That Extra Income

When would this end, bro? 

Today the cost of food items has skyrocketed. We end up paying more for less at the vegetable market, fuel depot, grocery store, restaurants, riding buses and taxis, giving our sons and daughters good education, etc.  At times don’t you feel like going back to the village leaving your jobs in the towns so that you grow everything on the farm? This is at a time when some families resort to meat since vegetables are expensive to be fed upon. Year after year we are paid consistently the same salary, which is not even one fifth of what some earn in the projects. This is why we continue to live in an overtly inflated region. 

And then in this part of the country there is an acute shortage of accommodation owing to an ever-growing population. There are numerous real-life dramas being enacted everyday. People hunt for proper shelters to call them homes. Without much success! If you own a small hut at the heart of the town, then you are a rich man provided the city officials allow you erect your hut at all. And due to the same reason, house rents are ridiculously high. But urgency always takes the precedence over the soaring house rents. Some fifty percent of our monthly income goes to our house owners. We can’t blame them either. It is us who need to take shelter in their houses.

For the same reasons our authorities are helpless. This is because given the situation we are witnessing today it is difficult to implement policies that we have on our shelves. The demand for houses in towns and cities would only grow.

Today in order to feed a family and raise children especially in towns and cities one needs to have a substantial flow of income. Of course money is a tricky thing – the more you earn it the more you spend it. And it is difficult to stop this vicious cycle. But one needs to have a decent job that pays decent remuneration. 

That’s why we have people going to the offices everyday even if they would like to hang out with their family members at home. That’s why we have people who are willing to cook for others even when others are still snoring in the nascent hours of the morning. That’s why we have people ferrying other people even when the whole world goes to sleep at nights.

My earlier proposition was that people upgrade their qualification so as to upgrade their social status. And one of the most satisfying things that one can do in life is to be in a position to provide enough for one’s family and maybe help a few relatives. And this takes us to the need of earning enough to sustain one’s family.

Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest in the animal world is very much relevant even today. Only that we see it happening in a social setting. Only those with healthier bank accounts, bigger cars, staying in bigger flats or bungalows would survive the test. The rest is left to the natural forces.

Some are adaptable species in that a few of us have learnt to go beyond our daily duties to earn some extra income so that we add some more to our budgets at home. This way we learn to cope up with a fierce competition. There are so many cabs in the country, but some of our office goers too have resorted to driving taxis to earn some extra income. And then there are some people whose business is only to complain on anything and everything. They contend that those already employed should be not allowed to drive cabs in town. They think it is being selfish and some feel that these people are limiting the opportunities of the full time taxi drivers. Some even drag some sections of the laws to the argument.

Everyone has the right to livelihood.

A well-paid officer may not resort to driving taxis. It is mostly people on the lower income bracket for whom what they earn isn’t sufficient to feed their families in an age like this. We must understand that. The only way out is to do something extra. I fully appreciate these people and have all my admiration for them. Let’s not restrict them from earning their livelihood if we cannot provide them adequate. 

Do we condemn those who deploy their heavy-duty machines at the project sites? Do we condemn those who run tourism firms part time? Do we condemn those who run family shops and own construction firms? The question is how are all these activities different from driving taxis part time?