The value of every 'Penny'

The value of every 'Penny'

I was just thinking of writing about this for a while but a variety of factors were en route either preventing it or procrastinating it. What are they?

1. A seamless flow of content. Sometimes, we get a thought directly from the sky but we would be struck on where to start, how to draft and how to express it to others.
   
2. Time factor. With a plethora of tasks outlined, the 24 hours that the Lord has bestowed for every day seems to be too little. But, when I say this, I recall, the quote that my Mathematics teacher in standard twelfth at Balalok and the then tuition master used to say "It is not that 24 hours which is insufficient. But we do not know how to make the best use of every second. We have 60 seconds a minute. 60 minutes to comprise an hour and 24 hours to comprise a day. And so on and so forth. The need of the hour then is an efficient time management".

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Well! I just thought the current generation seems to be so much spendthrift like never before. Perhaps either they are misguided by bad television screenings, illicit films and/or bad companionship. I would like to substantiate this fact with a simpler discussion with one of my colleague. A few days back in a curious conversation, I was commenting out that it is cooler outside the Anna University. I was actually using a dual meaning phrase, to be frank.

1. The cool shady avenues in the University (Straight Frank Fact)
2. In the amateurish college days, we normally like to go out on a romantic dates right. I don't see anything wrong in that. Perhaps the adolescent hormonal effects inspire and steer the people in that age group to that direction.

And the response I got from him, in a very cynical way, made me think of the destiny to which the younger generation is heading too. The casual dating at the cool avenues which was an exchange of friendship those days resembles as outmoded for the younger generation. They felt a more lavish way -- brandishing their wallet at Inox, swiping the gold, silver and gray colored plastic currency cards for a pleasure that just going to be for a couple of hours and not surely more than that in any case.

I was reminded of this conversation yesterday, when I was in Canara Bank, Padmanabha Nagar branch. While I was waiting in the queue to make a remittance to the savings account, the guy before me was using a challan. The challan read as 'A/C Sri Sankara Senior Secondary School, Adyar' and it was for a LKG (Kindergarten). I was just astonished by the fees being levied for the term -- INR 4000 (101.9 USD). I recall that the annual fee of my Engineering about ten years back was just about an equivalent -- INR 6500 (165.5 USD). With such sky rocketing prices and cost of living, shouldn't we cultivate the habit of savings instead of being a lavish spendthrift.

A few more comparisons where the younger generation seems to be lavish when an equivalent economical and ethical means exist.

1. New Year Celebrations
   
   
   
   1. We @Classic: Visiting temple, Getting the blessings of elders
   2. Newer Generation: Lavish dance partying at a star hotel, Boozing and spoiling the health. We should not and can not forget that this attitude of youth and callousness of people deriving benefit out of it had caused fatal accidents at Hotel Savera when the New Year dawned for 2008. Check out the news report here. Interestingly, at 00:00 hours of 1st January, 2008 when NDTV, AajTak and other news channel were showing a count down clock for Happy New Year 2008, NDTV was also flashing a news like 'Chennai :: Tragedy in New Year Party. I died'.
   
   
2. Costly Restaurants
   


1. We @Classic: We love homely foods that are cooked in a clean and auspicious ambience at the comfort and care of our kitchen.
2. Newer Generation: The junk food fever seems to be all-pervasive. The Dial-A-Pizza and the sick old Coke and Pepsi not to mention the rum and vodka bottles that always finds a royal seat in every get to gether is a curse of the time.
   
   We celebrate every year Independance day and Republic Day to commomerate the freedom from foreign rule. We recall that British entered our country as trademan, established the East India Company and then slowly captured the full country. Thankfully, we are now a free nation. But due to cultural plunge, we are allowing the evil Satan to capture us. In the great epic Mahabharata, King Parikshit had given four places to Kali Purushan to dwell -- Liquor shops, Brothels, Abattoirs and Gambling places. By succumbing to these maladies, aren't we trading off our great culture. We have discussed about Kali's dwelling places in detail here.
   
