While filing income tax returns I was having a discussion with my mother. She was shocked to see the amount of income tax (12 Lakh) I've to pay annually as a software engineer. She said, "Your father never even earned the amount in salary that you pay as tax." When you were in primary school he earned 2 lakhs / year. And we were family of four (my father, mother, me and younger brother). And when I was in high school he earned 45-50K / month. He is a central government employee and started at 7K / month in the early 90s.
I was shocked to hear this. Because as I kid I never felt poor! I had always lived a comfortable life (according to me). In fact it was the happiest and most content phase of my life.
This led me to start thinking about my childhood. My school fees (Kendriya Vidyala) was 1.5K / quarter (that too was reimbursed by central government). There was no lack of infra or extra curricular activities compared to private schools in KVs.
Every week I used to ask for 2 rupees to buy a samosa in early 2000s. Which became 5 later. Same way a 5-10 rupee Frooti was good enough to make my day in the early 2000s. 1/2BHK houses were allotted to my dad based on designation, so we never had to pay any rent where ever he was transferred. Healthcare is also free for my parents for their entire life and for kids it's until 25 years of age. My parents always preferred home cooked food because eating out was expensive and unhealthy. It was max once a month and that too spend on things like chaat, ice cream, kachori and other small stuff. We used to go on vacations once or twice per year in sleeper (3rd AC later years) train even if was 1-2 day journey. My mom would prepare food for whole journey, because buying outside food was expensive. Yet, neither of my parents nor me was unhappy with out lives. We were content.
In metro cities people earn in lakhs and still it is never enough. They are still so unhappy in their life. Once I moved to Hyd, Blr I started noticing how corporate people live their life. Spending so much on alcohol, cigarette, weed, cafes, pubs, breweries on every weekend. They pay so much on Swiggy/Zomato/Zepto for food which is making them unfit over time. They pay so much in tax and get no benefit in return from government. Corporate people don't want kids because school fees are too much and they are mentally so tired because of work that they don't want to handle additional responsibility of kids. In younger days it feels okay but as you grow old you never know how life will feel without kids in 50s, 60s or 70s.
Another interesting fact - a lot of people from tier 2-3 cities leave our homes and come to metro cities in search of better opportunities. But why do we forget the actual reason we came here for? Why do we forget the good old school habits we once had when we lived in tier 2-3 cities? Why do people change and get influenced by metro city culture?
