that part of the house. I feel trapped. I feel like the cockroach that scuttles away at the sight of a human. But the cockroach has nowhere to go, as every corner is sprayed with insect repellent. It knows the spray means sure death in a few minutes. Husband’s money, what husband bought, what husband gifted, what husband planned, where the husband took - it has never given me joy. Strangely, I have eyed women with jealousy when their husbands have showered them with expensive gifts or vacations. I have thought to myself, “Wow! What a life. How lucky is she.” And then go right back to feeling sick that I am not that kind of “husband.” I would be bored being a wife whose sole purpose in life was to ‘keep house’ (ghar sambhalo) for which she would be rewarded with monthly shopping sprees in various malls in the city.

The buoyancy you feel when you know you are still wanted in the job market – that’s a high. The exhilaration of cash in your wallet, the pride when you hand over your card to the waiter at the restaurant, the look in the cashier’s eyes as you punch in your password on the swipe machine, the smile on your face when you look at things around you and realize you bought them – I miss that. It’s been ten months since my last training assignment. My baby is 8 months old now and I have not been able to get back to work. I am depressed. 

[This post was written 7 months back. I could publish it only today. My daughter is 15 months old now. And I am back on the work track.]

My Own Money

I get confused between the five zeroes in a lakh and the six zeroes in a crore. I still don’t know how many crores make a million. I am dependent on a calculator even to check how much I have to pay the iron-man if I give him 16 clothes to iron and each costs Rs 6. My knowledge of maths is pathetic. I failed twice in class four in maths and the fact that I have still not forgotten it shows how deep the humiliation was for me, an otherwise academically good student. Addition and subtraction is fine but even that, if it goes beyond four digits, I quickly pick up my calculator. I am a double post-graduate.

My mother never went to school. She could count a couple of lakhs, in her head, in a matter of minutes. I did not get her financial acumen or her flair for numbers but I did inherit from her a taste for and an understanding of what money could do. I turned out to be fairly good with money, or rather, at least did not mismanage it.

I remember I once said to a colleague that I am someone who can live on Rs 2000 or Rs 20,000 which only meant to say I know to use it well. For example: if I earned Rs 10,000 every month, 5000 would be set aside for utilities, 1000 as God’s money, 2000 for savings and 2000 to blow it up. Multiply that income with multiples of 100 or 1000 but the base formula would remain the same. Now that I have time on my hands to pause and look back at my life, (I am a freelancer), I realized that whether my salary was 3000 or 30,000, my saving and spending pattern has remained almost the same – the naive but safe magic formula.

Greed has never been the driving factor for me when it to came to money. But what it could do was always a motivator. For instance, I wanted to experience the high of buying my first vehicle with my own money. “My own money” had such a powerful ring to it and I always fantasized about it constantly throughout my growing up years. I couldn’t wait to get a job and buy things with “my own money.” I opened my first LIC policy in the same year that I started working as a Lecturer for a small salary of Rs 3000/- in the year 2000! I bought a TVS Scooty in 2003 just three years after I started working. My second car, a Maruti 800, purchased with my money, in 2006. All the mobile handsets, nearly 7 in over a decade, all with my money!

None of these are there anymore except the most recent mobile handset. The policy matured last year. The Scooty and the 800 were sold off a few years after the purchase. But what still stays with me is that high of ownership I felt then. It was a sign of achievement, a sign of progress, of having made a ‘considered choice’ to spend my money in a way I wanted. It is sad many women, for whatever reasons, their own choice or family pressure, remain deprived of this great joy. It is this that is called power and this that drives men to strive harder and endlessly at their careers.

I truly believe that money, well earned and thoughtfully spent, injects you with a great deal of confidence. And God willing, I will continue to enjoy such simple joys of life!

Can I Get Pregnant?

That’s what the pregnancy clause entails - an actress can't get pregnant during the making of the film. The clause hit national headlines a few weeks back, no thanks to Mr. Amitabh Bachchan, who gallantly announced his ‘soon-going-to-be grandfather’ status on Twitter. Is that fair – the clause? I have thought long &hard about it. Strip me of my feminism & put me in the shoes of the producer/director/company that invests crores into a venture as risky as the movie making business, I would say YES. It is right about fair.

Acting and modeling are professions unlike any other. They are hugely dependent on how you look. An actor’s (male/female) job is to look a certain way in the films he/she has agreed to work on. Physicality, body language, weight, dressing, health, safety everything matters a great deal for the entire duration of the film. How can an actor, 4 months into her term, be expected to perform the tasks given to her which includes smoking, drinking, extensive travelling, outdoor shoots that requires you to be away from home for long periods of time so on & so forth? No producer in his sane mind would want to do that. Why would he? God forbid, should there be an untoward incident, an accident or any unfortunate event, who will pay? Don’t we all know that film making is as much about art & creativity as it is about making money. And so it should be.

