Almighty Money

Money: It’s the root of many evils. Yet you cannot live without it. Yes, we have succumbed to the power of money. I recall a monologue in Hindi back in my middle school days (almost five decades ago – oh, how time flies). “Mei rupaya hoon, mei ladko ka larakpan ka khilona hoon, mei ondho ka lakhoti hoon, mei insaan ko nasaa sakta hoon, nasaa raha hoon, nasaa rahunga, mei rupaya hoon” (I am money, I am childhood toy for the boys, I am the walking stick for the blind, I can make mankind dance, I have been making them dance, I will continue to make them dance to my tune, I am almighty money).

If you want individual freedom, you got to have money, especially after you get out of the work force. You have to fend for yourself in your lonesome world. You need money for food, for utilities, medicine, clothing, housing, and so on in your old age if you don’t want to be dependent on anyone, not even Uncle Sam. Otherwise you may end up under an overpass, on a park bench or on a street corner and people may think you are just another wino. So, if you do not have money saved up for your “golden” (!) years, you keep working (only if the younger world will keep an old fart like you at work place) until you drop dead one day. There goes your dream of fishing on the golden pond or idling time with your grand kids or just collecting seashells on seashore.

Like many, I had planned to retire early to enjoy the time at the sunset. Then my company went belly up taking my savings along with it. So, I delayed my plan and kept working. Now the market is taking a nosedive and with that my remaining savings is taking a dive again. I suppose I will be working for a while. That almighty money has got a rope around our neck. If we try to get free, it tightens up. So, hang in there and keep working if you don’t want to be treated like the guy on a street corner passing out the worn out hat.

Commentary

History has been made. He is a great orator. He inspired the younger generation by his message of “change” and they voted for him overwhelmingly. The blacks considered him black because of the color of his skin (although he is half white), saw an opportunity of a lifetime to fulfill the dream narrated by MLK a few decades ago and voted for him along the racial line. The younger generation could not relate to the old, experienced, war veteran and a POW (who practically sacrificed his life for the country), as they were generally not from the Vietnam era. The old man did not epitomize “change” to them. So, experience lost out against “change”. 51% voted for “change”, 48% for experience. The divide remains – if not Red and Blue, it is young and old.

One thing is for certain. Only in America anything is possible if you can dream and for that alone I am proud to be an American. We have come a long way in less than 50 years from the days of “Woolworth Sit In” in Greensboro, North Carolina, whereas many countries still struggle after thousands of years yearning for justice.

Finally, King George's era is over. Now we wait for the proof of the pudding. We wait to see the much-touted “change”. We wait to see a woman president, a brown president. We wait to see if the “3^rd world” we saw in our back yard during hurricane Katrina will disappear. We wait to see if old and young, red and blue, men and women will truly blend in.