The rich amongst us

One of the ways God chooses to punish some of us is to let our nafs dictate terms including its passion for getting rich. It is a trial that very few – who deserve to be saluted – can successfully pass through.

If only one percent of the rich in Kashmir join hands to extend their support to only one project each in healthcare, education, affordable housing, livelihood support, credit supply on interest free basis and community facilities such as guest houses, langars, we could see a sea change. There will be prayers for them from every nook and corner. Let us help them connect and give them doable deliverables and we shall find how generosity turns this land into Paradise of Compassion. There are some from the rich who keep available lacs or even millions for months and years as soft loan for helping the indebted or those who need. I know a few cases who have spared lacs for helping their relatives institutionally and without creating a sense of obligation in the beneficiary.

The rich have greater responsibility, can do great good although are more likely to fall and have to face God’s audit of their wealth. I salute a few persons who don’t forget God and neighbour as God has bestowed them with riches. They hunt for the poor to extend their help though they are so poorly informed about how to spend their charities. I accuse those rich in Kashmir (exceptions only prove the rule) that don’t think they are responsible for the misery of the poor –they don’t give properly calculated charity, in a professional institutional and ideally productive way, to deserving ones; that don’t park their idle money in credit cooperatives that could help someone without charging fee for help or interest. They construct third story and keep its big hall mostly unused, change cars like coats, host extravagant marriage or other parties, don’t write will for even one percent of property for any community cause, fail to find God in the needy beseeching help and fly almost every year to Mecca.

The rich that have no taste for arts – we don’t find a single art gallery that has been carved. None has created any legacy that we should be grateful for. They don’t routinely sponsor any cultural activity or scholarship for education or any social cause. The rich could not create a single community guest house (musafir khana) or langar. The rich have multiple houses or houses too big to be routinely used but don’t dedicate even a room for any stranger or attendant visiting hospitals. The rich haven’t created a single free community hall that financially struggling could book for free. They don’t keep even one car available for even one day in a year. The culture of community centric gatherings or functions patronized by them is almost gone. Some rich die unsung and often even unattended by their children and they deserve this as they failed to care for God’s ayal (“The people are ayal of God”) or make any significant difference in the lives of their own relatives and neighbours.

Many rich women make it a point to wear the best brand and attempt not to wear twice a week or a month the same clothes. They are too conscious of themselves. One needs to be intellectually shallow and spiritually immature to take one’s looks, one clothes, one’s public persona, one’s fashion sense, too seriously. In fact Plato advised not to take any affairs of life too seriously. Spending beyond few thousand rupees on one’s dress in a year is a crime against humanity and environment. One is advised by sages to laugh away at people’s pathologies but sometimes one feels like hitting at them. It is better to weep for them as they remind us of Madam Bovary who fought meaninglessness in her life by pretending there is one and that involved living a life of pretension.

They pile money in idle or unproductive assets or accounts and don’t bother to invest it in local businesses. They must buy a new car as soon as possible even though not affordable and wouldn’t mind applying for loans for it. They take years to plan marriages of children or themselves as if life and attention could be wasted away planning such trivialities. I don’t think more than a week is justified expenditure on time for preparing for marriage. And budget should be in thousands and not in lacs or millions as is for them. God didn’t create our brain for shopping. Watch them in a marriage party and observe vanity show and see everything except depth in relationships or dignity of demeanor or sincerity, truth and fellow feeling.

When one has money beyond one’s needs, one must spend it on the community. And spend it in such a way that others get transformed into givers in due course. They may throw some pennies to the beggars or organizations they don’t know, or bother to know about, but they are indifferent to the fate of the poor.

But there are some angels around as well. They are generous. They live great joyous lives, full of buoyancy. They are accessible. They have hearts that throb with life and warmth and empathy. They invite kith and ken frequently and guests are always welcome.

If only one percent of the rich choose to help only one neighbor or relative by way of soft loan of just one lac for a year through any trusted institution or credit cooperative, it would relieve them from unbearable burden of debt. If only one per cent of the rich gave obligatory and recommended charities for productive units as against food kits or medicine that get consumed, that would mean hundreds of crores will become available and there would be no beggar next year, no phone call to the indebted, no case of delayed marriages due to financial woes.

Will the rich heed? Yes all of them if they understood how this would avoid such curses as broken relationships, family conflicts, loneliness, depression and other psychosomatic disorders that accompany the pursuit of the empire of self.