Sunday, May 29, 2011

Wealth Is Ill Health!

Health is wealth is much heard a saying. In terms of mathematics, if a is equal to b, the reverse is also true, i.e. b = a. But only in special cases, the reverse corollary for the above saying is true. When?

When we say we do work out regularly, that doesn't mean that we go OUT and WORK in our workplaces. Instead, what we mean by working out is exercising to maintain our health. And that is sometimes possible without spending wealth directly. If i go for a jog in the early morning, and shed a few grams of extra fat, do I really spend money for that? No, wealth is not really needed to maintain health, or to gain health from a state of ill health. But is it an absolute estimation of cost for health? No, because, what we forget is time. We do not buy time, but with time, we can create wealth, so time is a raw material for wealth creation, and that's why the other saying goes - Time is money! Now, if time is money, I am spending money when I go for a jog for 15 minutes. May be I am not Mukesh Ambani, or Sachin Tendulkar for whom the newspapers and magazines will print special articles assessing the per second earning of those wealthy souls, but however low it can be my earning per unit time can not be equated to zero. (No I dont mean to say that everytime I am earning, I earn in INR only for the stipulated 8.5 hrs of my job per day and 5 days per week, but that's all about direct earning, if I spend my free time in doing something which will add value to me, that value is also comparable to money, even if there is no known formula that converts value to a physical sum). So my intent in this wordy paragraph is to establish that health is gained only at an expense of money. And this expenditure varies. It's minimum when we do things like jogging, or push ups on floor. But it's maximum in case we go to modern-facilities-provider gyms like Talwalkar's one of whose franchisee is there in my vicinity as well... approx 12000 Rs. a year is what they will charge for the most ordinary scheme of membership there. So, if you can pay the sum, you can gain good health. (obviously, you have to attend it regularly, and do what you need to do there, not that you pay and flee away, and you expect to be a Salman Khan after a year). So, in special cases, we do see, wealth is health.

But the above is in special cases only. So what are the general cases I am pointing to here? Take my case. A guy who intelligently chose to work for a French MNC instead of an Indian private sector steel making company, felt proud about being part of a culture which, until that time, was hallowed as Yem Yen See... Mind it! But the true picture comes clearer as we go ahead and get closer to what we want to see. And when that happened, I truly realized the whole chemistry of outsourcing industry. Be it just the much-abhorred call centre business, or be it a much euphemised engineering out sourcing companies. The moral of the story is same everywhere. They pay you, to make you create things that will sell in higher price than the cost of their creation. In simpler language the profit margin is to be there for the business, like the blood in human body. Its so essential a fluid in the system without which the system wont work. And to make provision for that life-sustaining-fluid, somebody is sucking that of others. Now I sounded a little too harsh on them. No I didnt mean that they are like American Capitalists who had a number of slaves to work day in and day out to fill up their masters' treasury. They are much benevolent and labour friendly in terms of perks and packages they offer to us. And they indeed take care of our hospitality when they send us on tours and trips for trade (read business, it's been long I used an alliteration) or training. None of my family members could imagine when I was born, that this child would grow up and only in his mid twenties would earn a sum that's only a couple of years away from being a 7 digit salary. It's hefty, indeed. Boss, they are paying!

But having said that, the receivables are only quantities, and we over look the quality in this effort. The assessment should be more radical to our souls, not just about the advancement / modernization of our periphery - not about the luxurious coziness that their money can buy us. The point is we do things that do not really require skills of an engineer (not that I am so skillful; today's education system will never make us skillful except making us quantity-oriented. The not-so-hard-earned pass mark is what makes us 'engineers'). We are simply underutilized, and our brain swords that could be honed to cut off iron bars, is just cutting green grass repetitively. Repetitive stress is too annoying, and the westerners invented machines, and parallelly discovered money-seeking-men in the east. And we are running so less than our capacity, that it is simply stealing our capacity to think or to do things, that matter. In a figurative language we are becoming intellectual eunuchs (dont mind, havent talked about our physical transformation so far). Mentally ill is what we are.

Now that mind stays in a body. And a healthy mind stays in a healthy body. And unhealthy one in unhealthy body, of course. No the statement is not logical, pun intended. But the kind of task that we do is stealing our ability to do task as well, physically. The cozy seat of the ergonomic chair that can swivel 360 degrees about an axis aligned parallelly to our spines will ensure safe distance of our eyes from the computer screen and will make right angle at our elbow that will type in the key board crores of illegible codes that only machine can interpret. But that chair will make us stick to it for hours past our stipulated close-of-business time, making a safe distance from our home and family and fun and frolic which adds to good health, both mentally and physically. Not to forget the pot bellies that the pot like cup of the chair (consisting of the concave back rest and gripping arm rest panels sideways) will gift us after only a couple of months. I will give you one more analogy. You know, pitcher plant? The leaves of which will form a pot like shape to attract insect, and when a poor soul falls prey to it, the pot-leaf will suck all its life-blood.

Physically fatigued, mentally exhausted, you come back, with pocket full of wealth and heart full of ill health!

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