Hollywood is known to have a clause for such sticky situations. They mandate that the lead actors don’t indulge in high risk activities like skiing, horse riding, flying planes or racing cars. And this is clearly understood & perfectly adhered to by one & all. Their logic is simple & straight-forward: If you slip, you pay. That’s professionalism.

Are actresses no naïve not to know that, it is for their physical beauty, that they charge a fee which runs into a couple of crores? Professional that she is, why did Aishwarya wait for so long & then abruptly let her father-in-law announce the news to the world? Shouldn’t the director/producer know this critical piece of information directly from her or at least from her PR personnel & well in advance, & not through a social networking site? Even during the promotions of the film in Cannes, she was reportedly already carrying, & yet went about the whole shindig with happy abandon, while the poor director & producer remained clueless about the shock that was to befall them shortly afterwards.

Are we saying she herself wasn’t aware of the situation? That to me is an outrageous assumption. Even teenagers know that a pregnancy can be confirmed within a month of missing your cycle (no…not the one you ride!!). Don’t we know OTC (over the counter) pregnancy test kits, for as low as Rs 50, are easily available in every medical store worth its name in every nook & corner of a city especially like Mumbai? These days, just as unwanted pregnancies can be terminated, they can be planned well in advance too. And if an unplanned pregnancy did take place, an actor should take the producer/director into confidence.

I don’t understand why career-minded women would or should have a problem with the clause? The multiple zeroes in their coveted pay check, the media attention, the fame, the benefits, the fan following, the instant recognition, the free lunches, the party invites, the luxury, the glamour – all this is offered to them on a platter thanks to a profession that puts a premium on looking good. They don’t seem to be complaining about of any of that!!

Money Matters

Sathya & I always have this one argument. About money, about helping the poor, about donating some amount every month to a worthy cause. He says, in complete seriousness, “Why don’t you to donate it to me? I am the poorest of them all!!” As for his money, “Why should I donate money to XYZ? I have slogged my ass off for it in the 1st place”. His reasoning is, if he has struck gold, the loot is for him to enjoy. I, on the other hand, feel that, if I am rich, I am going to be richer by sharing at least a part of it with someone else, someone other than my immediate family, someone needy, someone unknown or, unrelated to me, whose life can be touched by a small gesture of kindness.

In all good marriages, the wise wife chooses her battles well. This is one battle I am not too eager to win. That is because, neither of us is rich, nor have ancestral wealth to throw away. Hence, even if I would like to contribute generously to a cause, I am held back by my constantly shrinking purse. And even if he wants to hoard cash, his wallet is stressed by the sheer load of his never ending list of wants. So, what’s the point of arguing endlessly with him? We have agreed to disagree & maintain status quo. I continue to do my thing, my little bit, because I know, that every drop counts.

I really believe that, whoever earns, say beyond 15,000, in a city like Bangalore, can afford to part with at least 300 a month to some cause. Is that too hard? I don’t think so. Accounting for all our expenses, living costs, utilities, and entertainment costs & even if we stashed away another big wad of currency under the category “miscellaneous”, there’s still, always, a wee bit left at the end of it all. What is lacking is not the money but the heart to part with it. What we need is an upbringing that nurtures an attitude of sharing & giving. I remember reading Suzan’s blog, where she wrote about Ramadan, & how they are encouraged to actively help the less fortunate during the month, because that act itself is a form of prayer.

Just think of the Whirlpool add “Ek Jodi Kapda’. A simple & beautiful thought that can easily be done by anybody. No excuse can justify not being a part of such a humane campaign. There was also one by Pantaloons, I think, if I am not wrong, where you could give away your old toys & they would distribute it among the poor. How many of us have clothes/toys/utensils/furniture & so on that we haven’t used in a really long time & we know we will never use it? But it lies in the house. We keep clinging on to it. We don’t mind letting an old wooden cot/chair/table rot in the rain. We simply can’t bear the thought of giving it away.
Wealth creation is not bad. Wealth accumulation is. By that I mean, hoarding money or things; being a miser; not wanting to share it with anyone; sometimes not spending on one’s own family; not giving that teensy weensy excess away to a needy person. We should salute the likes of the Birlas, the Ambanis, the Tatas & the numerous others who have created great wealth for themselves, their stakeholders & the common man, who invests his life’s savings in their companies.

I read a quote once that said, “To be born poor is not our fault but to die poor is”. One of the purposes of human life is to better one’s own conditions; to constantly move from one strength to the next; to continuously strive to improve ourselves, not only in personal growth as in our talents & abilities but also in our standards of living. Of course, money matters! Because only if you have it, can you give it. So, do go out there, & make money, all you can, loads of it; mint it, multiply it. But just don’t be blinded by it. After all, not everything in life that counts can be counted.