Gold does not need to prove itself

It was just yesterday that I was discussing with my girl friend about these smart IT people with their smarter phones and dresses, but not so smart salaries. I told her something that Sir had told me some days back – ‘Gadgets cannot give you happiness’. However, I also added something to that - gadgets also do not define the person that you are. I know it might be a bit insulting for that IT geek who has got a Blackberry for business emails, an iPhone just to show off, a Samsung Galaxy Tab to watch movies on the go, and a Nokia 1100 to actually speak and text. It is like telling, ‘I have so many phones. That proves that I am more important than you are’. Or somebody might be wearing some very costly watch, and because people might not know the value of the watch, (s)he would quite unabashedly discuss its cost in public! O my God!

It is very interesting to note that most of these gadgets are bought on EMIs. These people do not even have the financial ability to buy a phone in cash! And they call themselves rich and important? I heard from Sir about an incident where an IT guy in Kolkata went to commit suicide because he had a few hundred thousand rupees debt in the market, and that was because he worked in some IT company where he had to status his status, which meant buying the latest phone, the latest watch, the costliest clothes, drinking the costliest liquor, dining at the costliest restaurant etc. But then he had done all that using his credit card!

Status has become a word that is most used by the middle class with no sense of pride and honour and status. People forget that status is actually your present status. About to commit suicide because of huge liabilities and that too because of trying to show off STATUS is the actual status. Having to beg for money from your old retired parents to feed your wife and child because you do not have money left to feed them since you were too busy shopping and eating and drinking in the first week of the month after getting your salary is your actual status. Beating and abusing your wife in front of your child in the middle of the night after getting drunk in the finest hotel in the city with friends while trying to display your STATUS is your actual status. Status should not be falsified.

Then we discussed about some more people living around us. They may not be great men whom the world knows, but they are humble, a trait most of the great men of the world had and have. First I told her about Sriranjani’s father who is a commissioner in the Income Tax department. He is a very strange person. When he had joined his job, he had been allocated an apartment opposite to the Steel Carmel School in Durgapur. It was a good, convenient place for him since Sriranjani could go to school very easily – she had to just cross the road and school was there! Now that her father has been promoted, he has been allocated a bigger apartment in City Centre. But then, here is a very strange person who is so used to living in a small and cozy house that he does not want to move to a bigger one. Not all men live for money, not all men are gluttons!

There is also another very strange incident about him that I heard from Sriranjani herself. When her father became the commissioner, he was given a car from the Indian Government indicating that he is a VIP. But he was a shy man, and used to feel uncomfortable inside that car. So he used to take his own car, so that people would not notice him and would not leave the way whenever they saw that VIP car. However, he was later forced into making it a habit of riding that car by his boss! Strange, isn’t it?

Then we discussed about Sir. He has two houses (one in Durgapur and another in Kolkata), a 12 year old car, and earns a lot. He rides an almost 15 year old scooter, he still goes out in a pair of slippers, a pair of old trousers and a kurta, he does his shopping himself on foot, and he has a mobile phone which can hold 2 SIM cards, take photographs of decent quality and can be used to make calls and send texts. He does not need biryani in lunch, does not go to KFC and McDonalds, does not own a BMW, does not have an iPhone, he does not need to be online in Whatsapp on the go, and he reads a lot. People from Durgapur and some of the adjoining cities know him and crowd at his gates with their children during admission time! He has students spread all across the globe, and these students can proudly say today that be it the IITs or the IIMs or any other big institution, whatever we learnt from Sir cannot be replaced with any other learning. That learning has helped them to rise in their lives.

Now, does anyone need to understand gold better?