Page 47 - #letter to son

MIDDAY WARMTH
Dear son,

There is one story from my childhood days that still provides me
with succor, just like the mellow warmth of the wintery midday sun
soothing the senses. The tale underpins the excessive importance the
world places on money and the moneyed.

The story goes that a well-to-do merchant resided in a faraway place
and all his friends, relatives and stooges greeted him warmly because
he was rich and wealthy. However, misfortune landed upon him and
he lost all his fortune. When the story of his hardship reached far
and wide, his retinue of so-called well-wishers stopped greeting and
saluting him from the very next day, deriding his bankruptcy. However,
the tide turned for this merchant and he recouped all his wealth. The
very next day, the merchant’s supposed entourage started their fawning
and flattery, which amused the merchant greatly. He soon realised it
was the ebb of his wealth and status that the society recognised or de-
recognised. It was the tide of his fortune or the absence of it that turned
him into a hero or spun him into being treated like a pauper.

This story is actually a mirror image of today’s society. Indeed, a man’s
worth is solely measured by his wealth – not his experiences, not his
deeds, nor his relationships. I also realised what I now call the ‘paper’
value of money and understood from a young age that the only true
worth of money is in its circulation - and not in its hoarding. Money has
to be put to good use – either for self or for others – and I know this is
its only true value. No other.

I recall an incident from my youth when, working at the home décor
manufacturing company, I was given a princely salary of seventy-five
hundred rupees every month, out of which my running expenses were
two-thousand five hundred rupees, while the rest was a surplus A senior
colleague gave me the sagely advice that I should either invest my extra
funds in a recurring deposit to not let it idle, or should spend the entire
amount.

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