Okay. I never thought that my All work-no play father would ever raise curtain for an intellectual encounter between him and me. This one ain't about my personal happenings but more or less about the striking differences between the developing nations & the developed.
I am actually pretty fascinated by the way westerners lead their lives. You never find this ever glowing fire in their bellies to succeed more & outdo themselves throughout their lives. Wait, let me stress on something here. Not being ambitious isn't a crime. I know the former statement would be subjected to a very serious offensive verbal attack from most of 'em out there. Well, I have an equally seconding argument up my sleeve. I personally believe that one does not have to be ambitious necessarily. Once can actually be a little smart in settling dowb for once & ever and then days get converted into months, months into years. Time takes its toll automatically. You don't have to possess that constant urge to lead the race from the front. The bottomline is 'Keep running'. You don't have to win necessarily. Looking back after years & grinning at the covered distance makes it worth running but winning alone doesn't. (How self contradictory I sound? This line totally contradicts the whole title of my previous post.)
Lets come back to the subject. Its quite interesting to observe the influence of demography of a country on its citizens' lifestyles. Let us consider India for a moment. Large country, yet compact for its population. This necessarily creates an inevitable situation for a normal Indian to take a gaint leap ahead in the race. The dowry system to bring down well settled grooms for their daughters. To become more ambitious at work to earn more that their post-retirement lives could be secured (in terms of medication expenses, living expenses etc.). I can see a proportional link between a country's population and its citizens' mind sets. In a country like England, with vast area & limited population, it becomes a chase-able task for its planning commission to ensure that every citizen receives all the benefits because of the balance it strikes between giving & receiving ends. Brits never save money for their future needs. They claim free medication from the government. They don't keep reserve funds so as to guarantee their old age needs. Every retired citizen is offered pension. That makes things easy for them. They work for 5 days, lay back & relax for 2 days. Simple lives are happy lives.
Take India, any governing alliance would sanction Rs.100 to a citizen, his take-home would be Rs.10 at the maximum. There will be a set of hungry employees in an order between the aforementioned 'giving and receiving ends'. You can't blame them totally too. They have their lives. Salaries aren't sufficient too feed everybody in abundance at their houses & this is because of high cost of living which is due to high prices & yet again, is due to imbalance between the available resources & seeking hands.
Extremely optimistic souls would exemplify China in this case & I'd get back to them saying 'Competent democracy is the worst thing ever happened to India'. An incompetent democracy would do the best.
Later.
