The present pandemic has given me sleepless nights. I have been coming across disturbing news of patients getting hospital bills amounting to lakhs of rupees and those being asked to deposit large amounts even before being admitted. Life-saving drugs are being sold in the black market at many times their original price. I shudder to imagine the fate of those without sufficient medical insurance or bank balance.
When I landed my first job years ago, the news must have spread like the proverbial wildfire. The first advice I got from my well-wishers was to save a part of my earning. I started getting visitors even before I got my first pay cheque. One was a life insurance agent, asking me to be responsible to my family and insure my life. He was good at describing the condition of my family when I, the sole breadwinner, had died suddenly without any insurance on my life. His arguments were so convincing that I lost no time in signing on dotted lines applying for an insurance policy.
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Then came a post office agent, who extolled the virtues of various savings schemes with the post office. When I told him about the life insurance I had taken, he gave me a lecture about the difference between insurance and other kinds of savings. He did not leave till I promised I would invest some money through him.
Another friend, whom I had not seen since long, presented before me the advantages of investing in the stock market. He narrated the rag-to-rich stories of many prudent people active in the field. When I confessed I knew little about the market, his eyes shone as though he was waiting for that moment and told me that mutual funds were for people like me. Professional fund managers were there to keep an eye on the market and invest my money wisely, he assured me. Salaried people like me could invest every month through a systematic investment plan that would take care of periodic market fluctuations. It was almost as good as a saving bank account. If I needed money, I could get it within a couple of days by selling the units, no questions asked.
I was amused to find a matching number of people who advised me to spend money I was yet to earn. You have only one life; enjoy it, they said. People from the bank where my salary was credited could not believe I didn’t have a credit card. They promised me one which would enable me to buy anything I fancied even when my pocket was empty. They held their nose in disgust at the sight of my old car and asked me to buy a new one, leaving the problem of financing to them. The same went with my house. Why don’t you shift to a better locality, they asked.
Though I could achieve the difficult task of striking a balance between the two groups, the virus playing havoc with the lives of people all over the world has me worried. I wish no hospital would turn away a patient because his bank balance was too small.
