We work, earn money, and then help our country develop and progress by paying taxes. However, the lockdown has locked every human being in India within their homes with the fear of the coronavirus. The lockdown has caused a huge crisis in unemployment amidst our falling economy.
I once had a conversation with a man in Madgaon station on how he had to shift from his village to earn employment at a construction site in Goa. And this is not just his story, but that of a large number of citizens who migrate to earn better employment opportunities in Mumbai. The lockdown threw these migrants staying in Mumbai back to their hometowns, where they struggled to reach on foot. One of my relatives went back to his village in West Bengal from Mumbai after the police threatened action against him.
Money is a matter of importance in today’s world. Your numeric evaluation is equivalent to your social standing. The film industry prospers well in India. Is it because acting out the roles of common people in movies harder than tilling land and farming? As reported by The Times of India on August 7, 2020, 1,074 farmers ended their lives in Maharashtra.
There is an increased rate of unemployment and job crisis in India, but headlines in India focused on a shelved movie that is yet to be finished, thus distracting the public from issues of importance. There is no reasonable remedy to cope with rising depression in our developing country, where we weigh fame, yet pay less to a normal human being who wishes to live simply.
The workload of looking after one’s home usually ends up falling on the women in a family. What is the financial equivalency of domestic work? It goes beyond showing concern for your partner, and has a lot to do with making women financially and monetarily independent. Women who have been taught to adjust all their lives and sacrifice for their family can find the word ‘empowerment‘ foreign too. We, in general, don’t care about uplifting women in India, yet, we talk about women empowerment to give privileges to those who are already privileged.
When we come back to our day-to-day lifestyle in India, there are groceries, hospitals, government employees and police officers working hard every day to provide us with the necessities. We need to differentiate the lives of common service providers and celebrities, and pay fairly to those who make our lives easier. We should spare some seconds of our day to understand how hard it is to earn money, and it’s even harder for so many out there who struggle to make ends meet.