Survival at the end of the month

We still have 4 more days to payday and my bank account is already parched and dry like the summers of Khandahar. Thanks to maddening March. Tax planning and Uncle Chidambaram have left me scrimping and scrounging. The beggars outside the temple had more purchasing power than me.

Here is what I have in my wallet today. What can a Rupee and 25 Paisa get me? Not even a bus ride to work. The autowalas whom I haggle with were ready today to take me to work at my regular price but I had to decline their offer. Bicycles running besides me seem to have more power than my sturdy legs. I respected the same bicycles that I considered a traffic nuisance when I traveled by car. I lugged my heavy laptop and bruised ego in the hot sun to work while pondering on the power of money. I couldn’t see my own shadow follow me, may be he knew I was penniless and he moved away like the ticks that leave the body of dead animal? My empty smile resembled my wallet.

Luckily I didn’t have to buy lunch since I had packed my lunch from home. But my unruly taste buds fell in love with anything and everything edible that my eyes catch and my nose smells. I felt like a hungry reptile with a sticky tongue. I had to discipline my senses today from not watching and catching chimney smokes from the neighborhood kitchen. It pinches your heart more than your stomach when you don’t have enough change to buy a packet of Tiger biscuit. I wish I could raise the height of my teeth and arrest my saliva from over flowing. Pavlov’s theory was working fine. I could not hold them any further and I shamelessly befriended the guy at the canteen to buy stuff on credit to clam down my ulcerated intestine walls.

My enslaved senses were cursing the one who invented money. I wanted to go back to the days of barter system or even to the days where we could exchange favor for favor rather than money. Man who made money measures him today and makes him complete. Money controls the aperture of his smile and arrogance in his voice. My eyes would not rest if I didn’t pay my credit card dues and EMI. What a life!! Well this is how most of us are today, and our Karma balances are no different. Materialistic comforts and desire is driving us away into the desert of worries and stress. What can we do about it? Here I am waiting shamelessly for my next pay check like the desert sands awaiting the monsoon rain. For the first time I felt my ego balloon was punctured and the gas smelled worse than automobile exhaust, that was the smell of desire. I didn’t wallow in self pity, but rather appreciated life more than money, life is still beautiful in penury.