Money

Earlier today, someone asked me why I had started working so fast. Why I sacrificed my youth and instead of enjoying myself like other people my age, why did I want to struggle for survival. Considering the fact that there was no pressure whatsoever on me to actually start working, let alone start my own company and then take up responsibility for quite a few others. Why work when my friends were partying? The tone, the person and the situation at that moment made me sit back and think why I really do what I do. Why was I sitting in my office at one in the morning working when I could have been in some club drinking and dancing? Is it the love of money? I needed to answer these questions for myself, decided to do it here.

I don’t consider this as a sacrifice at all. At the moment I decided to start a business at do something with myself, I wasn’t very happy with my youth per se. I was getting myself into trouble very often, the vices, wasting time. I was never short of money then, I made enough everyday trading in equity. So it defiantly wasn’t money. Do I enjoy what I do? Yes, defiantly! I never dreamt that I could keep myself this occupied, that I could do something constructive. I never imagined that I could connect people from different parts of the world, mother and son, father and daughter, husband and wife, brothers, sisters, friends, carry messages of joy, voices that spread the cheer, some spread gloom. It’s a happy feeling. Nothing like it.

I was not born rich, nor have I been brought up with a golden spoon. I remember being dropped to school on a cycle, struggling for uniform money, couldn’t afford money for school picnics. I remember the bad days, there’s this one thing that comes to mind when I think about money. My first taste of money, and dirty interest.

I was about six or seven, and my dad used to run this small shoe store here in Chennai. We were always skint, and my dad used to borrow one hundred rupees from a man who owned the next shop, about two dollars, fill gas in his bike, buy groceries for the house and give my mum some cash to spend for the house. Some weekends I would go to the shop with my dad and in the evening dad would go to that man to borrow hundred bucks. He would ask dad to meet in at a particular time at a neighborhood restaurant. I would go with dad, and that man would be sitting there. He would order a tea, an omelet and ask dad if he wanted anything, dad would refuse. He would ask me if I wanted anything, I would refuse at first, but then he would say that I had to have something so I would ask for a Pepsi or a fresh lime juice. I would see a look of disapproval on dad’s face, but I would never understand why. When the snacks were done, that man would give dad the hundred bucks he wanted, and walk away leaving dad to pay the bill of about fifteen rupees. The next morning, even before dad opened the doors of the shop that man would be standing there waiting for his hundred back. That was my first taste of money and dirty interest. I still cry at the fact that I drank those Pepsi’s.

Why do I work? Cause I enjoy what I do. I enjoy management, I treasure that sweat and effort me and my team put into the company everyday, I value all those little things I’ve learnt while I was here, I value the heritage, I value the economy. No, I don’t make money. I never carry money; I don’t see a need for it. I’m always empty handed, everything I need it paid for. I just love it, no conditions attached, and it certainly isn’t for the money. The money is just there as a means of adding and subtracting, but in the end; it’s the pleasure I get out of it that matters to me, and my future.




Who is Rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody