ATM – Any Time Money
ANTHONY J SIMOES
Sixty years ago, I asked my Dad for 2 annas (16 annas = 1 rupee) to hire a bicycle for one hour so that an older friend could teach me to ride. My Dad nearly had a fit. The previous week, he had bought me a top for one anna. From the look on his face, I knew I had crossed a red line. After a few seconds of silence, he said, “You think money grows on trees? You think I have to simply shake a money-plant? Every day I spend 10 hours repairing trucks and buses for the bosses. I spend two hours every day walking to and from my workplace. I wish I could buy a second-hand bicycle for myself.”
Three years later, I became a teenager and was lucky to find work that could be done before walking to school in the morning. After school hours were reserved for soccer or hockey, depending on the season. The work involved pumping and regulating water supply for building societies. The wage of Rs. 5 per month was a king’s ransom. Now I could buy my own hockey stick and hard-toe soccer boots.
Between the sump, the pump, the overhead tanks on terraces and the vagaries of the PWD water supply schedule, I appreciated my Dad’s words about money not growing on trees. By this time, my Dad had retired and relied on small jobs like repairing cars, motorcycles and water pumps. I learnt how pumps worked from my Dad. Earlier, I only operated them.
Years later, at tech-school, I learnt the theory of the centrifugal pump. Most importantly, I learnt to value money and its relationship to work.
Millions of rich children these days know that money does not grow on trees, but that it comes out of a machine called an ATM. All it takes is a plastic card,a secret number and someone to fill the coffers. These unfortunate kids grow up with a wrong attitude towards money and work. They don’t see the connection between the two. This has led to a breakdown in families and society. Children are unable to relate effort with reward. So they think that life is one big party.
Even our mine-owners are like these kids – they know that money doesn’t grow on trees. So they chop down millions of trees and export millions of tons of our precious soil to China. They plant a few trees on the denuded land and grandly call it ‘aforrestation’. They run and own soccer teams and believe they’ve scored goals for society. They win a trophy and are quite ‘santosh’ about it. They own entire buildings with built-in swimming pools and call it ‘home, sweet home’. It is quite possible that they want public statues built of themselves to go down the road of immortality.
These are truly sons of the nightsoil of Goa.
