Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Easy Investment !!!

I was just thinking on this by comparing myself with my nieces and believe me we really came up as a very easy investment to our parents. I know, it’s the matter of time which has made such a huge difference in our life style. Just A few years ago, things which were “really expensive to us, which were in the “can’t afford” list or “why we need that” list are more or less moved in to “very much needed” or “very cheap” or “unable to survive without this” lists.

My parents never had much of A problem raising us. We were so undemanding, not fussy, affordable and content. Our school fee was never a burden. I still remember paying 7RS / Month as fees when I was in 7th Standard. (7 *10 = 70 was the annual fees! Bingo!! And my niece is 5th STD and pays roughly 30K / Year). Parents never had to drop and pick us from school as it was just 2 roads across. They never had to sit with us and make us do home work.

We never had a luxury of owning something ourselves as we always used to get things on sharing basis. It might be toys, bicycle, story books, geometry box, badminton bats, so many things. And being the youngest was literally a curse as things will come to you as 3rd or 4th or 5th ‘handed’ but still I was waiting to own them. I remember having a Hero Rally bicycle, which was used by my father, then passed on to my brother and later given to me. The Cycle was handed over to me with lots of instructions on how to use, when to use, where to take, where not to take, oh many restrictions, but all conditions were agreed by me as I badly wanted the cycle. I was allowed to take the cycle to school only when I came to THE 9th STD !

Later, my sister’s 2nd hand singular seat Luna Kinetic came in to my possession (For some reason I still remember the registration no: CTH 2859). Believe me, I was feeling ON top of world. I used to go for rides only in the evening as my sister used to take it TO work in the day time. I used to agree, to go to the ration mill or to the shops or agree to pay utility bills only because I was allowed to use the Luna for that period. Picking and dropping anyone in the family was also part of my service, to get my hands on the Luna. I had put a sticker on the Luna which was a cartoon face of Azaruddin. The day my dad decided to sell it off as it was not giving much mileage was one of the saddest days in my life.

The other eagerly awaited event in those years was, Diwali. We were never bothered even if we don’t get new clothes (as looks hardly mattered) all we needed was Crackers and only crackers. One day before the fest, my dad used to get the crackers and I don’t know why but he used to arrange them over shelves and curtain boxes, which was AN eye candy for us. He used to distribute the “Anae Pataki” among us (normally comes as a pack of 100, and used to get around 30 as my share) and bursting them by making them double was the most adventurous event for us.
Take Away: To be content.