In the last 4-5 years, we have employed 5-6 domestic helps. Alcoholism has killed the husbands of two of them. At least 4 of them suffered serious domestic and financial issues due to their husbands being alcoholic.
These questions are hurting me today:
- What may be the overall damage (in rupees) that alcohol may be doing to our economy?
- Dismissing them as drunkards is alright. But what insurmountable ignorance, frustration and deprivation stifles their ability to see how self-destructing the habit is.
- If the wish to not see a slightly smarter phone, a slightly bigger salary, car or house, a bit costlier dresses and jewels with a friend has the potential to drive us to insane levels of competitive activity, what may living in abject poverty right next to the pomp and show of a consumerist mainstream be doing to the morale of these underdogs?
I would just like to broaden it a bit further and stop just when it may start sounding a bit in variance to the tone of fashionable intellect of today. Why is it such a taboo today to talk about the problem that the moment you are out on the streets, it's impossible not to let it become a show off your possessions to a deprived? Probably, there's nothing we can do about it. But we can't wish the problem away.
Seeing other's possessing anything of desire causes pangs of jealousy. Years and years of trying to bear that pain is bound to result in pathological behaviour.
Jealousy is the disease we all suffer from. Some of us have the material possessions so the symptoms don't show up in us. It's not us and they. We all have the germs of this disease in our very make.