   We are close to celebrating another Republic day around the corner in another week. At least, as a new year resolution or a republic day promise let us try to strive hard safeguarding our culture.
   
3. Luxury Partying
   


1. We @Classic: When it is time to celebrate, it has been our custom to visit cool tourist places, pilgrimage spots where we gather mental comfort and then resume our routine chores with enhanced performance.
2. Newer Generation: At every beck and call, they call upon going out for a party under different pretexts sometimes amateurish, sometimes childish and sometimes it resembles whether the person demanding party has gone mentally deranged. I have discussed two occasions where I have voiced against such crazy partying spree. I am not totally against it. But at the same time, the bottomline of the discussion is a justified use of the same.
   
3. Reading Material:
   


1. A Party at Buena Vista ECR Chennai
2. Shame on the mimicing modernity
   
4. The Perspective of Looking at Money
   
   
   
   1. We @Classic: We look money as Lordess Mahalakshmi. We ought to bow down to Her and use the currency and resources given by Her to us for Her services.
   2. Newer Generation: The newly flashing plastic currency is just a symbol of pride giving a source of mundane pleasure eliciting and kindling romantic spirits anytime and everytime. This happens against because of the avaricious greed of few who misguide youth into willfully wrong paths to satisfy their bestial instincts and pleasures.
      
      I would particularly like to file chargesheets against people violating National Do Not Call registry and disturbing us in our busy afternoon for the crazy insurance, junk mutual funds and gambling country clubs. In a regional magazine, I read a very interesting sentence in Tamil. I am not sure whether it is 'Junior Vikatan' or 'Tamil Osai'. The caption of the reader comment is "Mutual Fundu; Radhika Bendu". The name "Radhika" is an indicative that most telemarketers are normally females to lure customers with sweet voices. Sometimes in the sweet voice, I find the sweetness of English and supremecy of lexical grammar is cremated. It is rather a sweet poison. . Coming back to the discussion on the magazine, the line actually meets "Damn care about the junk mutual fund investments steered by meaningless telemarketing calls by useless persons who pepper up the sales only by unwarranted sexual provocations.". If I take a little time to rephrase this sentence in Tamil to English "Abstain from such Mutual Funds and such crazy things embraced by sexual blend of Radhika (Telemarketing Instance)'s vocal bends".
      
      That was little too harsh. But my thought process was to convey and reinstate the true value of money as the gift of God and not to allow it being misused and destroyed of its sanctity.

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All is fine. But we should also ensure that the current generation is properly guided by elders and parents in the correct route. Just to satisfy the newer so-called modern trend, we need not succumb to a wrong unethical directions. It is quite easy. A few simple questions on making the youngsters realise of their responsibilities can make things perfect. A few starter tips may be:

1. Minimize unwarranted excess pocket money every week. Do they need so much of pocket money while more than eight hours they are going to be in colleges and schools?
2. No showoffs with high profile gadgets and gizmos like all those fancy mobile phones. Mobile Phones are essentially meant for quicker and efficient communications. I have discussed sometime about "Pure Luxury Communications Mobile (Vertu)".
3. Why should we entertain our kids and younger brother/sister to showcase a high speed racing on our Maruti Wagon R, when our roads are only for passenger use and not race fields. What prevents them from supporting, patronizing and using the public conveyance?
4. Perhaps a scheduled week every six months to an orphanage home and spending some time with people there. Thereby, we gain the following advantages:
   
1. Mental bliss and happiness for the inmates there
2. Our kids would realise the reality in the world and then turn a new leaf with more responsibility.
3. We act with more social responsibility and social concern.

I think it is a fairly huge topic which I have tried to initiate a brainstorming upon so that we can strive to safeguard our rich culture and grow our kids in a more religious, god-fearing way, serving the society and the nation truly for a peace and harmonious ambience and atmosphere. I would also like to have readers to share their comments and thought process.